Part 4

“Neolithic man” in Crete, though his weapons and tools were but polished stones, and far as he was behind his Neolithic brothers of Central Europe, had already begun to design patterns upon his pottery. Like Nature abhorring a vacuum, he traced zigzags, triangles, and chevrons upon the plastic clay, scratching or pricking lines and dots with a point of bone or stone, and sometimes filling the holes and scratches with white gypsum to show up the pattern. The body of his vases was generally black and shiny. Bucchero nero, as the Italian archæologists call it, is found in the Neolithic strata all over Southern Europe.

His house was generally of mud and wattles, but there are some examples of stone-built houses on a rectangular plan. In Thessaly, where Neolithic culture survived right through the flourishing periods of art in Crete and Mycenæ, they have even found Neolithic houses with three rooms and the sockets for wooden pillars. Caves were still used as dwellings, and there is also a round type of hut, derived, no doubt, from the still more primitive tent of skin and wickerwork. Of the religion of the Late Stone Age we know nothing, except that they buried their dead with care in tombs resembling their

dwelling-places. Archæology has a rough method of assigning dates by allowing about a thousand years for every three feet of deposited earth; on this reckoning we may date the Neolithic period in Crete anywhere before 4000 B.C.

Then gradually comes the beginning of the Bronze Age. All civilisation may be regarded as a progress in tools and weapons. Nowhere is the history of Europe traced with a clearer pen than in its armouries. As the guns of Crécy foretold the passing of chivalry, so the discovery of that alloy of copper and tin, which produced a metal soft enough to mould and hard enough to work with, meant a step forward for civilisation. At first, of course, bronze is rare and costly; it is confined to short dagger-blades and spear-points. Along with the earliest bronze we find an advance in the pottery, paint used to trace the patterns, though the designs are still those of dot and line; experiments are being made with colours and glazes. In experiment is the germ of progress; the conventional artists of the East imitate and sometimes improve their models, but they seldom make experiments. In Assyria and Egypt they have produced wonderful and beautiful works of art.[4] But with them art is ornament; there is no ideal, no striving to get nearer to the truth of things. The Oriental sculptor soon loses touch with Nature, and as his technique advances learns only the language of convention.

So in the forms and designs of the pottery we watch a steady upward march, the progress growing faster as the standard of achievement rises. Curves and circles take the place of zigzags and triangles. The potter plays tricks with the colour of his clay, daubs it with red, burns it in patches. In these strata we begin to find imitations of the human form, rude images or “idols,” possibly the votive offerings which represent the worshipper in substitution for human sacrifice. These become conventionalised, as everything connected with religion tends to do, into queer fiddle-shaped, goggle-eyed figures. All the Cretan artists insisted on the waist to a degree which would seem to the modern shop-girl an exaggeration. Even in Egypt the small waist was regarded as a characteristic of the Keftiu--the men from the Isles of the Sea. The broad shoulders of the men no doubt are intended to symbolise strength. Along with vases and “idols” are found seals whose emblems show traces of the influence of Egypt under the Sixth Dynasty (? 2540 B.C.).

Now we take a great upward leap into the “Middle Minoan” periods of Sir Arthur Evans. Here we find the earliest writing of Europe, clay tablets inscribed with a pictographic script. The clay figures are extremely elaborate presentments of the costume of the day; and a highly elaborate costume it is. Colour is freely employed on idols and pottery. The patterns pass into spirals, and occasionally there is direct imitation of Nature--goats, beetles, and (as the classical Greeks would say) other birds.

Now we are among the earlier palaces of Cnossos. Each period now seems to have ended with a disaster, after which art rose again triumphantly above the ruins, to begin where it had left off before the invader came to destroy the palace and shrines of its patrons. Here we find the “Kamáres” ware, a style of pottery to which we can perhaps for the first time apply honest expressions of admiration. It is often as thin as eggshell china. Its shapes are extremely varied and graceful; among them the precise form of the modern tea-cup is common, and beautiful dishes for

offerings which resemble the modern épergne. A lustrous black glaze generally forms the background; on it designs are painted in matt colours, white, red, and sometimes yellow. The designs are still chiefly conventional patterns of stripes and spirals. The potter’s wheel is by now in common use, as we see from the greater symmetry and accuracy of the lines. It is suggested that this ware in its thinness and its patterns was inspired by metalwork. It must not be forgotten that the archæologist only finds what the looting pirate has despised. The gold and the bronze have been taken and only the humble potsherds left.

In the stage we have been describing the general colour effect of the vase was the artist’s first consideration. Presently (after another catastrophe) a new spirit begins to appear, the desire to imitate the forms of Nature. With increasing naturalism the potter reverts to simpler colours, despairing, it would seem, of the attempt to reproduce the colours of his models. Neither greens nor blues could be managed in earthenware. Fortunately, however, a new material is discovered which serves the purpose. This is a kind of faience or porcelain. The idea was imported from Egypt, but a native factory was set up in the palace of Cnossos, and we even find the steatite moulds by which the patterns were impressed. The naturalism is extremely skilful and effective. One of the most beautiful examples is illustrated.[5] It is the favourite motive of an animal suckling her young, constantly found as a heraldic type on coins and seals. Here it is evidently drawn from a direct study of Nature, so living is the pose, so faithful is the expression of

the muscles. It is probably a failing of archæologists to see religion everywhere they go. It is certain that the suckling motive was in after times associated with the worship of maternal deities such as Hera. It is certain also that the prehistoric Cretan did worship powers of fecundity in human and animal form. But we need not transform this she-goat into a goddess. I much prefer to be sure that this prehistoric Cretan loved and studied the wild creatures of his native hills and his native blue sea. Art and Nature are hand in hand now on vases and gems also. We have seal types bearing wolves’ heads, owls and shells, scenes from the boxing-ring and the bull-ring. The writing has progressed from mere pictographs to a linear script. It is astonishing to find the Cretan of 1911 B.C. writing, as we write to-day, with pen and ink.

We pass on to the “Late Minoan” periods, the ages of masterpiece. Here Mycenæ enters the story, for though much earlier objects dating from the Stone Ages have been found both at Mycenæ and Troy, the best Mycenæan work is contemporary with the “Late Minoan” of Crete. The weapons now are swords of bronze. As for the designs of pottery, whereas in the last period they were generally drawn in white upon a dark ground, they are now drawn in red or brown upon a light ground. They are still naturalistic, and in the best specimens the artists have achieved the highest triumph of vase-painting, namely, to apply the artistic forms of Nature to serve their purpose, subordinating her as she ought (being a female) to be subordinated. Observe how the murex shells are used along with conventional patterns and how the light and shade are massed à la Beardsley. It seems probable that the early painter selected those natural forms, such as the octopus, the shell, and the star-fish, which most nearly resembled the geometric patterns used by his predecessors.

The shapes are now extremely graceful. These pointed pitchers were used as we see in the famous frieze of the Cupbearer, to serve the wine. There is generally a hole in the base to strain it. Drinking vessels were often of that fairest of Attic shapes known as the kylix. We notice how marine objects predominate in the natural forms selected. That alone might have given us a hint to look for an island as the centre of this art.

Now comes the great period of prehistoric architecture, of which we find examples in the palaces of Cnossos, Mycenæ, and Tiryns. What cranes were used to hoist these great masses into position we do not know. We cannot guess what tools were used for cutting and boring the solid stone as it was cut into the gigantic steatite wine-casks or the monolithic columns or the limestone reliefs. We can only marvel at them as we marvel at the Sphinx and the Pyramids. At Cnossos there were magnificent halls, decorated with painted frescoes of wonderful craftsmanship or stone carvings in high and low relief. There was a great hall of audience in particular, shaped like a Roman basilica or an early Christian church, a building so utterly out of its age that architects are amazed when it is placed in the second millennium before Christ. There is a throne, of what every one would have called Gothic design. Of the rest of the architectural marvels of these “Minoan” palaces, their upper stories, their light-wells, their double staircases, of the bull-ring and wrestling-ring, with its royal box, of the water-gate, and the engineering skill which overcame the slope down to the river, of the magazines and store-rooms, with their Aladdin’s jars still standing where King Minos’ storekeepers placed them, of the Queen’s Chamber and the Hall of the Distaffs and of the Royal Villa--of these things let the architects and Sir Arthur Evans relate. It would need pages of ground-plans to exhibit them, for after

all the palaces of Crete are little more than ground-plans to the layman, and ground-plans are dreary things. Sir Arthur Evans, indeed, believes that it was the intricacy of these miles of ruined foundations which provided the later Greeks with their legend of the Labyrinth. The frescoes are truly marvellous, whether we consider the glorious youth called the Cupbearer,[6] with his dark curly head and perfect Greek profile, or the vividly natural bull’s head in stucco.[7] Among the wonders is the veritable board on which King Minos played backgammon according to the prehistoric rules of that respectable game. It is of gold and silver, of ivory and crystal and “kuanos”--a board fit for a thalassocrat.

There is something here for every one. The sportsman will observe the methods of pugilism indicated on the gems, admiring the muscular development and the free action of the Cnossian prize-fighter. He seems to have neglected his “guard,” but then he was separated by a barrier from his opponent. Or we may study the laws of bull-baiting as practised at Cnossos, noting the agility with which toreadors, male and female, leap over the animal’s head. The milliner may study the latest modes of to-day on the fashion-plates of the eighteenth century before Christ. She will find the flounced petticoat of yesterday, the narrow waist, the bodice cut extremely décolletée, the high coiffure of to-morrow, the Medici collar, the zouave jacket. She will see hats which Mr. Myres considers “unparalleled,” some flat like the mode of 1902, others with turned-up brims and roses underneath like that of to-day.

The plumber too will find a paradise in Cnossos. There are lavatories, sinks, sewers, and man-holes. Let me quote Professor Burrows: “The main drain, which had its sides coated with cement, was over 3 feet high, and nearly 2 feet broad, so that a man could easily move along it; and the smaller stone shafts that discharged into it are still in position. Farther north we have preserved to us some of the terra-cotta pipes that served for connections. Each of them was about 2½ feet long, with a diameter that was about 6 inches at the broad end, and narrowed to less than 4 inches at the mouth, where it fitted into the broad end of the next pipe. Jamming was carefully prevented by a stop-ridge that ran round the outside of each narrow end a few inches from the mouth, while the inside of the butt, or broader end, was provided with a raised collar that enabled it to bear the pressure of the next pipe’s stop-ridge, and gave an extra hold for the cement that bound the two pipes together.” Let no cultivated reader despise these details. There is no truer sign of civilisation and culture than good sanitation. It goes with refined senses and orderly habits. A good drain implies as much as a beautiful statue. And let it be remembered that the world did not reach the Minoan standard of cleanliness again until the great English sanitary movement of the late nineteenth century.

THE MAINLAND PALACES

Though there is so much to interest the architect in Cnossos, and though the finest ashlar masonry is to be found there, the ordinary student of ancient building will probably prefer to go for his examples, as of old, to the contemporary

palaces of Mycenæ and Tiryns. In Cnossos there was little or no fortification--another proof that the Minoan empire rested safe behind wooden walls. But on the mainland we have two magnificent fortresses and citadels, so well preserved and so cleverly excavated by Schliemann and Tsountas that the untrained eye can take in at a glance the essential features of the architecture. At Tiryns the builder has taken the fullest advantage of the natural strength of his position. The top of the hill has been levelled and the summit encircled with a gigantic wall seldom less than fifteen feet thick. In the wall there are galleries opening internally upon a series of magazines. Along it at intervals there are massive watch-towers. One such screens each of the gateways. The main gate on the east side is approached by a long ascending ramp, which is exposed all the way to attack from the wall that towers above. To reach the postern-gate on the west you had also to climb a long flight of steps. The hill-top, which is more than 900 feet long, consists of a lower plateau to the north, on which no traces of building have been found, possibly because there were only wooden erections there for the soldiers, or possibly because it was left bare as a place of refuge for the cattle. The higher plateau to the south contains the palace, with its great pillared megaron, or hall. In this there is a circular central hearth. Close behind is the hall of the women, with sleeping-chambers at hand, and a strong treasury partly built into the wall. There is an elaborate bathroom, with drain-pipes and water-supply, hot and cold, a little to the west of the megaron. The three inner courts are sumptuously paved with mosaic, and the walls were covered with frescoes. It appears that the buildings on the summit of the hill were all of a palatial description, and the conclusion is that the commons lived in the plain below, governed and protected by their citadel. Tiryns lies on the flank of the plain of Argos, and within a few miles of the sea. As this one small plain included also the other ancient fortresses of Mycenæ and Argos, the dominions of this king must have been very small. It has been plausibly suggested that these citadels principally existed to command the highways leading to the Isthmus of Corinth.

At Mycenæ the fortification work is similar. Our view of the Lion Gate[8] will give some idea of the massive, Cyclopean masonry. The great relief itself is clearly a heraldic device; some such grouping of animals is constantly seen upon seals and gems, and the lion (or lioness?) has always been a royal beast. But, heraldic though it be, this enormous group is far from lifeless conventionality. Some scholars believe that the pillar between the animals is a proof of the much-discussed pillar-worship of prehistoric Greece.

But the most interesting of the Mycenæan remains are undoubtedly the tombs. In the city itself there is a circular enclosure surrounded by a double series of paving-stones set into the ground on edge, thus forming a ring of shaft graves whose purpose was plainly shown by the objects and bones found in them. Down in the plain below were found other burying-places, also circular, but of a later date and much more striking. These subterranean “beehive” tombs have been found elsewhere in Greece, but nowhere of such splendour. It was one of these which Schliemann proclaimed to be the tomb of Agamemnon. Like the pyramids in Egypt, it contains an inner chamber, which forms the actual grave, outside it a circular “tholos,” probably a shrine for the cult of the departed, and a long “dromos,” or inclined approach. The tholos is of great interest to architects as providing a forerunner of the dome. But it is not built on the principle of the arch, with wedge-shaped masses and a keystone. This dome is contrived by laying ever-narrowing circles of masonry one upon the other concentrically, the interior being smoothed, plastered, and richly decorated. It is thought that the bee-hive shape reproduces the primitive bell-tent, for the tombs of the dead are generally copied from the abodes of the living. Such splendour in the tomb, such careful concealing of the dead underground in an inner chamber, unquestionably proves ancestor-worship.

The sixth city at Troy was of much the same style and date as these; larger, indeed, than all, and with its houses radiating from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. On the Athenian Acropolis too there are traces of a similar prehistoric settlement. We are probably to imagine the face of the Greek world in the second millennium B.C. as dotted with these citadel palaces.

Mycenæ has yielded many interesting treasures of a minor sort. It was especially rich in gold, and we notice with great interest the masks of thin gold laid upon the faces of the dead. Nor has Crete yet produced any object in gold to rival the famous pair of cups[9] found at Vaphio, in Laconia. These are of gold repoussé, and their designs of wild and tame cattle are incomparably living and natural. But Sir Arthur Evans is probably justified both on grounds of style and subject in claiming these superb treasures as exports from Crete. The palm-tree betrays a Southern origin. In Mycenæ, too, were found the finely inlaid dagger-blades[10] which give us a picture of the men and weapons of the Mycenæan or Late Minoan ages of Ægean culture. The men, we observe, are armed with long spears and huge figure-of-eight shields composed of wickerwork covered with bull’s hide and pinched in at the “waist” so as to encircle the body and provide a hand-grip. The warriors wear no clothing but

breeches or loin-cloths, and in this they resemble the men of the Cretan frescoes and gems.

And what came of it all? Somewhere, it would seem, about 1400 B.C. Cnossos underwent its final catastrophe. The palace was sacked and burnt, the ateliers of its brilliant artists were destroyed, and the artists themselves slain or scattered. So the centre of illumination was darkened for the whole Ægean world. Elsewhere Ægean civilisation continued perhaps for two centuries more, and in Cnossos itself there is yet another period when the palace sites were partially reoccupied by a few stragglers of the old artistic race. But with the fall of his patron the inspiration of the craftsman vanishes, degeneration rapidly sets in. Even in the designs of the vases the bold, naturalistic drawing deteriorates into lazy formulæ, the brilliance of the glaze grows dull, the colours are flat and muddy. A good deal of Mycenæan art is of this decadent type, and a good deal more of it has been found in the neighbouring sites of Crete.

Among the relics of this period are objects which betray the cause of the downfall--weapons of iron. The Bronze Ages are passing away before the superior metal, as the Stone Ages had yielded to the Bronze.

THE MAKERS OF ÆGEAN ART

It now becomes our duty to sum up this wonderful world of archæology and to consider its bearings on the history and art of later Greece. Unfortunately many problems arise at this point for which at present the archæologists cannot agree to offer a solution. Who were these Ægean folk? Were they of Indo-European stock and language? We have already agreed, I think, that they represent a primitive stratum of population which originally spread all over the south of Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean. The Cupbearer may indicate their physique, black curly hair, straight nose, long skull; and I, for one, decline to believe that this fine fellow is a Semite or Phœnician, as has been suggested. We know that these people were extraordinarily gifted, especially in the sense of form, and that they were capable of very rapid development. May we not believe that one and the same stock has lain at the base of the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean from prehistoric times until to-day, much as it has been crossed and conquered and oppressed? And was their language Greek? That is a question that we cannot answer for certain, since no one has yet been able to interpret their handwriting. I see no reason to dispute Professor Ridgeway’s argument that as the stock prevailed through several waves of conquest from the north, so the language survived without material change, just as Italian prevailed through the Lombard conquest of North Italy. Of course nationalities were more mixed in Crete and Cyprus than on the mainland of Greece. It can but be an opinion delivered in the consciousness of many counteracting arguments, but I believe that the people whose culture we have been describing were essentially the same as we know in historic times, and of course Indo-Europeans.

From the historian’s point of view it is important to observe that civilisation in Europe began, as in Asia, under the fostering care of autocracy in palace workshops. It was bound

to be so. All the archæological indications point to a strong and tyrannical form of monarchy of the Oriental type. Those Cyclopean walls were built by slave labour. The common folk and soldiers are represented as almost naked. It was a commercial empire too. Those rows and rows of store-rooms, with their huge jars, formed the bank and treasury. Very probably the clay tablets will be found to contain, not prehistoric sonnets, but merely lists and inventories of stores and tribute.