ADDITIONAL NOTES.

for reducing the role of the Phoenicians has Iain in the archaeo-
logical exploration of the Mediterranean countries, which has
brought to light much new evidence on their prehistoric condition.
In particular, the discoveries made in the Greek lands, and fore-
most among these the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans on the
Cretan site of Cnossus, have revolutionised our ideas of early
seafaring in the Mediterranean.
A Greek legend, to which little attention has been paid until
recent years, preserved the memory of a king Minos of Cnossus,
who exercised the earliest of all lordships over the Greek seas. It
has now been disclosed that Cnossus was the centre of a powerful
prehistoric monarchy and the seat of the earliest high civilisation
in Europe. This pre-Hellenic or 'Minoan' civilisation was based on
a maritime commerce which extended to Egypt in one direction,
to Sicily and possibly to Spain in another. The voyages of the
early Cretans were made on sea-going ships with a keel and a high
bow, which were better all-weather craft than the mere river-boats
of the Egyptians. Intercourse between Crete and Egypt was opened
at least as early as 3000 B.C., and the visits of Cretan mariners to
the western Mediterranean probably began not later than 2500 B.C.
On the other hand the earliest evidence of Phoenician intercourse
with foreignlands—an Egyptian tomb-painting near Thebes—dates
back no further than c. 1450 B.C. It is clear, therefore, that the
Minoans were the real pioneers of Mediterranean navigation, and
that the Phoenicians merely extended and completed their work
in a later age.
In the course of the second millennium Greece received a new
population of Indo-European immigrants. About 1400 B.C. a body
of invaders, who may be identified with the 'Achaeans' of Homer,
established itself at Mycenae in Argolis and set up a rival capital
to Cnossus; soon after this date the Achaeans went on to invade
Crete and to destroy Cnossus. Despite the fall of Cnossus,
the ascendancy of the Aegean peoples in the Mediterranean was
maintained almost to the end of the second millennium, indeed
it was confirmed by the settlement of Achaean or Minoan popu-
lations in Cyprus, and on the coasts of southern Asia Minor and
Syria, But towards the end of the second millennium the pre-
historic civilisation of Greece underwent a general decline, and