CHAPTER II.

Statement of the Problem and the Evidence.

Indebtedness of primitive Greek religion to Mesopotamian influences--Various kinds of evidence to be considered: Texts and Monuments of Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, Hittite Kingdom, Asia-Minor coast, Minoan-Mycenaean area--Necessity of determining when the North-Aryan tribes entered Greece, and what they brought with them--Influences from Mesopotamia on Greece of the second millennium at least not direct--Precariousness of theory of religious borrowing--Special lines that the inquiry will pursue