The Minoans
A LADY OF THE MINOAN COURT
From The Annual of the British School at Athens
Frontispiece
The Minoans
by George Glasgow
Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London
First published March, 1923
Second impression April, 1923
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
RONALD MONTAGU BURROWS
MY GREAT FRIEND AND TEACHER
[Pg 7]
PREFACE
Sir Arthur Evans’ renewed campaign of excavation in Crete has againattracted considerable public attention to the remarkable disclosuresof the last twenty years. Sir Arthur Evans himself is at presentengaged in compiling in three big volumes the consecutive story ofMinoan civilization as revealed by his own excavations. The presentwriter is convinced that the story of Cretan discovery is such as toappeal to the imagination of a wide public who have no specialistinterest in archæology. The story has all the interest of adventure andexploration. This book is an attempt to meet what such a public wants.I have tried to give a general picture of the world which existed inthe Mediterranean four thousand years ago, and of the amazing processby which it has been revealed, so that it can be understood by thosetotally unacquainted with classical study, and I have tried to giveit in one hour’s reading. For those who want to go further I givereferences to other books. It must be understood that this[Pg 8] book doesnot aim at an exact account of the archæological position as it existsto-day. With new excavations being carried out this very year, and withnew material in the hands of the excavators, as yet unpublished andundigested, any attempt to be strictly up to date would merely mean theprogressive and indefinite postponement of the book. The broad linesof the discovery of Minoan civilization are clear, and in the writer’sopinion, even because a new campaign of excavation is now started,ought to be presented now in a form to be easily understood. Theresults of the discoveries of this spring, for instance, add importantdetails to our knowledge—some of which I have incorporated—but do notaffect fundamentals.
Some of the substance of the following chapters was published in 1920and 1921 in Discovery, to the Editor of which I am gratefulfor permission to re-publish them. In a somewhat different form thesubstance was also published by me in 1914-1915 in the National HomeReading Magazine.
It is to my friend Dr. Ronald Montagu Burrows that I, in common withthousands, owe my interest in Crete. He died on May 14, 1920, before