ABSTRACT
Up to about 1450, the lords of Knossos seem to have divided the supremacy of the island with other palace-rulers, and fortresses could be manned by rivals in military power one against another. But suddenly in the middle of the century the great palace of Phaestos in South Crete was sacked and destroyed, the princely seat of Hagia Triada was burnt down,
and ruin, or anyhow, as at Goumia in the east, stagnation, overtook all the centres of the island civilization that may be reckoned competitors with the hegemony of Knossos. Knossos stands in unique contrast. Abounding already in wealth and armed force, the great palace now reveals in every significant aspect the prosperity and majesty surrounding an assured and absolute monarch, the priest-king of the throne-room which Sir Arthur Evans has made so famous, and the judge surely whose memory survived in the Greek legends of Minos the ineluctable lawgiver. With their new-created government script, his officials supervise administration and revenue: if the whole of Crete acknowledges his rule, his fleet must com mand the seas whose commerce ministers to his wealth; the commercial and diplomatic relations of the island with Egypt, attested in unprecedented plenty by the archaeology of both countries from the coming of Late Minoan and New Kingdom times, are above all concentrated under his hand, with the trade of Syria and Cyprus, and the closer hegemony of the Aegean. How the history of art in Crete, from the fresh and versatile brilliance of Middle Minoan III and the rich and tasteful maturity of Late Minoan I,1 reflects the character of the Knossian supremacy of Late Minoan II in the grandiose ‘ Palace Style’ of the studios and ateliers bound to the service of the court, it is beyond our scope here to illustrate. What we must not overlook, however, is the cleavage which this centralization of Cretan culture made with the Greek mainland, where art and craftsmanship continue in the main unprogressively in the Late Minoan I tradition. For the sequel to the great half-century of the Palace rule of Minos was twofold. Upon Knossos there fell sudden and ruthless destruction, which put an end once and for all to the proud imperialism of its rulers. And on the mainland, from the same moment, Mycenean culture entered upon a new era of expansion which carried its outposts during the next two centuries all round the Eastern Mediterranean, westwards to Sicily and South Italy and northwards beyond Thessaly to Macedonia, while in Greece itself its leading centres reached the climax of their greatness, displayed nowhere more magnificently than in the
new-built palace, the fortress wall with its Lion Gate, and the huge tholos-tomb called the Treasury of Atreus, which together make its grandest memorial at Mycenae itself.
