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

Persian. A single proper name like Minos
10 a poor stock In trade with which TO start
operations. We are assured. neverthe-
less, that when Mr.. Evans publishes the
supplementary materials, which. when the
present book was issued. he expected shortly
to do. II will be seen that he has established
certain preliminary points. He has salts
fled himself that whereas the Photographic
script was written either from right to left,
or "bo~ustrephedon" q. O.. from right to
left and from left to right alternately,
the frst class Of linear script runs gen
orally n the second class always from
left to right.
This method Of writing from left to right
had, indeed. become no fixed in the latter
period OF Minoan civilization hat symbols
which still retained something OF their
Photographic form and might be regarded
as facing" one way or the other faced
really toward the right, without apparently
conveying any ambiguity a. to the direction
in which they ought to be read. In Egyp-
tian, on the other hand. which could be
written indiferently right TO left or left to
right, the symbols always faced the direc-
ton from which the inscription was to be
read. In regard to the origin OF the pre-
N%@bsN>h DottPeo Va 6NHht y COIup6iisoh VI
them with other early alphabets suggests
many interesting deductions, such as a con-
nection with the p~redynastio population
OF Egypt, but they annot be said to have
led yet to any sure result. Noticeable in
the fact that certain later Greek alphabetio
forms occur on some fishlike bone objects
at knoesos and a. countersigns on seals
at Hagia Triada. They are unlike either
the Photographic or either linear Cretan
script, but their appearance on porcelain
and other ware in early Egypt indicates
that there may have been a large number
OF competing signs in existence on the
Mediterranean from very remote times.
II we accept this conjecture as we'll founded,
the Greek alphabet was a selection from
an extensive repcrtory, from which each
highly civilized branch of the Mediterranean
race had picked and chosen In its turn.
Even when the whole Of the material OBJ
tanned in Crete is placed before the world.
our author dooms it doubtful whether.
without some bilingusl clue, any one
will gather more from the inscriptions than
Mr.. Evans has thus far deduced. He has
made out certain signs already. Those for
man and woman, for instance, some num-
erals and some objects. such as arrows
and spears. Between the two linear scripts
he has discovered 80 many points in com-
mon-in one case even what appears to be
a personal name-that II is probable hat
they represent the same language. The
recent excavation, too, OF the so-called
Little Palace has attested the important
fact that this language remained at least
in partial Use In the period known a. Late
Minoan Ill. At an early epoch this script
was written with pen and ink and not
merely scratched on tablets. Prof. Bur-
rows Is inclined to think that the clay tablet
WAS the direct ancestor Of the Greek and
Roman custom OF writing with a -stilus'
on a tablet with a
How far these systems Of writing and the
language that they represented prevailed
outside OF Crete il is a. yet impossible to
tell. The island Of Melos, whose close con-
nection with Crete is demoustrable, seems
TO be the only place where traces Of the
Minoan script occur in any considerable
quantity. Even here there are only marks
on vases, and the same is true OF the still
more ~infrequent cases found on terra Gotta
and stone vases in the island Of Cythera
or on the mainland at Mycene and else
where. Some of these traces may belong
not to any particular system Of developed
writing but 10 the original stock of signs
common to the pre-Hellenic Mediterranean
race. The fact that the remains of a linear
script at Mycen@ and Tiryns are so small
as TO be negligible may only be In acct
dent. due to the fact that those cities we're
inhabited continuously and not destroyed
under conditions favorable to the preserva-
ton OF clay tablets. Even Cyprus seems
to nave produced only three balls of clay
with inscriptions on them, though hat ISL
and can scarcely have been without some
system OF writing On clay tablets, what
ever was it's relation to that OF Crete. Still
less is it clear, on the evidence Of the Minoan
scripts themselves, whether or not the Ian
guage they represent was Indo-European.
MIR. Evans has found in IL changing ~sufixes
that may be infectional examinations, but
this fact in itself proves nothing a. TO the
a~finities Of the script. We might be car
ried a stage further il we could be sure
that the unreliable Minoan script repre-
sents the same language as the three short
inscriptions found on stone slabs at Presses
In the interior OF eastern Crete. These in
scriptions, which are written In @ fully de-
veloped Greek alphabet, though not in the
Greek tongue. ave been subjected to an ex-
haustive examination by Prof. r. s. Con-
way who IL inclined to believe that their
language was an Indo- European one. The
three actual inscriptions only date from
the sixth to the third or fourth centuries
B. c. respectively, but the fact that Presses
was the centre Of the people whom classical
Greek tradition " early as Homer calls
the "Eteo"-or True-Cretans, makes it
certain that We are here dealing with a
language hat "a spoken at Presses before
the end of the Bronze Age. Presses, now
ever, does not appear to have been a centre
OF Minoan civilization.
II the Eteo-Cretans are not identical
with the Minoans, what was the relation
between the two9 The proximity Of the
Minoan settlements in eastern Crete to the
coast may be taken as pointing to the fact
that the original inhabitants were driven
into the interior, az the Phnnioians and
Greeks in Sicily drove into the highlands
the Sikans and the Sioels. On this assump-
ton we should expect to find at Presos
traces Of continuous occupation. whether
or no IL presented different features from
the ~neighboring Minoan civilization. For