ABSTRACT
The bronze age ceramic of Crete developed directly out of the neolithic through a "sub-neolithic" stage. Beside Knossos, caves, as at Miamii in the Mesara, rock shelters like that of Gournia, and ossuaries have yielded pottery of this age, which may be called sub-neolithic. In E.M.I., contemporaneously with the sub-neolithic ware, a buff ware takes the place of the black, and unable to obtain the fine burnished surface of the old ware, or unwilling to take the trouble to effect it, the early Minoan potters devised the first slip ware, on which they painted white lines, evidently an imitation of the old white-filled design. Copper is used in Crete, bronze, as in Egypt, not having made its appearance; weapons are still somewhat primitive in type, consisting chiefly of short triangular daggers; but luxury-tools too, in the shape of tweezers, have made their appearance, as they had long before in Babylonia.
