Evans and other explorers incline rather to believe, Cretans from
Phaestos, whose purpose was merely to overthrow the ruling dynasty,
scarcely interrupted the current of Minoan development. If the
enemy came from without, he came only to destroy and plunder, not
to occupy, and, having done his work, departed; if from within
the Empire, his triumph made no breach in the continuity of the
Minoan tradition. The palace rose again from its ashes, greater
and more glorious than before, and men of the same stock carried
on the work that had been checked for a while by the rough hand of
war. The men of the Third Middle Minoan period reared the beginnings
of the second palace on the site where the first had stood, and in
the relics of their arts and crafts the same spirit which informed
the earlier period still prevails, with no greater modifications
than such as come naturally to the art of any nation by the mere
lapse of time.
From the beginning of Middle Minoan III. to the end of Late Minoan
II.--a period, that is to say, of either some 500 or almost 2,000
years, according to the scheme of Egyptian chronology which we
may adopt--the civilization of Crete apparently followed a course
of even and peaceful development. At Knossos, Phaestos, and Hagia
Triada the great palaces slowly grew to their final glory.
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