LIFE UNDER THE SEA-KINGS

What manner of men were the people who developed the Bronze Age civilization of Crete? Can we form any idea of their physical characteristics, of their homes and social conditions, of the general aspect of their daily life, and of the occupations in which they were engaged? Such questions can only be answered more or less generally in the absence of written material, or, rather, in our lack of understanding of the written material that exists; but, still, a considerable mass of evidence is in existence from which some broad outlines may be deduced with moderate certainty, and the object of this chapter is to present these outlines.

First, as to the physical characteristics of the race. Two lines of evidence are here available. On the one hand, there is that afforded by the actual remains of the bodies of men and women of the Minoan race which have been exhumed from ossuaries of the Bronze Age, and studied by anthropologists. Generally speaking, the result of their investigations has been to show that the Minoans belonged to the southernmost of the three great racial belts into which the ancient peoples of Europe may be divided—the so-called Mediterranean race. That is to say, they were a people of the long-headed type, dark in colouring and small in stature. The average height, estimated from the bones which have been measured, is somewhat under 5 feet 4 inches, which is about 2 inches less than the average of the modern Cretans, and corresponds more to the stature of the Sardinians and Sicilians of the present time. A few skulls of the broad-headed type appear among the general long-headedness, and probably point to some intermixture of race; but, as a whole, the people were long-headed. The shortness of stature indicated by the bones is a feature which one would scarcely have inferred from the other line of evidence available—the actual representations of men and women of their own race which the Minoans have left in their fresco-paintings; but allowance must, of course, be made for the artistic convention which tended to accentuate slenderness of figure, and therefore to increase apparent height.

Judging from the surviving pictures, the Minoan men were bronzed, with dark hair and beardless faces; their figures were slender, and their slenderness was made all the more conspicuous by the fashion which prevailed of drawing in the waist by a tightly fastened belt, which seems, in some cases at least, to have had metal edges; but muscularly they were well developed, and the pictures suggest litheness and agility in a high degree. 'One would say a small-boned race, relying more on quickness of limb and brain than on weight and size.' The hair of the men was worn in a somewhat elaborate fashion, being done up in three coils on the top of the head, while the ends of it fell in three long curls upon the shoulders. On the other hand, their dress was extremely simple, consisting normally of nothing but a loin-cloth, girt by the broad belt already mentioned, the material of which the loincloth was made being frequently gaily coloured or patterned, as in the case of the Cup-Bearer, whose garment is adorned with a dainty quatre-foil design. That more elaborate robes were worn on certain occasions of importance is shown by the sarcophagus at Hagia Triada (Plate XXVIII.), where the lyre player wears a long robe coming down to the ankles and bordered with lines of colour, while the other men in the scene wear tucked robes reaching a little below the knees (or possibly baggy Turkish trousers); and also by the Harvester Vase, where the chief figure in the procession is clad in a stiff garment, which has been variously interpreted as a wadded cuirass, or as a cope of some stiff fabric.

On their feet they wore sometimes shoes, with puttees twisted round the lower part of the leg, and sometimes half-boots, as shown on the Chieftain Vase and one of the Petsofa figurines. Indeed, the footgear of the Minoans seems to have been somewhat elaborate. In the representations of the Keftiu, on the walls of Rekh-ma-ra's tomb, the shoes are white, and have bindings of red and blue, and in some cases are delicately embroidered. Such examples as the shoe on an ivory figure found at Knossos, and the terra-cotta model of a shoe found at Sitia, show the daintiness with which the Minoans indulged themselves in the matter of footwear. In personal adornment the men to some extent made up for their simplicity in the matter of dress. The Cup-Bearer wears a couple of thick bracelets on his upper arm, and another, which bears an agate signet, on his wrist; and such decorations seem to have been in common use. The King whose figure in low relief has been reconstructed from fragments found at Knossos, wears peacock plumes upon his head, while round his neck he has a collar of fleur-de-lys, wrought, no doubt, in precious metal.

The Minoan women are depicted with a perfectly white skin, which contrasts strongly with the bronzed hue of the men. The deep coppery tint of the men, and the dead white skin of the women is, of course, to be accepted only as a convention, similar to that adopted by Egyptian artists, meant to express a difference of complexion caused by greater or less exposure to the weather; and we need not imagine that there was so great a contrast between the colouring of men and women in actual life as would appear from the paintings. If the dress of the male portion of the populace was simple, that of the female was the reverse. An elaborate and tight-fitting bodice, cut excessively low at the neck, covered, or affected to cover, the upper part of the body, which is so wasp-waisted as to suggest universal tight-lacing. From the broad belt hung down bell-shaped skirts, sometimes flounced throughout their whole length, sometimes richly embroidered, as in the case of a votive skirt represented in faÏence among the belongings of the Snake Goddess found in the Temple Repositories. In some cases—e.g., that of the votaress of the Snake Goddess—the skirt, below a small panier or apron, is composed of different coloured materials combined in a chequer pattern distantly resembling tartan. A fresco from Hagia Triada represents a curious and elaborate form of dress, consisting apparently of wide trousers of blue material dotted with red crosses on a light ground, and most wonderfully frilled and vandyked. Diaphanous material was sometimes used for part of the covering of the upper part of the body, as in the case of some of the figures from the Knossos frescoes. Hairdressing, as already noticed, was very elaborate, and above the wonderful erections of curls and ringlets which crowned their heads, the Minoan ladies, if one may judge from the Petsofa figurines, wore hats of quite modern type, and fairly comparable in size even with those of the present day. A seal from MycenÆ, representing three ladies adorned with accordion-pleated skirts, shows that heels of a fair height were sometimes worn on the shoes. Necklaces, bracelets, and other articles of adornment were in general use, and the workmanship of some of the surviving specimens is astonishingly fine (Plate XXXII.). Altogether, so far as can be estimated from the representations which have come down to us, the appearance of a Minoan assembly would, to a modern eye, seem curiously mixed. The men would fit in with our ideas of their period, but the women would remind us more of a European gathering of the mid-nineteenth century.

The houses which were occupied by these modern-looking ladies and their mates were unexpectedly unlike anything in the house-building of the Classical period. There is little of the uniformity of style and arrangement which characterizes the ordinary Greek house. The Minoan burgher built his home as the requirements of his site and of his household suggested, and was not the slave of any fixed convention in the matter of plan. The houses at Gournia, Palaikastro, and Zakro, which may be taken as typical specimens of ordinary Minoan domestic architecture, must have been much more like modern houses than anything that we know of in Greek towns of the Classical period; and the elevations of Minoan villas preserved in the faÏence plaques from the chest at Knossos suggest the frontages of a suburban avenue. Some of the Knossian plaques show houses of three and four storeys, with windows filled in with a red material which, as Dr. Evans suggests, may have been oiled and tinted parchment. In such houses, as distinguished from the palaces, there was no separation between the apartments of men and women. The fabric of the houses was generally of sun-dried brick, reared upon lower walls of stone; some of the Knossian villas, however, were plastered and timbered, the round beam-ends showing in the frontage. Oblong windows took the place of the light-wells which give indirect illumination to the palace rooms. The accommodation must have been fairly extensive. The smaller houses have six to eight rooms, the larger ones twice that number; while one of the houses in Palaikastro has no fewer than twenty-three rooms.

Within doors the walls were finished with smooth plaster, and probably decorated with painting, though, of course, on a humbler scale than in the palaces. The floors were of flagstones and cement, even in the upper storeys, and in some cases of cobbles or of earth rammed hard. The furniture of the rooms has perished, except in the case of such articles as were of stone or plaster; but the evidence we possess of the comfort and even the luxury of the life of these times in other respects suggests that the townsfolk of Gournia and the other Cretan towns were not lacking in any of the essentials of a comfortable home life. The great chest at Knossos which was once decorated with the faÏence plaques was, of course, part of the furnishing of a royal home, and we are not to suppose that such magnificent pieces of furniture were common; but in their own fashion the ordinary Minoan houses were doubtless quite adequately appointed, and the great variety of domestic utensils which has survived shows that life in the Bronze Age homes of Crete was by no means a thing of primitive and rough-and-ready simplicity, but was well and carefully organized in its details. It has been remarked that 'cooking in Homer is monotonous, because no one eats anything but roast meat'; but this accusation could not be brought against the Minoans, who had evidently attained to a considerable skill and variety in the way in which they prepared their viands for the table. The three-legged copper pot which was the most common vessel for cooking purposes was supplemented by stewpans with condensing-lids, and a variety of other forms of saucepan, while the number of different types of perforated vessels for straining and other purposes shows the care with which the art of cooking was attended to. Probably the Minoan kitchen, though we are still much in the dark as to its form, was almost as well equipped for its special functions as the kitchen of the present day.

We are, unfortunately, without any evidence as to the appearance of the great palaces in their finished state. The inner plan can be traced, but it is difficult to arrive at any idea of what these huge buildings must have looked like from the outside. It is fairly evident, however, that there cannot have been any symmetrical balancing of the different architectural features. The palaces were more like small towns than simple residences, and the impression made upon the eye must have been due more to the great mass and extent of the building than to any symmetry of plan. Probably we must conceive of them as great complex blocks of solid building, rising in terrace above terrace, the flat roofs giving an appearance of squareness and solidity to the whole. On a closer approach the eye would be impressed by the wide and spacious courts, the stately porticoes, the noble stairways, and the wealth of colour everywhere displayed; but, on the whole, so far as can be judged, it was only from within that the splendour of the Minoan palaces could be fairly estimated.

A palace such as that of Knossos sheltered an extraordinary variety and complexity of life. An abundance of humbler rooms served for the accommodation of the artists and artisans who were needed for the service and adornment of the palace, and of whom whole companies must have lived within the walls, 'dwelling with the king for his work,' like the potters and foresters mentioned in Scripture. Several shrines and altars provided for the religious needs of the community. Rooms of state were set apart for public audiences and for council meetings. In fact, the building was not only a King's dwelling-place, but the administrative centre of a whole empire, and within its walls there was room for the offices of the various departments and for the housing of their records.

The domestic quarter of the palace still reveals in some of its rooms the environment of luxury and beauty in which the Minoan royalties lived. The Queen's Megaron may be taken as typical. A row of pillars rising from a low, continuous base divides the room into two parts. The upper surface of the base on either side of the pillars is of stucco moulded so as to form a long couch, which was doubtless covered with cushions when the room was in use. Light was furnished in the day-time, according to Cretan Palace practice, not by windows, but by light-wells, of which there are two, one on the south and one on the east side. In one of these light-shafts the brilliant white stucco surface which reflected the light into the room is decorated with a modelled and painted relief, of which a fragment has survived, representing a bird of gorgeous plumage, with long curving wing, and feathers of red, blue, yellow, white, and black. Near the light-well on the other side of the line of pillars, outside nature was brought within doors by a beautiful piece of fresco-painting which shows fishes swimming through the water, and dashing off foam-bells and ripples in their rapid course. Along the north wall of the room ran another gay fresco, representing a company of dancing-girls on a scale of half life-size. One of the dancers is clad in a jacket with a yellow ground and blue and red embroidered border, beneath which is a diaphanous chemise. Her left arm is bent, and her right stretched forward; her features are piquant, if not beautiful, and a slight dimple shows at the corner of her lips. Her long black hair, elaborately waved and crimped, floats out on either side of her head as she turns in the movement of the dance. The fragments of decoration which have survived help us to realize a very beautiful room, gay with colour, yet never garish because of the softness of the indirect illumination, in which we may imagine the Minoan Court ladies, in their modern gowns, reclining on the cushions of the long couch, discussing the incidents of the last bull-grappling entertainment, the skill of the young Athenian Theseus, and the obvious infatuation of Princess Ariadne, or employing their time more usefully in some of the wonderful embroidery-work in which the fashion of the period delighted. By night the scene in the palace would be even more picturesque. Greatstone lamps, standing on tall bases, and each bearing several wicks on the margin of its broad bowl of oil, flared in the rooms and corridors, lighting up the brightly coloured walls, and sending many-tinted reflections dancing from the bronze and copper vases and urns which decorated the passages and the landings of the stairways; while through the breadths of light and shadow moved in an always changing stream of colour the gaily dressed figures of the Minoan Court.

Even at this exceedingly early stage of human progress, the various branches of industry had become fairly separated and specialized, more so, perhaps, than in the Homeric period, and a considerable variety of tools was employed in the various crafts. The carpenter was evidently a highly skilled craftsman, and the tools which have survived show the variety of work which he undertook. At Knossos a carefully hewn tomb held, along with the body of the dead artificer, specimens of the tools of his trade—a bronze saw, adze, and chisel. 'A whole carpenter's kit lay concealed in a cranny of a Gournia house, left behind in the owner's hurried flight when the town was attacked and burned. He used saws long and short, heavy chisels for stone and light for wood, awls, nails, files, and axes much battered by use; and, what is very important to note, they resemble in shape the tools of to-day so closely that they furnish one of the strongest links between the first great civilization of Europe and our own.'[*] Such tools were, of course, of bronze. Probably the chief industry of the island was the manufacture and export of olive oil. The palace at Knossos has its Room of the Olive Press, and its conduit for conveying the product of the press to the place where it was to be stored for use; and probably many of the great jars now in the magazines were used for the storage of this indispensable article. As we have seen, Dr. Evans conjectures that it was the decay of the trade in oil during the troubled days after the sack of the palaces that drove the Minoans abroad from their island home to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Besides the trade in oil, it would seem that there must have been a trade in the purple of the murex, and no doubt the Keftiu mariners found a ready market for this much-prized product long before the Phoenicians dreamed of Tyrian purple. Minoan pottery was manifestly also an article of export—a fragile cargo for those days. The fact that two of the Keftiu envoys in the Rekh-ma-ra frescoes carry ingots of copper of the same shape as those found by Dr. Halbherr at Hagia Triada suggests that Crete may have exported copper to Egypt in the time of Tahutmes III. as Cyprus exported it in large quantities in that of Amenhotep III.

[Footnote *: C. H. and H. Hawes, 'Crete the Forerunner of Greece,' p. 37.]

It is unfortunate that so far we have no large-scale representations of the ships in which these early masters of the ocean conducted the sea-borne commerce of the Ægean world. The various seal-stones and impressions, and the gold ring from Mokhlos, are interesting, but it would have been much more satisfactory had we been able to see representations of the Minoan galleys as complete as those which Queen Hatshepsut has left of the ships of her merchant squadron. The vessels represented are almost universally single-masted, with one bank of oars, whose number varies from five to eleven a side, a high stern, and a bow ending either in a barbed point or an open beak, which suggests resemblances to the galleys of the sea-peoples who were defeated by Ramses III. In some instances the length of the voyage undertaken appears to be indicated. A crescent moon on the forestay, and another on the backstay of a vessel with seven oars a side, may point to a two months' voyage, while a disc over the beak of another which has no oars at all may indicate one of a year's duration, or perhaps, more probably, one of a complete month. The supreme part which the sea played in the life of the Cretans is shown unmistakably by the fact that practically every Minoan site of importance is on the coast, or within easy reach of it, while the innate national delight in all the wonderful creatures of the marine world is seen in the constant use of their forms as motives in decorative work. No designs are so common on Minoan pottery as those derived from the sea; the octopus, the murex, the nautilus, the coral, and various forms of algÆ, occur continually, and are utilized with great skill, while such pictures as the Dolphin Fresco (Plate X. 1) show the fascination which marine life had upon the Minoan mind, and the care with which it was observed. That commerce was thoroughly organized and attended to with that careful precision which seems to have been characteristic of the race is seen from the Zakro excavations, where Mr. Hogarth found 500 seal impressions in the house of a single merchant. Trade must have been very far removed indeed from primitive conditions when merchants were so careful about the security of their bales of goods.

SARCOPHAGUS FROM HAGIA TRIADA (p.127)
G. Maraghiannis