ABSTRACT
In all the exchanges which were effected from one end of the Mediterranean to another, the part played by the Cretans was of great, indeed of capital, importance. Their activity strikes the eye at once. One merchant of the island had his seal engraved with a kneeling camel,1 a symbol of his relations with the caravans of Central Asia or Arabia. Another had for his badge an ostrich; now ostrich eggs were used in Crete to make vases, several specimens of which have been found at
Cyrenaica, often appears among the Cretan hieroglyphs, l and Cretan art sometimes depicts the negroes who produced this precious spice. 2 Certainly the intercourse between Crete and Africa was regular, for after the Greek invasions, when the people of Thera wanted to go to Libya, they took for their guide a merchant of Itanos.
