, the long months that
culminate in the surrender of Athens; the sack is Leipzig, Late
Minoan III., the slow closing in on Paris that leads up to the
abdication of Napoleon.'[**] Finally, even the technique fails, and
the great art which gave to the world the figures of the Cup-Bearer
and the King with the Peacock Plumes dies out in monstrosities.
[Footnote *: _Annual of the British School at Athens_, vol. xiii.,
p. 426.]
[Footnote **: R. M. Burrows, 'The Discoveries in Crete,' p. 100.]
The long decay was to some extent arrested by the coming of other
waves of invaders, probably Achaeans, to whose influence may be
attributed the change in customs which begins to show itself in the
post-Minoan period. Burning begins to take the place of inhumation
as a means of disposing of the dead; Continental types of weapons
make their appearance in the tombs; iron swords and daggers are
even found. In life the men who use these weapons are clad, not
with the Minoan loin-cloth, but with the garments which we associate
with the Greeks of the Classical period, garments which require
the use of the fibula or safety-pin to fasten them. The potter's
art begins to find new motives, and to develop the use of the human
form as a type of adornment in a manner almost entirely foreign to
the Minoan tradition. At last, perhaps four centuries after the
fall of Knossos, comes the great tidal wave of Dorian invasion,
engulfing the work alike of conquerors and conquered, and blowing
out all the landmarks of the ancient cultures.
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