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.
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