The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-08-11
I v

mat babylonla also contributed some
thing to Minoan culture is admitted to be
a priori probable. The idea Of drainage
for instance. may have come originally from
the M~esopotamian cities. as likewise the use
Of a clay tablet for writing. Our author
comedies that there I've may he SOM
ground for the suggestion made in 1908 by
DR.. Engelbert Drerup that the Dorians took
over laws which Minos had received moi
from Zeus but from Babylon. DR.. Drerup
thinks that the early code Of Greek laws
discovered at Gortyna in Crete resembles
that OF Khammurabi too closely for il 10
be q coincidence. Prof. Burrows cautions
us. however. that at present we know too
little about the condition of Asia Minor and
north Syria down to the middle of the sec
ond millennium b. c. TO determine with an
approach to certainty whether such infu-
enoes could have reached Crete except
through the medium OF Egypt. It is pro-
bounced rash for Prof. Flick TO support the
theory propounded by him in 1905. that the
Minotaur legend is derived from Babylonian
astronomy by the figure OF a Hittite god
at Carchemish o the Upper Euphrates that
had horns above its head. Our author
thinks that the same thing must be said OF
ETOIs' w mChlcr, WIZ III I6Uf eADTetSPu the
belief hat the idea of the siege of a city on
the silver cup from Myoene was taken from
some monument set up in Asia Minor or the
Eastern Islands by Sargon Of Agade or his
son Naram SIN. There is no authority for
the idea nat these early rulers Of Mesopo-
tamia. whom Prof, Winokler himself dates
at about $500 B. C. while others would put
them 1000 years earlier. penetrated into the
islands OF the Mediterranean.
II the distinctive character Of Minoan art
prevents us from describing il as Egyptian
or B~abylonian, Prof. Burrows holds that
we rave still less right to call il Carian or
Ph1nician in the ordinary a~cceptation Of
these terms. Undoubtedly the similarity
between the place names Of western Asia
and those Of the Greek world point to a
connection OF language and probably Of
race. Our author thinks that the Minoans
Of Crete were in all likelihood very much
the same kind Of peoplea IA the contemporary
inhabitants Of Lycia and Caria. In a
slightly different way may be traced a con-
nection between Crete and the north coast
OF Syria. Philistia may have been a Minoan
colony. m the Semites OF Tyre and Sidon
may. as Mr.. Evans has suggested. have
developed their ouriously unsemitic love OF
the sea under the influence Of their Cretan
neighbors. Our author deems it possible
indeed that the name Of Phoinikes. OF Red
Men, was first applied by the invading
Greeks from the North to all the brown
complexioned peoples among whom they
came, and that only later was it restricted
to the Semites OF Canaan. This view, put
forward in 1905 by Prof. A. Flick, is not
without it's difficulties. however. and we
have to explain why the Greeks gave up
the name for the Red Men Of the Egean
among whom they settled and applied it
only to a people who still remained foreign
ers to them. The inference drawn by Prof.
Burrows is hat we must imagine the color
word to nave been applied first in the early
days OF the invasion, when the darker tint
was unfamiliar to The Northern blends,
ard that it's meaning was soon forgotten.
Thus it came ultimately to he restricted to
the one ~seagoing people OF the Southeast
that in the succeeding centuries came
into Close contact with the Greeks as a
racial unit. This hypothesis would throw
much needed light on certain traces OF
-Phnnicians" on the Greek mainland which
IL 10 difficult TO associate with the Semites.
Cadmus. for instance. and the -Phpnician
writing" Of Beotian Thebes. may he only
one OF the earliest Greek traditions Of men
who used the script Of Knossos. There are
traces ever in Greek writers OF a former
wider use Of the term Phrnicia. and the
speciHc word -Sidonian.. IL used 10 Homer
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