is to be equated with the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt.
This, however, is but a slight help as to the positive date of
the Minoan period, owing to the huge gap between the different
systems of Egyptian chronology. All that can be said is that on
Petrie's system of dating the Minoan period which is contemporary
with the end of the Sixth Dynasty would date about 4000 B.C., and
on the Berlin system about 2475 B.C. Though the two cultures are
contemporaneous, it is, of course, by no means to be inferred that
the art of Early Minoan III. has left us any relics which are worthy
of being placed on a level with the wonderful work of the Egyptian
Old Kingdom artists. The primitive pictographs on the bead-seals
of this period mark the beginnings of this form of Minoan script,
which persisted until Late Minoan I., when it was at last superseded
by the linear form of writing which had made its appearance in
Middle Minoan III.
_Middle Minoan I_.--With this period we have distinct advance in
more directions than one. The Minoan artist is beginning to feel
his way towards that polychrome style of decoration which reached
such a remarkable development in the Kamares vases of the succeeding
stage. In the decoration of his ware, which does not exhibit any
marked advance in form upon that of Early Minoan III.
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