One thing at least is abundantly clear--that, as Dr. Evans
put it in the summary of his first year's results, 'that great
early civilization was not dumb,' but, on the contrary, had means
of expression amply adequate to its needs.
In 1894 M. Perrot wrote:[*] 'As at present advised, we can continue
to affirm that for the whole of this period, nowhere, neither in
the Peloponnese nor in Greece proper, no more on the buildings
than on the thousand and one objects of luxury or domestic use
that have come out of the tombs, has there anything been discovered
which resembled any kind of writing.' The statement was perfectly
true to the facts as then known; but it was obviously unthinkable
that, while the Egyptians and Babylonians had their fully developed
scripts, and while ruder races, such as the Hittites, had their
systems of writing, the men who built the splendid walls and palaces
of Tiryns and Mycenae, and wrought the diadems and decorations of the
Shaft-Graves, should have been so far back in one of the chiefest
essentials of human progress as to be unable to communicate with one
another by means of writing. We have already seen how the discoveries
of the first year's work at Knossos settled that question for ever,
and revealed the existence of more than one form of writing. Since
then the material has been rapidly accumulating, and at present the
number of objects--tablets, labels, and other articles-inscribed
with the various Cretan scripts can be counted by thousands.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259