MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER V

Crete as the Lost Atlantis

Quest for Home of Pre-Hellenic Culture--The Legendary Clues--Myth of the Lost Atlantis--Schliemann's Remarkable Bequest--His Grandson's Researches--Supposed Connection of Egyptian with Central American Civilization--Views of Geologists regarding a Submerged Continent--Geikie versus Hull--Evidence of New and Old World Fauna--The Race Problem--Plato's Atlantis Narrative--Lost Island identified with Crete--Sea Trade, Palaces, and Bull Fights--Greek and Libyan Traditions--How the Lost Atlantis Myth Originated--Legend of Zeus and Europe--Water-bull and Water-horse Stories --The Legendary Minos and Osiris--The Minotaur--Story of Dalus and Babylonian and Indian Parallels--Athens and Crete--The Theseus Legend--Value of Traditions.

ALTHOUGH Schliemann's theories regarding Priam's treasure and Agamemnon's tomb aroused a storm of criticism, it had to be recognized that he discovered traces of a brilliant pre-Hellenic civilization which had flourished in Greece and Asia Minor for many long centuries. The problem as to where it had originated, however, remained obscure, and towards its solution not a few skilled archeologists began to direct their energies. Indeed, the quest soon became hot and fast. The cumulative evidence of classical writers seemed to point to Crete. Homer, Hesiod, Strabo, Thucydides, and Herodotus had perpetuated traditions regarding King Minos, the great lawgiver, who had cleared the ean of pirates. He was reputed to have been a son of Zeus, and that deity, according to one legend, had been born in a Cretan cave.

Schliemann gave serious consideration to these clues, and had endeavoured, as has been stated, to make arrangements to excavate at Knossos. He also conducted researches with Virchow at Sais, in northern Egypt, but no discovery was made to indicate that pre-Hellenic civilization had emanated from the land of the Pharaohs in its fully-developed form. The larger problem appears to have engaged his mind: Where did Egyptian civilization originate?

Ere he died Schliemann formulated a bold theory to account not only for early northern European and North African civilization but also that of Central America as well. It was based on Plato's myth of the Lost Atlantis. He was convinced that this great island had had real existence, and that colonies of its inhabitants settled in Mexico, Egypt, and Greece at a remote period, introducing into these countries a full-blown culture.

Here, again, as will be shown, Schliemann had intuitive perception of a basis of fact embedded in the debris of tradition. Had he lived long enough he would no doubt have adjusted his view in the light of those discoveries which have been made during recent years, and accepted Crete as the mysterious island referred to by Plato.

The Atlantis theory appealed as strongly to the great pioneer's imagination during the last months of his life as did his Troy theory in the days of his boyhood. But the frailties of old age oppressed him, and he realized that he could never put it to proof. He desired, however, that the work should be undertaken by one of his kinsmen, and committed his secret to writing, enclosing his manuscript in a sealed envelope inscribed as follows:--

This can be opened only by a member of my family who solemnly vows to devote his life to the researches outlined therein.

Not long before he expired he asked for a pencil and piece of paper and wrote:

Confidential addition to the sealed envelope. Break the owl-headed vase. Pay attention to the contents. It concerns Atlantis. Investigate the east of the ruins of the temple of Sais and the cemetery in Chacuna valley. Important. It proves the system. Night approaches--Lebewohl.

This last document was enclosed, and afterwards deposited with the other in one of the banks of France by the party to whom both were entrusted. A large sum of money was set aside to defray the expenses of the mysterious undertaking.

In 1906 Dr. Paul Schliemann, a grandson of the great discoverer of pre-Hellenic civilization, vowed to devote his life to the researches referred to in the sealed envelopes, and made himself acquainted with their contents. A few years later he contributed to certain newspapers in New York and London a signed statement, 1 in which he made a revelation of his grandfather's last bequest.

The first paper said:

Whoever opens this must solemnly swear to carry out the work I have left unfinished. I have come to the conclusion that Atlantis was not only a great territory between America and the West Coast of Africa and Europe, but the cradle of all our civilization as well. There has been much dispute among scientists on this matter. According to one group the tradition of Atlantis is purely fictional, founded upon fragmentary accounts of a deluge some thousands of years before the Christian era. Others declare the tradition wholly historical, but not capable of absolute proof.

Dr. Schliemann's papers are of lengthy character. Briefly stated, they set forth that he found at Troy a bronze vase containing fragments of pottery, images, and coins of "a peculiar metal", and "objects made of fossilized bone". He added: "Some of these objects and the bronze vase were engraved with a sentence in Phnician hieroglyphics. The sentence read, 'From the King Chronos of Atlantis'."

Ten years later, when in the Louvre, Paris, he examined a collection of objects taken from Tiahuanaco, in Central America, and "discovered pieces of pottery of exactly the same shape and material, and objects of fossilized bone which reproduced line for line those I had found", Schliemann wrote, "in the bronze vase of the 'Treasure of Priam'". Among these objects was an owl-headed vase. He also professed to have read, or to have had read to him, extracts from Egyptian papyri preserved in the Museum at St. Petersburg which made reference to the "Land of Atlantis", whence had come the ancestors of the Egyptians "3350 years ago" and the "sages of Atlantis" who flourished during a period of "13,900 years". Another inscription, discovered near the Lion's Gate at Mycen set forth that Thoth was a son of a "priest of Atlantis" who "landed after many wanderings in Egypt. He built the first temple at Sais, and there taught the wisdom of his native land."

Dr. Paul Schliemann has broken open the "owl-headed vase" at Paris, referred to in his grandfather's last memorandum, and states that he found in it a coin or medal of "silver-like metal" inscribed in Phnician as follows: "Issued in the Temple of Transparent Walls". He claims, also, to have made discoveries in Egypt, Mexico, and elsewhere which justify his grandfather's theory. "I have reasons", he has written, "for saying that the strange medals were used as money in Atlantis forty thousand years ago."

The first question which arises in connection with the late Dr. Schliemann's theory is: Did the "Lost Atlantis" ever have existence in fact? On this point Professor James Geikie has written as follows:--

Geologists have often speculated as to a former connection between the Old World and the New. There can be little doubt, indeed, that such a land connection did obtain between Asia and Europe at a geologically recent date, and it is quite possible that there may have been a land bridge also between Europe and North America by way of the Far Islands. 2 Others have suggested the former existence of a land bridge further south. They suppose that the North Atlantic may have been dry land--traversed from west to east by a Mediterranean Sea--of which the existing Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico are the remaining portions. But the facts which have suggested that speculation have been otherwise accounted for. All that is definite and certain is that there has been considerable loss of land so far as Europe is concerned. Our continent formerly extended further westward. But I know of no geological evidence that puts it beyond doubt that the Atlantic basin is the site of a drowned continent. On the contrary, such evidence as we have leads rather to the belief that the Atlantic basin, like that of the Pacific, is of primeval origin." 3

That veteran geologist, Professor Edward Hull, takes a different view of the problem, and has written:

"The tradition of Atlantis 'beyond the Pillars of Hercules' can scarcely be supposed to have originated in the mind of man without a basis of reality. In the centre of the North Atlantic Ocean rise from the surface the Azores volcanic islands, the summits of a group of islands rising from a platform corresponding to the continental platform of Europe on one hand and of America on the other. The rise of the level of the ocean bed, amounting from 7000 to 10,000 feet, as shown by the soundings on the Admiralty charts, would have reduced the depth of the ocean by so much and have extended the land areas to an extent which would have brought Atlantis within navigable distance of both continents for early inhabitants using canoes. We know from our investigations 4 that this elevation occurred during the post-tertiary period, 5 and at a presumed date 9000 or 10,000 B.C. If we add 1000 years of our era, the question arises: Would not this lapse of time have been sufficient to account for the subsidence which the region in question underwent in order to restore the land and sea to their present limits? Of course, this would depend on the rate of subsidence. But, at any rate, the result, as regards Atlantis, would have been the submergence under the ocean, with the exception of its present islands. The glacial period, when much of Europe and the British Isles was covered by snow and ice, can scarcely have been farther back than 10,000 years, and this is presumably the age of Atlantis."

Dr. Scharff, Director of the Natural History Museum, Dublin, is also a believer in the "Lost Atlantis". He has been led to the conclusion, in his studies of the migrations of animals between the continents of America and Europe, 6 that a land bridge once crossed the Atlantic Ocean between Southern Europe and the West Indies. "It probably became disconnected". he says, "in Miocene times. Since then this land once more became united with our continent, and may not have been finally severed until the Pleistocene period. United with the West Indies and Central America in early Tertiary times, it probably subsided partly during the Oligocene period 7 and later, leaving only a few isolated peaks as islands in the midst of the vast ocean which has since replaced it."

It will be seen that scientific opinion is divided regarding the existence of a mid-Atlantic continent. If, however, the views of Hull and Scharff are accepted, they cannot be held to prove that Plato's Atlantis was situated beyond the "Pillars of Hercules". Schliemann's hypothesis, as expounded by his grandson, renders it necessary to assume that this lost country, "which used the ancient medals as an equivalent of labour, had a more advanced currency system than we have at present". If such was the case, it appears strange that no traces of the high civilization have survived on those islands which are referred to as the "few isolated peaks" of the submerged continent.

The particular race which is supposed to have come from Atlantis has yet to be identified. Was it represented in Europe by Chellean man? The Chellean "hand axe" has been traced from France to South Africa, through Asia, across the "land bridge" to North America, and southward through South America. It never reached Australia or New Zealand. But Chellean man was a savage, not much more advanced, indeed, than were the Tasmanians. Cro-Magnon man, on the other hand, had achieved a high degree of culture, but no traces either of his physical type or of his cave drawings have been discovered in the New World. Besides, his culture developed from the Chellean through the Acheulian and Mousterian stages, as has been fully demonstrated. He cannot therefore be claimed for Atlantis. Nor can Mediterranean man, who had spread through Egypt and along the North African coast, and had settled in Southern and Western Europe, as well as in Mesopotamia, before the age of metal. There are no aboriginal representatives of his type in America.

Have the settlers from Atlantis vanished entirely in the New and Old Worlds? Did they perish like the mythical elder races of Mexico, India, Babylonia, Greece, and Ireland?

Another insurmountable difficulty is the fact that copper was not utilized in Egypt and Central America at the same early period. The Egyptians and Sumerians worked that metal at about 3000 B.C. In Crete the Bronze Age was inaugurated between 3000 B.C. and 2800 B.C., and in Great Britain before 1500 B.C. The American peoples did not begin to utilize metal until a considerable period after bronze had been supplanted by iron in Europe. "Most students of American archaeology are agreed that the Mexican and Peruvian bronzes are not of any great antiquity, and that the Bronze Age must have been over in China long before it began in the New World." 8

In Dr. Heinrich Schliemann's day the antiquity of Central American civilization was greatly exaggerated. We now know that the Maya did not develop their culture on the Mexican plateau much before the eighth century of the Christian era, and that the Aztecs arrived about 1200 A.D.; the later Mexican confederacy had flourished for only a century before it was shattered by Cortez. 9 Most of the resemblances which have been noted between the Egyptian and Central American civilizations are of a superficial character.

Plato's legend regarding the "Lost Atlantis" was of Egyptian origin. It is related in the Timeus and Critias. A certain Solon visited Sais, where he "was very honourably received" by the priests of the goddess Neith. One of the eldest of these spoke with contempt regarding the "puerile fables" of the Greeks, and said: "You are unacquainted with that most noble and excellent race of men who once inhabited your country, from whom your whole present state are descended, though only a small remnant of this admirable people is now remaining". He went on to say that, according to Egyptian annals, Athens once overcame "a prodigious force", when "a mighty warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic sea, spread itself with hostile fury over all Europe and Asia". The narrative continues:

"That sea (the Atlantic) was then navigable, and had an island fronting that mouth which you in your tongue call the Pillars of Hercules; and this island was larger than Libya and Asia put together; and there was a passage hence for travellers of that day to the rest of the islands, as well as from those islands to the whole opposite continent that surrounds that the real sea. . . . In this Atlantic island, then, was formed a powerful league of Kings, who subdued the entire island, together with many others, and parts also of the Continent; besides which they subjected to their rule the inland parts of Libya, as far as Egypt, and Europe also, as far as Tyrrhenia. The whole of this force, then, being collected in a powerful league, undertook at one blow to enslave both your country and ours, and all the land besides that lies within the mouth. This was the period, Solon, when the power of your state (Athens) was universally celebrated for its virtue and strength; for surpassing all others in magnanimity and military skill, sometimes taking the lead of the Greek nation, at others left to itself by the defection of the rest, and brought into the most extreme danger, it still prevailed, raised the trophy over its assailants, kept from slavery those not as yet enslaved, insured likewise the most ample liberty for all of us without exception who dwell within the Pillars of Hercules.

Subsequently, however, through violent earthquakes and deluges which brought desolation in a single day and night, the whole of your warlike race was at once merged under the earth; and the Atlantic island itself was plunged beneath the sea and entirely disappeared; whence even now that sea is neither navigable nor to be traced out, being blocked up by the great depth of mud which the subsiding island produced." 10

An anonymous contributor to the Times 11 was the first to draw attention to the remarkable resemblance between Plato's Atlantis and the island of Crete. His theory that the Egyptian priest's legend was based on traditions regarding Cretan sea-power and the raids of piratical bands on the Egyptian coast during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties has found general favour among prominent archeologists.

Crete, one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, is about 160 miles long, and varies in breadth from about 35 miles in the middle to 10 between Retimo and Sphakia, and only 6 miles in one place between the Gulf of Mirabello and the coast of Hierapetra. Deep gulfs indent its northern coast, and its southern shore is rugged and rock-bound. A ridge of hills extends from east to west, culminating about the centre in well-wooded Mount Psiloriti, the ancient Mount Ida, which rises to a height of about 8159 feet. Strabo called the hills in the western part of the island Leuca Or or "the white mountains". In the south-west the mountains almost fringe the shore. The ancient capital was situated at Knossos, near Candia, on the north. In ancient days the island was four days' sail from Egypt and two from Cyrenaica. It may well be said of Crete, as of Atlantis, that "there was a passage hence for travellers of that day to the rest of the islands, as well as from those islands to the whole opposite continent".

In the Critias Plato says of Atlantis: 12

"The whole region was said to be exceedingly lofty and precipitous towards the sea, and the plain about the city (? Knossos), which encircles it, is itself surrounded by mountains sloping down to the sea, being level and smooth, all much extended, three thousand stadia in one direction, and the central part from the sea above two thousand. And this district of the whole island was turned towards the south, and in an opposite direction from the north. The mountains around it, too, were at that time celebrated, as exceeding in number, size, and beauty all those of the present time, having in them many hamlets enriched with villages."

In Atlantis also, as in Crete, the prosperity of the island kingdom depended on its sea trade. They (the island kings) were "rulers", Solon was informed, "in the sea of islands (? the ean), and, as we before said, yet further extended their empire to all the country as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia".

During recent years archeologists have discovered that a great civilization--the earliest in Europe--flourished in Crete for many long centuries before the rise of Mycenand Tiryns. It was already well developed ere the pyramids near Cairo were erected, and before the dawn of the Twelfth Dynasty a palace had been built at Knossos. Some time during the Eighteenth Dynasty, and ere the famous Akhenaton was born, Crete was overrun by raiders, who displaced the native rulers, as the Egyptian Pharaohs had been displaced at an earlier period by the Hyksos. This calamity was sudden and overwhelming, and must have made a deep impression on those states which had commercial relations with the famous island kingdom. Its sea traders bad intimate relations with Egypt for many centuries. Evidence has been forthcoming that they visited the Delta coast as early as at least the Old Kingdom period. During the time of Queen Hatshepsut and Thothmes III they were depicted on the walls of Theban tombs, and were known as the Kheftiu and "Princes of the Isles in the midst of the Great Green Sea". But no reference was made to them after the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The Cretan sea traders vanished entirely, and their place was taken ultimately by the Phnicians.

In the Atlantis legend there are several pointed references to a civilization closely resembling that of Crete. We read of busy harbours and far-travelled merchants, of a king's palace, like the palace of Knossos, which was built of stone, and of private and public baths; "the king's baths", says Plato, "and those of private persons were apart", and there were "separate baths for women". Crete was famous for its sacrificial bull fights; so was Atlantis; and it is suggestive to find that on both islands the method obtained of capturing the animals without the aid of weapons. Plato says of Atlantis in this connection:

"As there were bulls grazing at liberty in the temple of Poseidon, ten men only of the whole number, after invoking the god to receive their sacrifice propitiously, went out to hunt swordless, with staves and chains, and whichever of the bulls they took, they brought it to the column and slaughtered it." 13

Plato's legend used to be regarded by European scholars as "wholly mythical". It would now appear, however, that it had a genuine historical basis.

Solon visited Egypt over a thousand years after Crete had been divested of its ancient supremacy as a maritime power, and the aged priest of Sais evidently repeated to him traditions regarding it. Whether he was informed, or concluded from the Egyptian references, that Atlantis was situated beyond "the Pillars of Hercules" is quite uncertain. It was "the island farthest west", and this "would well describe Crete", Hawes suggests, "to a home-staying Egyptian of the Theban Empire".

BULL'S HEAD, IN STEATITE, FROM KNOSSOS: FULL FACE AND PROFILE VIEWS

When Crete was suddenly overwhelmed by invaders at the height of its power and prosperity, and its sailors and traders vanished from the Mediterranean, many wild rumours must have obtained currency. It need not surprise us to find that some believed the island itself "was plunged beneath the sea", and that in time the age during which flourished its kings and seafarers and bull-baiters, "won its way to the mythical", as Thucydides says in another connection.

Plato had no idea that Crete was so "old in story and that its ancient inhabitants were the pioneers of civilization in Europe, although he may have believed, like Herodotus, that the island was at one time "wholly peopled with barbarians" 14 (non-Hellenic folk). He had even less knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean, otherwise he could not have believed that navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules was hampered by the mud-banks which marked the site of the "lost Atlantis".

It is possible that the Egyptian legend was influenced by the ancient folk-tale, "The Shipwrecked Sailor". This hero sojourned on an island which afterwards vanished in the midst of the sea. 15

Or, perhaps, some Egyptian navigator, who set out on a voyage to Crete, at a period subsequent to the fall of Knossos, went off his course and got into trouble with sand-banks. On his return home he may have told as marvellous a story as the "shipwrecked sailor", believing that the island he sought had really been submerged.

The priest of Sais appears also to have mingled with his legend of Atlantis information derived from traditions and records regarding the settlement of Europeans on the North African coast, and the sea-raids during the reigns of Meneptah and Rameses III, 16 when, as one Egyptian record sets forth, "the isles were restless, disturbed among themselves". Certain tribes from these isles, who had established themselves in Libya, actually provided mercenaries for the army and fleet of Rameses III to drive back the "late comers". 17 As Plato says of the conquerors from Atlantis, they had "subjected to their rule the inland parts of Libya, as far as Egypt".

It will thus be seen that Schliemann was not far astray when he identified Plato's Atlantis as the cradle of ean civilization. Had he been able, as he desired, to excavate in Crete, he might have changed his mind regarding the real significance of the Gro-Egyptian myth.

The poets and historians of ancient Greece had preserved several suggestive legends regarding Crete. They had much to say regarding its King Minos, who flourished before the Trojan war. According to Strabo 18 he resided at Knossos, and made just laws which were afterwards borrowed by the Greeks. Thucydides 19 states that he was the first to have a navy, and that he cleared the ean of pirates. The poet of the Odyssey says:

There is a land amid the wine-dark sea
Called Crete; rich, fruitful, girded by the waves;
She boasts unnumbered men and ninety towns . . .
One city in extent the rest exceeds,
Knossos; the city in which Minos reigned--
The King who 'gan to reign in his ninth year
And converse held with Zeus. 20

Minos was fabled to be the son of Zeus by a human mother, the beautiful Europ daughter of Agenor, King of Phnicia. The legend sets forth that one day Europ was bathing with her maids, when Zeus beheld and fell in love with her. He changed himself into a bull, whose comely form and tameness attracted the attention of the princess. She advanced towards the animal, and was so fascinated by it that she mounted on its back. When she did so, the bull rushed into the water and swam to Crete. There she became the mother of Zeus's three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon.

This story resembles the Scottish kelpie or "water-horse" stories. When a human being mounts on the back of one of these supernatural animals, he or she finds it impossible to dismount, and is carried away to a dark loch. Sometimes the "water-horse" makes love in human form.

Herodotus states that "certain Greeks, who would probably be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on the Phnician coast, and bore off the King's daughter, Europquot; 21 He suggested that Europe may have been so called after the Tyrian princess, and had been nameless before her time. 22

Minos was supposed to have received his code of laws from his father Zeus, whom he visited in his cave on Mount Ida while the people were assembled round its base. 23 When he died he became, like the Egyptian Osiris, a judge in Hades. Ulysses related in the Odyssey, in the account of his visit to the land of shades:

There saw I Minos, offspring famed of Jove (Zeus);
His golden sceptre in his hand, he sat
Judge of the dead; they pleading, each in turn,
His cause, some stood, some sat, filling the house,
Whose spacious folding gates were never closed. 24

It was related of Minos--the later king of that name--that his succession to the Cretan throne was disputed.

To emphasize his divine right, he stated that the gods would grant him anything he desired. Accordingly he invoked Poseidon, god of the deep, to send him a bull from the ocean, which he promised to offer up in sacrifice. When, however, the animal appeared he was so greatly fascinated by its beauty that he substituted another. Poseidon was wroth, and caused Minos to be punished by causing his wife, Pasipha to give birth to a monster, half bull and half man, called the Minotaur.

It was necessary to build a special residence for the Minotaur, to whom sacrificial offerings had to be made. Minos accordingly employed Dalus, 25 a skilled Athenian artificer, on his return from Egypt, to construct a labyrinth at Knossos, similar to the one situated near Lake Mris. When the work was accomplished Minos had Dalus confined in the Labyrinth, but he was secretly liberated by Queen Pasipha Then he procured wings for himself and his son Icarus. Together they flew over the ean, but Icarus soared so near the sun that the wax with which his wings were fastened to his body melted, and he fell into the Icarian Sea, to which his name was given. Dalus alighted without mishap at Cumin Italy, where he erected a temple to Apollo, to whom he dedicated his wings. 26

Icarus thus met a similar fate to Etana, of Babylonian fame, Nimrod in the Koran legend, and the son of the eagle giant Garuda, in the Indian epic Ramayana. Etana and Nimrod ascended on the backs of eagles, whose pinions were burnt by the sun. The Indian eagle was similarly punished for its presumption. 27

Dalus afterwards took refuge in Sicani (Sicily), where Cocalus was king. Minos fitted out a great expedition and visited Sicily in pursuit of Dalus, whom he desired to put to death.

THE THRONE OF MINOS, KNOSSOS (See description

There he was treacherously murdered by Cocalus or his daughters. A temple erected to his memory was dedicated to Aphrodite.

Minos had previously decreed that every year Athens should send to Crete seven youths and seven maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur.

This punishment was imposed upon the Athenians because they had jealously murdered Androgeos, son of Minos and Pasipha who had surpassed all his opponents at the Panathenaic games.

For two years this tribute of human lives was paid by the subject city. But at length the hero, Theseus, vowed his life to sell, For his dear Athens, which he loved so well, So that funereal ship might sail no more,
Freighted with living death to Creta's shore. 28

In the third year he sailed with the sons and daughters of the noblest families in Athens. On his arrival in Crete he was informed that he must enter the Labyrinth naked and alone, and there be devoured by the Minotaur. 29 He invoked the goddess Aphrodite, who caused a beautiful Cretan maiden to fall in love with him. This was Ariadne, daughter of Minos. She secretly gave Theseus a magic sword to slay the Minotaur, and a clue: of thread, with the aid of which the hero could be enabled to extricate himself from the Labyrinth. As he passed along the winding and intricate passages he unwound the clue. He slew the Minotaur, and thus delivered Athens from its tribute. On his return voyage he was accompanied by Ariadne, whom, however, he deserted at Naxos.

It is believed that this legend is reminiscent of a period when Athens was subject to the rule of Crete, and it had to provide male and female toreadors for the bullring at Knossos. According to the exponents of the solar myth theories, Minos was the sun and Pasiphathe moon, or the Minotaur was the sun, and the Labyrinth the sky by night, its windings being the course followed by the moon.

Hesiod, Homer, Thucydides, and Herodotus make reference to only one Minos, the son of Zeus, the great lawgiver. But Diodorus 30 and Plutarch 31 tell of a second Minos, who was the oppressor of the Athenians and the king who obtained the bull from Poseidon. Certain archeologists are of opinion that Minos was not a personal name, but a royal title which was used as is Pharaoh n the Bible, and that each Cretan ruler may have been a Minos, as each Egyptian king was an Osiris. Others hold that Minos became as popular a throne name as Rameses in Egypt and Caesar at Rome.

It was chiefly because persistent Greek legends gave recognition to Crete as the source of pre-Hellenic culture and religion that archlogists desired to excavate on that island. In the next chapter it will be found that when opportunity came to test tradition in this regard the results obtained exceeded the most sanguine expectations.

Footnotes

1 It appeared in the London Budget (which has since ceased to exist) on 17th November, 1912.
2 See Chapter I.
3 London Budget, 8th December, 1912. See also Geikie's The Deeps of the Pacific Ocean and their Origin, The Great Sea Age, Prehistoric Europe, and The Antiquity of Man in Europe.
4 Professor Hull and Professor J. W. Spencer in Sub-Oceanic Physiography of the North Atlantic Ocean (London, 1912), and Professor Hull in London Budget, 1st December, 1912.
5 During the Pleistocene Age.
6 Distribution and Origin of Life in America.
7 A vast interval--perhaps millions of years--separated the Oligocene period from even the earliest culture stages of Pleistocene times.
8 British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, pp. 110, 111.
9 Through Southern Mexico, H. Gadow (1908), and Bureau of American Ethnology, E. Forstemann, Bull. 28 (1904).
10 The Tims, Section VI.
11 19th February, 1909.
12 Section XIII.
13 The Critias, Section XV.
14 Herod., I, 173.
15 Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 248-251.
16 Ibid., pp. 349-350.
17 Between 1200 and 1190 B.C.
18 Strabo, X.
19 Thucydides, I, 4.
20 Odyssey, XIX, 170 et seq.
21 Herodotus, I, 2.
22 Ibid., IV, 45.
23 Strabo, 476.
24 Odyssey, Cowper's trans., XI, 696-700.
25 Thucydides, I, 4.
26 Virgil, Book VI.
27 Babylonian Myth and Legend, pp. 165 et seq.
28 Catullus, 64 (Martin's translation).
29 Classic Myth and Legend, pp. 182 et seq.
30 IV. 60.
31 Theseus, 20.

MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER IV

History in Myth and Legend--Schliemann's Discoveries

The Hellenes and Pelasgians--Evidence of Folk-legends--Thucydides on Cretan Origin of ean Civilization--Solar-myth Theories--Achilles and Odysseus as Sun-gods--The "Aryans" and the Iliad--Trojan War and Vedic Myths--Schliemann's Faith in Tradition--Story of his Life--Resolution in Boyhood to excavate Troy--How he became a Merchant Prince--Troy located at Hissarlik--Early Discoveries--First Treasure Hoard--Trouble with Turkish Officials--Excavations in Greece--Work at Tiryns--The Cyclopean Walls--Legends of Giant and Fairy Artisans--Hittite Method of Building--Excavations at Mycen-The Lion Gate--Ramsay's Finds in Phrygia--The Rich Mycenn Graves--"Agamemnon's Tomb"--A Famous Telegram--Later Excavations--Schliemann's Scheme to explore in Crete--Death of the Famous Excavator.

THE knowledge possessed by European scholars a generation ago regarding pre-Hellenic civilization was of slight and doubtful character. Histories of Greece devoted small space to the Heroic Age. These usually began by stating that Greece was so called by the Romans, that it had been anciently known as Hellas and embraced several States--Attica, Arcadia, Ach, Botia.--and that the term Hellas had wider significance than was attached to it in modern times, having been used to denote the country of the Hellenes wherever they might happen to be settled, so that Cyrene in North Africa and Miletus in Asia Minor, for instance, were as essentially parts of Hellas as Arcadia or Botia. It was also recognized that the Hellenes were not the earliest inhabitants of Greece proper. Before these invaders entered into possession of the country it had been divided between various "barbarous tribes", including the Pelasgi and their congeners the Caucones and Leleges. Thirlwall, among others, expressed the view "that the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni, and that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself". The Hellenes did not exterminate the aborigines, but constituted a military aristocracy. Aristotle was quoted to show that their original seat was near Dodona, in Epirus, and that they first appeared in Thessaly about 1384 B.C. It was believed that the Hellenic conquerors laid the foundation of Greek civilization.

Grote, on the other hand, declined to accept the theory that the Pelasgians constituted the sole indigenous element in Greece. "In going through historical Greece", he said, "we are compelled to accept the Hellenic aggregate with its constituent elements as a primary fact to start from. . . . By what circumstances, or out of what pre-existing elements, the aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece--the Pelasgi, the Leleges, the Kuretes, the Kaukones, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyantes, the Telchines, the Botian Thracians, the Telebo the Ephyri, the Phlegy These are names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece-extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends by the logographers and subsequent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names designated real nations may be true but here our knowledge ends. We have no well-informed witness to tell us of their times, their limits of residence, their acts, or their character; nor do we know how far they are identical with or diverse from the historical Hellenes, whom we are warranted in calling, not the first inhabitants of the country, but the first known to us upon any tolerable evidence." The attitude assumed by this cautious historian regarding the Pelasgians is still defensible in these days when different archlogists apply the term in different ways, one holding, for instance, that the Pelasgians were the eans of Mediterranean race, and another that they were a late "wave" of pre-Hellenic conquerors. Grote insisted that all Herodotus knew about the Pelasgians was that they occupied a few scattered and inconsiderable townships in historical Greece and spoke a barbarous language. 1 He pointed out, however, that our term "barbarian" does not express the same idea as the Hellenic word, "which involved associations of repugnance", although derived from it. "The Greeks", he explained, "spoke indiscriminately of the extra-Hellenic world with all its inhabitants whatever might be the gentleness of their character and whatever might be their degree of civilization". All non-Hellenes were, as the Chinese put it, "foreign devils".

Historians who were more inclined than Grote to attach weight to folk-traditions were yet unable to gather much from those of the Hellenes regarding their origin, except that they professed to have come from "the East" and claimed to be descendants of an eponymous ancestor called Hellen. The story of this patriarch and his family is given in the Hesiodic version of the World's Ages myth. When Zeus resolved to destroy the wicked Bronze Race by sending a great flood, he spared Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, who took refuge in an ark. According to one tradition, this couple, on praying to Zeus, were enabled to repeople the devastated world by throwing over their shoulders stones which were transformed into human beings. These were "the Stone Folk". Another tradition made Deucalion the ancestor of the whole Greek race, through his son Hellen, who had three children, named Dorus and lus, the ancestors of the Dorians and lians, and Xuthus, whose sons Achs and Ion, were the progenitors of the Achns and Ionians.

The period that elapsed between the early settlement of the Hellenes and the siege of Troy was called the Heroic Age, after the fourth Hesiodic Age of the World, or the Homeric Age, during which the civilization depicted in those great epics the Iliad and the Odyssey had full development.

Historians parted company when they came to deal with the prehistoric period. Thirlwall was inclined to sift historical matter from the legends. Grote, however, was frankly sceptical. "That which I note as Terra Incognita", he said, "is in his (Thirlwall's) view a land which may be known up to a certain point, but the map which he draws of it contains so few ascertained places as to differ very little from absolute vacuity." 2 Dealing with the Trojan war, he declared that, "though literally believed, reverentially cherished, and numbered among the gigantic phenomena of the past by the Grecian public, it is in the eyes of modern enquiry essentially a legend and nothing more". His answer to the question as to whether the war ever took place was: "As the possibility of it cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed". 3 We who are "wise after the event" may rail at Grote, but it must be remembered that he wrote at a time when little was known regarding ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, except what could be derived from classical writers and Biblical references. He, however, recognized that the myths had a psychological if not a historical value when he wrote: "Two courses, and two only, are open: either to pass over the myths altogether, which is the way in which modern historians treat the old British fables, or else to give an account of them as myths; to recognize and respect their specific nature, and to abstain from confounding them with ordinary and certifiable history. There are good reasons for pursuing the second method in reference to the Grecian myths, and when so considered they constitute an important chapter in the history of the Grecian mind, and, indeed, in that of the human race generally." 4 He did not agree with those, however, who believed that the Homeric picture of life was wholly fictitious. Indeed, he drew, like others, upon the epics for evidence regarding customs and manners of life in early Greek times, although he held they contained "no historical facts".

It was generally recognized that the petty states of Greece were ruled over by hereditary chiefs, whose power was limited by a military aristocracy. "Piracy was an honourable occupation," as one writer put it, "and war the delight of noble souls." Some historians added, on the authority of Thucydides, 5 that the commencement of Grecian civilization might be dated from the reign of King Minos of Crete, who had cleared the ean Sea of pirates. Grote could not, on the other hand, believe that the Minos legends had any historical value. "Here we have", he wrote, "conjectures derived from the analogy of the Athenian maritime empire of historical times, substituted in place of the fabulous incidents and attached to the name of Minos." 6

It should not surprise us that the so-called "doubting Thomases" among the historians hesitated to make use of myths and legends. Grote held that if he were to proceed with a view to detect a historical base in the stories of Troy and Thebes, he would be compelled to deal similarly with the myths of "Zeus in Crete, of Apollo and Artemis in Delos, of Hermes and of Prometheus". If Achilles was to be taken seriously, although he was of supernatural origin, what of Bellerophon, Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules? These would also have to be "handled objectively".

In time the exponents of the new science of Comparative Mythology, which at its inception was based chiefly on philological evidence, attracted much attention and impressed not a few serious students of classical history with their theory that classical legends were renderings of immemorial religious myths, the gods and goddesses having been transformed into human heroes and heroines. "In Greek mythology", it was contended, "each different aspect of nature had many different names, because a few simple elements crystallized into many different forms. This is why there are so many gods and goddesses." As much may be granted, although, as is now believed, the view is somewhat narrow. But when the theory was given practical application it led to rather too sweeping conclusions of rather fanciful character. "Zeus", wrote one authority, "is married to many different wives. The bright sky must look down on many lands. His visits to different countries are thus explained. . . . Achilles is child of the sea-goddess; so the sun often appears to rise out of the water. His bride is torn from him, and he sulks in his tent; so the sun must leave the dawn and be hidden by dark clouds. He lends his armour to Patroclus except the spear; none other can wield the spear of Achilles: so no other can equal the power of the sun's rays." And so on until the absurdity concluded with: "Achilles tramples on the dead body of Hector, but Hector is of dark powers, though noble in himself; so a blazing sunset tramples down the darkness. Finally, Achilles is slain by an arrow from a Trojan. He is vulnerable only in the heel, but the arrow finds him there. So the sun is conquered by the darkness in his turn, and disappears, a short-lived brilliant thing."

The hero of the Odyssey met a similar fate. "Odysseus is the sun in another character, as a wanderer, and his adventures describe the general phenomena of daytime from the rising to the setting of the sun. . . . His journey is full of strange changes, of happiness and misery, successes and reverses, like the lights and shadows of a gloomy day."

The Iliad, as a narrative, was regarded with contempt. "There is nothing noble or elevated in the gods or heroes", remarked one solar-symbolist, who referred to himself as "one of the advanced thinkers". "Everyone knows", he went on, with unconscious humour, "that the Iliad is a poem which tells two stories: of a war between the Greeks and Trojans to recover a Grecian woman named Helen, who had run away from her lawful husband with a Trojan hero named Paris, and carried a great treasure with her; also of the anger of Achilles, a Grecian hero, and the dreadful consequences it brought upon the Grecian army encamped upon the plains around Troy." A physical explanation of this "petty legend" had to be sought for. Professor Max Mler declared: "The siege of Troy is a repetition of the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that are robbed of their brightest treasures in the West". One of his critics and followers, Mr. Cox, remarked with much justification that this was "not quite plain", but he only added to the confusion by urging a new hypothesis. "Few will venture to deny", he remarked, with the characteristic confidence of the theorist, "that the stealing of the bright clouds of sunset by the dark powers of night, the weary search for them through the long night, the battle with the robbers, as the darkness is driven away by the advancing chariot of the lord of light, are favourite subjects with the Vedic poets." So was Greece robbed of its heroes and Troy swept out of existence. "If such a war took place", Mr. Cox argued, "it must be carried back to a time preceding the dispersion of the Aryan tribes from their original home."

But while these and other examples of what Mr. Andrew Lang has characterized as "scholarly stupidity" impressed not a few prominent men, a small band of students strenuously declined to regard the Homeric legends as products of traditional myths "based on the various phenomena of the earth and heavens". One of these was the self-educated merchant, Henry Schliemann, whose faith in Homer led him to make discoveries which have thrown a flood of light on early ean civilization, and incidentally shattered forever the theories of the solar mythologists. "The Trojan War," he wrote in 1878, "has for a long time past been regarded by many eminent scholars as a myth, of which however they vainly endeavoured to find the origin in the Vedas. But in all antiquity the siege and conquest of Ilium by the Greek army under Agamemnon was considered as an undoubted historical fact, and as such it is accepted by the great authority of Thucydides. 7 The tradition has even retained the memory of many details of that war which have been omitted by Homer. For my part, I have always firmly believed in the Trojan War; my full faith in Homer and in the tradition has never been shaken by modern criticism, and to this faith of mine I am indebted for the discovery of Troy and its treasure." 8

The story of Heinrich Schliemann's life is a fitting prelude to an account of his epoch-making discoveries in Asia Minor and Greece which "led up", as Mr. Hawes says, "to the revelations in Crete from 1900 onwards". He was born on 6th January, 1822, in the little German town of Neu Buckow, in the duchy of Mecklenberg-Schwerin, and was scarcely twelve months old when his father, a Protestant clergyman, removed to Ankershagen, near Waren. At this village the future archlogist, who was a precocious child, received impressions before he was ten years old which influenced his whole life and prompted him to achieve renown as a pioneer in the domain of pre-Hellenic research. Ankershagen was enveloped in an old-world atmosphere; it was indeed an ideal "homeland", with its antiquities, legends, and superstitions, for one of Heinrich Schliemann's temperament and mental leanings. The summer-house in the manse garden was reputed to be haunted by the ghost of his father's predecessor, Pastor von Russdorf, and near at hand was a small pond out of which each night at the stroke of twelve a spirit maid was believed to rise up, grasping a silver cup in her hand. In the village a ditch-surrounded mound--one of the kind called a Hunengrab, or "Hun's grave"--had attached to it a story about a great robber who buried in it his favourite child in a golden cradle. Legends of similar character are told regarding "giants' graves" in these islands. Treasure was also said to lie concealed under a round tower in the local land-proprietor's garden. "My faith in these treasures was so great", Schliemann wrote in after years, "that whenever I heard my father complain of his poverty, I expressed my astonishment that he did not dig up the silver bowl or the golden cradle and so become rich." 9

An ancient castle also made a strong appeal to the boy's imagination. It was supposed to have the usual long underground passage leading to somewhere, and to be visited nightly by awesome spectres. At one time, the legend ran, it was the abode of a notorious robber knight, Henning Bradenkirl, who buried his treasure and committed suicide when, revelation having been made of his designs on the life of the Duke of Mecklenberg, his stronghold was besieged by that great nobleman. Henning found no rest in his grave, and it was whispered among the young folks that time and again he had thrust out one of his legs with purpose apparently to visit the spot where his hoard was concealed. "I often begged my father", Schliemann has told, "to excavate the tomb, in order to see why the foot no longer grew out." This belief that there was a kernel of truth in ancient legends caused him ultimately to search for traces of ancient Troy, and open the graves of heroes who, according to classic narratives, had been buried with their armour and rich ornaments. "My firm faith in the traditions", he wrote in 1877, "made me undertake my late excavations in the Acropolis (of Mycen and led to the discovery of the five tombs, with their immense treasures." 10 So the boy was "father of the man".

The impecunious clergyman of Ankershagen cast over the mind of his son, Heinrich, the romantic glamour of classic myth and legend. The nursery stories he related were not of elves and giants, but of the last days of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were then being excavated and greatly talked about, and of the great deeds of Homer's heroes on the windy plain of Troy.

It was a memorable day in Heinrich's life when he received as a Christmas present, in his eighth year, an illustrated child's history of the world-one of those popular works which stimulate young minds with the desire to acquire knowledge. An engraving depicted the last scene in the siege of Troy. The "topless towers of Ilium" were wrapped in flames, and amidst the smoke and confusion the wounded warrior eas was seen taking flight, carrying his father Anchises on his broad back, and leading by the hand his son Ascanius. From that hour the spectacle of mighty Troy haunted the mind of the little German boy, and the Trojan War became as familiar to him as if it had been waged on the village green and Ankershagen, instead of Troy, had been sacked.

Heinrich failed in his attempts to impress his boy friends with glowing versions of Homer's narrative, but he infected with his enthusiasm the minds of two girl companions. One of these, Minna Meincke, a farmer's daughter, promised to marry him when she grew up, and assist him to discover the Hun robber's golden cradle, the silver cup of the pond nymph, the treasure concealed by Henning, and to accompany him to the land of dreams to explore the ruins of ancient Troy. Strange to relate, half a century afterwards, not Minna, but another who became Mrs. Henry Schliemann, actually did help her husband in his famous excavations, and one of the results of their joint labours was the finding of the most valuable treasure any archlogists have ever had the luck to uncover.

Heinrich's father intended to give him a classical education, but fell into financial difficulties, with the result that when the boy was fourteen he became apprenticed to a village grocer. At nineteen he injured himself when lifting a heavy cask, and went to Hamburg, where he secured a situation as a cabin-boy on a brig bound for Venezuela. The vessel however, was wrecked on a sand-bank off the Island of Texel during stormy weather, but fortunately the crew escaped in a small boat. Heinrich afterwards secured a situation at a Hamburg warehouse. Having a good deal of leisure time at his disposal, he studied languages with so much success that he acquired a wonderful knowledge of Dutch, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

At twenty-four he was employed by the firm of B. H. Schroder & Co., and, having by this time obtained a knowledge of Russian, he was sent to St. Petersburg. He prospered there and began to trade on his own account, dealing chiefly in indigo. At forty he found himself a millionaire. Ere he retired, however, he studied modern and ancient Greek and Latin under Professor Ludgwig von Muralt.

Having wound up his affairs, he began to travel extensively. For several months he resided in China and Japan, and wrote on his return his first book La Chine et Le Japon, which was published at Paris, where he settled down to study archlogy. The time was drawing nigh when he could visit the scenes of Homeric glory, and make search for traces of ancient Troy and the graves containing treasure. He was resolved to realize the dream of his boyhood, which he had treasured during the years so full of business anxieties and cares. "Father," he had once said, when his childish eyes were fascinated by the engraving of Troy, "if such walls once existed, they cannot possibly have been completely destroyed; vast ruins of them must still remain, but they are hidden beneath the dust of ages." His father had shaken his head, but, to pleasure the lad, admitted that it was possible, and then agreed that when they were able to do so they would both search for and excavate the ruins of the famous city.

In 1868 Schliemann paid his first visit to the scenes of his future triumphs and wrote a book entitled Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy, in which he ran counter to the theories of those contemporary scholars who believed that Troy had existed, by locating its site, not on an inland summit near Bunarbashi, but farther north and near the seashore on the top of the hillock of Hissarlik. He also announced where he believed the graves of the Atreidat Mycencould be located. For this original treatise he received his doctor's degree at Rostock.

In the spring of 1870 Dr. Schliemann put his theories to the test by beginning to dig at Hissarlik. At the depth of 16 feet the first wall was laid bare, and he was then fully convinced that success would crown his efforts. Accordingly he made preparations for excavation work on an extensive scale. The Turkish authorities hampered him greatly, however, and it was not until late in the following year that he could proceed with the work. In the following year a great depth had been reached, but although a broad trench laid bare a series of walls and a fine piece of Greek sculpture, no definite conclusions could be reached from the results, promising and suggestive as these were. Work was resumed early in 1873, when the weather was so cold that "of an evening", wrote Dr. Schliemann, "we had nothing to keep us warm except an enthusiasm for discovering Troy". The weeks went past, and at length Fortune smiled and the dreams of boyhood began to find rich realization. One day, during the dinner hour, when no workmen were near, Dr. Schliemann and his wife discovered a treasure hoard of gold and diadems and daggers, silver jars and copper vessels and weapons, which they hurriedly carried off and concealed. Its mere monetary value was not far short of 1000. During the winter Dr. Schliemann wrote an account of his discoveries which was published in book form under the title Trojan Antiquities. He had cut through several successive towns on the hillock of Hissarlik. The second city from the bottom was named by him "Homer's Troy"; he called its largest building "Priam's Palace", and the hoard he had discovered with his wife, "Priam's Treasure". Most archlogists now believe, however, that the sixth city, which was much more extensive than the second, was the capital celebrated by Homer.

Schliemann's theories were ridiculed by the "authorities" in every country in Europe. He was a "rank outsider" and regarded with suspicion by the theorists who were convinced that Troy could not possibly have been situated at Hissarlik. Comic papers made fun of him as a dreamer of vain dreams, but a few open-minded scholars were profoundly impressed and anxious for more information. Schliemann was not discouraged either by learned criticism or superficial ridicule. What concerned him most was the attitude assumed by the Turkish Government, which was not entirely free from the suspicion or blackmailing propensities. Operations at Hissarlik had to be suspended, but the undaunted pioneer did not waste his time. He turned his back upon Troy and was led to Mycen in Greek territory, by the ghost of Agamemnon. There and at Tiryns his excavations resulted in the discovery of traces of a culture similar to that found in the sixth city at Hissarlik. The results of this archlogical "campaign", which was carried on during 1876-7, were published in Mycenin 1878. A preface contributed by the late Mr. W. E. Gladstone contains several passages which reflect the interest which was aroused throughout Europe at the time by Schliemann's work. "When the disclosures at Tiryns and Mycenwere announced in England," wrote Mr. Gladstone, "my own first impression was that of a strangely bewildered admiration, combined with a preponderance of sceptical against believing tendencies, in regard to the capital and dominating subject of the Tombs in the Agora. I am bound to say that reflection and fuller knowledge have nearly turned the scales the other way. . . . I find, upon perusing the volume of Dr. Schliemann, that the items of evidence, which connect his discoveries generally with the Homeric poems, are more numerous than I had surmised from the brief outline with which he favoured us upon his visit to England in the spring." 11

Tiryns, now called Palcastron, was, according to Pausanias, named after Tiryns, a son of Argos. It was the reputed birthplace of Hercules, and famed for its Cyclopean walls. "The circuit wall," wrote Pausanias, "which is the only remaining ruin, was built by the Cyclopes. It is composed of unwrought stones, each of which is so large that a team of mules cannot even shake the smallest one: small stones have been interposed in order to consolidate the large blocks." 12

Mycenwas also reputed to have been built by these giant artisans, who numbered seven, and came from Lycia. It was probably on account of this legend that, as Schliemann suggested, the whole of the Argolis was referred to by Euripides as "Cyclopean land". Similarly, many ruins in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia were credited by tradition to Semiramis, while the Egyptian Sesostris was supposed to have erected gigantic works in various localities. This habit of accounting for ancient remains as the handiwork of mythical and semi-mythical persons was of great antiquity and widespread character. Fairies and elves and giants were supposed to have erected dolmens and stone circles. Gaelic-speaking people in Lewis at the present day, for instance, refer to the standing stones at Callernish as Tursachan, a name which has been derived from the Norse word Thurs, a giant or goblin. In Cumberland another circle is associated with the memory of the mythical giantesses "Long Meg and her daughters". Several promontories in different localities have been credited likewise to fairy artisans who were endeavouring to bridge over an arm of the sea. Thor, according to the Teutonic wonder-tales, formed valleys by smiting a mountain range with his great hammer, while the "Flint Hills" were formed by the fragments he shattered from the great flint boulder flung towards him by a giant enemy. In Scotland numerous hillocks are referred to as spillings from the creel of the giantess (Cailleach) who erected mountain houses for her children. This custom of attributing not only hills, but also buildings, to supernatural agencies has survived even into Christian times. Not a few ruins of early chapels in these islands have still associated with them folk-tales about fairy builders, who accomplished their work in a single night.

Schliemann did not attach historical importance to the legends of Hercules, who was reputed to have held sway at Tiryns for a prolonged period. Indeed, like Max Mler, he was inclined to regard the famous folk-hero as a sun-god.

THE LION GATE, MYCEN

But he was convinced that the Cyclopean walls were of great antiquity, and engaged in systematic excavations with purpose to obtain evidence which would connect the civilization of Tiryns with that of his Homeric Troy. He found a number of terra-cotta female idols, with exaggerated breasts, and terra-cotta cows, which had evidently a religious significance. These he connected with the goddess Hera. Examples of primitive pottery were also brought to light, including hand-polished black vases and bulky jars. When he reached the prehistoric strata he collected obsidian knives, whorls of blue and green stone. In some places he found the remains of walls built on the rock and of water conduits of rough unhewn stones. The stones of the ancient Cyclopean wall measured about 7 feet long and 3 feet thick in most cases, but some were of even greater dimensions.

At Mycen "situated in the depth of the horse-feeding Argos", as Homer sang, 13 Schliemann's early researches were more productive. Here he set out to prove his theory that the graves of the Atreidwere situated not outside but inside the citadel wall. He found that the wall revealed three different methods of construction, which he assigned to three separate periods. These are the Cyclopean, in which large boulders were secured by small blocks; the Polygonal, with accurately hewn joints; and the Rectangular, in which the blocks were "dovetailed".

In the north-west corner he cleared the famous "Lion's Gate". It measured 10 feet 8 inches in height, and was 9 feet 6 inches wide at the top, and 10 feet 3 inches at the bottom. The great lintel, which excited admiration, was found to be 15 feet long and 8 feet broad. At this point the wall, constructed on the Rectangular system, is composed of stones 6 and 7 feet in length, many of which are notched to fit into the corners, or jutting points, hewed in others. This system of rough "dovetailing" is characteristic of Hittite buildings. The Euphrates River wall at Carchemish, the oldest known engineering construction in the world, which has been utilized by the engineers in connection with a "Bagdad railway" bridge at this point, is a characteristic example of the Rectangular style of architecture.

Above the great lintel of the principal entrance to the Acropolis of Mycen lies the great limestone slab sculptured in relief, on which two lions rampant, heraldically opposed, rest their forepaws on the "altar" with its shapely pillar "crowned by a curious capital, composed of a fillet, moulding, roll, and abacus". Similar lion and pillar groups have been found by Professor Ramsay in Phrygia. In one instance the goddess Cybele takes the place of the pillar. "The idea of the lions as guardians of the gate arose", Professor Ramsay considers, "in a country where Cybele was worshipped, and where the dead chief was believed to be gathered to his mother, the goddess. . . . The Phrygians adapted an old heraldic type to represent the idea. . . . In the interchange of artistic forms and improvements in civilization which obtained between Phrygia and the Greeks, the lion type passed into Mycenduring the ninth, or more probably the eighth century B.C." 14

Schliemann's guide to Mycenwas Pausanias, who wrote 15 : "Amongst other remains of the wall is the gate on which stand lions. They (the walls and the gate) are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who built the wall for Proteus at Tiryns. In the ruins of Mycenis the fountain called Perseia, and the subterranean buildings of Atreus and his children, in which they stored their treasures. There is the sepulchre of Atreus, and the tombs of the companions of Agamemnon, who on their return from Ilium were killed at a banquet by isthus. The identity of the tomb of Cassandra is called in question by the Lacedonians of Amycl There is the tomb of Agamemnon and that of his charioteer Eurymedon, and of Electra. Teledamus and Pelops were buried in the same sepulchre, for it is said that Cassandra bore these twins, and that, while as yet infants, they were slaughtered by isthus together with their parents. Hellanicus (495-411 B.C.) writes that Pylades, who was married to Electra with the consent of Orestes, had by her two sons, Medon and Strophius. Clytemnestra and isthus were buried at a little distance from the wall, because they were thought unworthy to have their tombs inside of it, where Agamemnon reposed and those who were killed together with him."

This passage had been misinterpreted by certain writers, and Schliemann insisted, before he began to dig, that the wall referred to was not the city wall, as they believed, but the wall of the Acropolis. The city, besides, he argued, was in ruins in Pausanias's day (170 A.D.), and he might not have seen the remnants of the smaller city wall. Schliemann put his theory to proof by sinking a number of shafts, and then undertaking extensive excavations. When he had cleared away the debris from the Lion's Gate, some of which had been cast there when the Argives captured the Acropolis in the fifth century B.C., he found evidence that the city had been partially reoccupied after its fall, although Diodorus Siculus 16 and Strabo 17 had made statements to the contrary.

Schliemann penetrated to the lower and earlier city of Mycenand there made discovery of great "beehive tombs", which were the "Treasuries" of Pausanias.

Schliemann excavated also five shaft tombs, and believed they were those of Agamemnon and his companions, who on their return from Troy were murdered by Clytemnestra and her paramour isthus. They were of similar construction, and the burials appeared to him to have been simultaneous. "The five tombs of Mycen or, at least, three of them," he wrote, "contained such enormous treasuries that they cannot but have belonged to members of the royal family." Thousands of pounds worth of antique valuables were discovered in these mysterious underground chambers.

An immense impression was made all over Europe on the publication of the following characteristic telegram which Schliemann dispatched to the King of Greece, announcing his great discovery.

"MYCEN 16th (28th) November, 1876.

"With extreme joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which tradition, as echoed by Pausanias, designates as the sepulchre of Agamemnon, of Cassandra, of Eurymadon and their companions and their comrades, all slain during the repast by Clytemnestra and her lover isthus. These tombs were surrounded by a double parallel circle of plaques, which can only have been erected in the honour of great personages. I have found in the sepulchres immense treasures in the way of archaic objects of pure gold. These treasures of themselves are enough to fill a large museum which shall be the most marvellous in the world, and which during centuries to come will draw to Greece thousands of visitors from every country. As I work purely for the love of science, I make naturally no claim to these treasures, which I give with the liveliest enthusiasm intact to Greece. May it be God's will that these treasures will become the corner stone of an immense national wealth.

"HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN."

It is not believed nowadays that Schliemann located the tombs of Agamemnon and his followers, but happened instead on those of royal personages who flourished in a different age. The authority of Pausanias is not sufficient to settle the problem. When that distinguished writer visited the ruins of Mycenover a thousand years had elapsed since Troy had fallen. Agamemnon bulked prominently in folk-imagination, and was identified with the memorials of forgotten rulers. The process involved is a familiar one. In our own country King Arthur has similarly had attached to his memory the deeds of mythical beings who dwelt in Fairyland or selected high hills as their seats, while in the Highlands as recent a hero as Prince Charlie has been associated with hiding-places, in districts he never visited, as far north as Caithness.

But Schliemann's confident statement regarding the "tomb of Agamemnon" need not detract from the value of the services he has rendered to archlogy. In making search for traces of the heroes of his boyhood he achieved well-deserved renown as the pioneer who "opened to us the door into one of the sealed chambers of the past". He has caused early Greek history to be rewritten, and it is due to his example and triumphs that it is now possible to present a partial reconstruction of several thousand years of ean civilization.

It is indirectly to Schliemann, too, that we owe the late Mr. Andrew Lang's famous sonnet on Homeric Unity.

The sacred keep of Ilion is rent
By shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
To war with gods and heroes long ago.
Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low
In rich Mycen do the Fates relent:
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.

The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,
Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,
And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to see
The crown that burns on thine immortal head
Of indivisible supremacy.

Flushed with his Mycenn successes, Schliemann was ready to return to Troy in the summer of 1878. But his difficulties with the Turkish officials delayed him. These, however, were overcome on his behalf by another famous explorer, Sir Austen Henry Layard, of Assyrian fame, who happened to be at the time British Ambassador at Constantinople. "I fulfil a most agreeable duty", Schliemann wrote in his Ilios, "in now thanking his Excellency publicly and most cordially for all the services he has rendered me, without which I could never have brought my work to a close."

While waiting for his firman from the Turkish Government, Schliemann began operations on the Island of Ithaca, and discovered on Mount os a king's palace and nearly two hundred houses of Cyclopean construction. Then he proceeded to Troy, where he was hampered for a time by a Turkish commissioner. In the following year Professor Virchow joined him, and he received visits also from other scholars of repute. In 1880 he published his great work Ilios, Dr. Dpfeld joined him in 1882, and together they operated chiefly in the city which has now been identified with Homer's Troy. In 1884 the results of later exploration were recorded in Schliemann's Troja, to which a preface was contributed by Professor Sayce. The tireless excavator then resumed operations at Tiryns, where an ancient palace was discovered. The work was continued here in the following year by Dr. Dpfeld, who wrote several chapters in Schliemann's next book, to which a preface was contributed by Professor F. Adler.

Schliemann next turned attention to Egypt, where he excavated with Virchow with much success, and he desired also to operate in Crete, on Knossos Hill, but the political conditions on the island made systematic archlogical work in that quarter an impossibility, while the Turkish Government showed no enthusiasm regarding his proposal. It was not considered desirable that the islanders should be reminded of the greatness of their ancestors. He had therefore to abandon his scheme to make search in Crete for "the original home of Mycenn civilization."

In 1890 Dr. C. Schuchardt, Director of the Kestner Museum, in Hanover, published his critical work on Schliemann's excavations, in which he wrote: "Dr. Schliemann is now in his sixty-ninth year, but his activity and love of enterprise show no signs of decay. We may still look to him for many additions to science, and we hope to thank him for disclosing the heroic age of Greece in the periods of its prime and of its decadence, which may perhaps be found in Crete, the land of Minos." 18

On 26th December in the same year, however, Schliemann expired suddenly in Naples. His body was taken to Athens and buried in the Greek cemetery near the Ilissos, a lofty monument being erected to his memory. "He lies", writes Mr. Sellers, "in the land he loved so well; but the example of noble ambition and patient research which he set before the world will long abide as a living spirit, not only among archlogists, but among all who anywhere in the civilized world have caught something of his devotion and enthusiasm for classical learning and antiquity."

Among the honours conferred upon the great man during the closing years of his life was the degree of D.C.L. of Oxford and the fellowship of Queen's College. The Royal Institute of British Architects awarded him a gold medal, in which he took great pride. It is of interest to note that he was a naturalized American citizen.

Footnotes

1 History of Greece, Vol. II, pp. 350 et seq.
2 History of Greece, Vol. II, p. 358.
3 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 434-5.
4 History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 65
5 History of the Peloponnesian War, I, 3-4.
6 History of Greece, Vol. I, p. 311.
7 Thucydides, I, 8, 10.
8 Mycen p. 334.
9 Ilios, pp. 1 et seq.
10 Mycenpp. 335.
11 Mycen Preface, p, vi.
12 Pausanias, II, 25, 8, and Mycen pp. 2-3.
13 Odyssey, III, 163.
14 Journal of the Hellenic Society, Vol. V, p. 242.
15 Pausanias, II, 16, 6, and Mycen pp. 59, 60.
16 XI, 65.
17 VIII, p. 372.
18 Schliemann's Excavations, translated by E. Sellers, p. 16.

MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER III

Ancient Peoples of the Goddess Cult

Crete and Pallithic Man--Traces in Malta, Egypt, Palestine, and Phoenicia--Links between Pallithic and Neolithic Ages--Azilian Culture in France, Denmark, and Britain--Evidence of Geology and Folk--tales--Pallithic Types in Modern England--Coming of Neolithic Man of Mediterranean Race--The Cretan Snake--goddess, Dove--goddess, and "Lady of Wild Creatures"--The "Mother" of Crete--Identified with Rhea--Primitive Goddesses as Destroyers--Black Annis of England and Black Kali of India--The Black, Green, and Yellow Demeter (Ceres)--The Green Neith of Libya--Babylonian Labartu and Black Scoto-Irish Hag--The "Terrible" Sekhet of Egypt--Tree and Mountain Worship--Oak and Maypole and "Swain Motes"--Earth Oaths in Greece and Scotland--The Greek Ga--Cailleach and Artemis--Wind Hags--Goddess Cult and Status of Women--Process of Myth-making.

No Pallithic skulls have been yet discovered in Crete, although traces have been forthcoming of an early stage of culture not unlike the Azilian. As the island was at one time connected with the mainland, it may be that the bones of the early races and the animals associated with them lie buried in the ean Sea, which, during the Inter-glacial periods, was a broad plain watered by noble rivers and covered by dense forests. The extensive land depression along the North African coast has similarly hidden from us the secrets of prehistoric Libya.

In Malta, where ancient sites favoured by man Were liable to less disturbance by builders than in Crete, skulls of the middle Pallithic periods have been discovered. There are eleven specimens from Hal Saflieni in the Valetta museum. Some are of mixed types, but two have distinct Mousterian characteristics and especially the protruding brow ridges which distinguished the men of the Third Glacial Period.

One skull from Hagiar Kim has negroid traits and appears to link with those found in the Grimaldi cave near Mentone. As has been stated, steatopygous figures have been taken from Neolithic Maltese graves and sanctuaries, a sure indication that the Aurignacian proto-Bushmen were known to the early settlers of the Mediterranean race. Some of these figures are nude and others wear the flounced gown usually called "Cretan", and it is of interest to note here that they are associated among burial relics with perforated axe amulets of polished stone. No Cro-Magnon skulls have been discovered in Malta, but some race quite as tall must have mingled there with the early Neolithic folk. A male skeleton found at Santa Verna measures 5 feet 9 inches in length. "The man was of a noble type," writes an excavator; "he must have stood 6 feet high, his skull is massive and shapely, the jaws and teeth are even and regular, and the limbs powerful." 1 The Mediterranean Neolithic man was of slight build and medium stature.

The earliest Cretans were of the Mediterranean racial type, but among them were alien broad-heads. Ere the Neolithic folks settled on the island they came into contact, apparently, with mountaineers from the north, or descendants of Pallithic races. Steatopygous figurines have been found in Cretan Neolithic strata.

In Egypt there was no hiatus between the Pallithic and Neolithic Ages. Not only have steatopygous figurines been found in pre-Dynastic Egyptian and Nubian graves, but also flints which show that the artifacts of the later period were developed from those of the earlier. A reference to the "Smiting of the Troglodytes" on the Palermo stone of the First Dynasty may refer to descendants of the Pallithic cave-dwellers.

Palestine, the high road from Egypt into eastern Europe, has yielded numerous relics of the early stages of culture. Chellean and Acheulian flints "have been picked up on the maritime plain, in yet greater numbers on the plateau south of Jerusalem, and in considerable quantities in the region to the south of Amman, east of Jordan. Some have also been discovered far to the south, in the region of Petra." Professor Macalister, from whom we quote, notes that "Pallithic man in Palestine missed, however, the higher developments attained by his brother in France". Mousterian cave-settlements in Phoenicia have yielded characteristic flints and bone instruments, including needles. Dr. Max Blanckenhorn has assigned the date 10,000 B.C. to the earliest Neolithic settlement in this region. Sherds of pottery have been discovered in the Phnician cave of Harajel "side by side with the bones of extinct fauna, especially the woolly rhinoceros". In the natural Gezer caves of a later age finds have been made of "rude pottery, ornamented with coarse moulding or roughly painted red lines; flint flakes, knives and scrapers; millstones; rounded stone pebbles, that could be used for a variety of purposes-hearth stones; heating stones; missiles; polishers.", and "an amulet or two of bone or slate, perforated for suspension". 2

In France the most remarkable link between the Pallithic and later ages is formed by the Cro-Magnon racial type which first appeared in the Dordogne valley in the Aurignacian Period, before the Fourth Glacial Epoch. The "most curious and significant trait" of these people is that they have long heads and broad faces: that is, they have skulls with Mediterranean characteristics and faces which resemble those of the broad-headed Armenoids of the mountains. Summarizing the evidence of Dr. Collignon regarding the present-day inhabitants of the Dordogne valley, Professor Ripley says: "The people we have described above agree in physical characteristics with but one other type of men known to anthropologists. This is the celebrated Cro-Magnon race, long ago identified by archlogists as having inhabited the south-west of Europe in prehistoric times." Varieties of the type have occurred owing to the proximity of other races, but it is still common and easily detected. Individuals with the Cro-Magnon skull and "disharmonic face" are also found among present-day Berbers. 3 Skeletons of Cro-Magnon man of the Pallithic Period have been found as far north as Belgium. Dr. Schliz finds traces at the present time of Cro-Magnon man throughout western Europe, and believes that even the Neanderthal-Spy (Mousterian) type has also left a slight but recognizable impress. 4 The high average stature and weight of the Scottish people, which has long puzzled ethnologists, may be due to a strong Pallithic intermixture in early Neolithic times. The evidence obtained from the Glasgow graveyard, referred to in the Introduction, is suggestive in this connection.

Interesting evidence has been forthcoming at Mas d'Azil, in France, of the transition period between the late Pallithic and early Neolithic culture. This stage of culture is called Azilian. It was of long continuance. Artifacts called "Azilian" found in Scotland may have been separated by a considerable period of time from those discovered at Mas d'Azil. Cro-Magnon and Magdalenian men lived through and survived the Fourth Glacial Epoch. Then during the subsequent period of minor oscillations of climate the reindeer and other animals of the chase migrated northwards. These were followed, it would appear, by the huntsmen, a proportion of whom, however, remained behind and adopted new habits of life. As the Cro-Magnon folks of the Dordogne valley had domesticated animals, they no doubt found the struggle for existence in the homeland less arduous than their contemporaries, the small men of Magdalenian culture, who were hunters and fishermen and naught else.

Subsequent to the Fourth Glacial Period there was a re-elevation of land, and the Magdalenian wanderers were able to walk over the bed of the English Channel. The reindeer entered the British Isles also and survived in Scotland until the Middle Ages. A deer-horn implement, carved with a scene of the chase, which was picked up on the slopes of Ben Wyvis, was shown to the writer shortly after it was discovered. It lay for several years in the vestibule of a Dingwall hotel, but unfortunately has gone amissing. It appears to have been a relic of Pallithic culture of the late period which must be assigned to it in northern Highlands. The carving had Magdalenian characteristics.

Professor James Geikie shows that after the Fourth Glacial Epoch genial conditions prevailed in Scotland. This is the period of the great forests, relics of which are embedded in peat mosses. He terms it "Lower Forestian". A cold period followed and glaciers once again descended from the mountains, and some of these were not melted before they touched the sea. The forests decayed and the peat formed above the great trees which perished as each succeeding winter grew colder and each succeeding summer shorter and wetter. Meanwhile the land sunk and the sea washed round the 45 to 50 feet beaches. Another Inter-glacial Period followed, during which the forests again flourished. It constitutes Geikie's "Upper Forestian" Epoch. The last, or sixth, Glacial Period followed, with its small and local glaciers, during which the land sunk again, and the later peat beds covered great fallen trees. Thereafter the present Age was inaugurated by the raising of the land to more or less its present level with a gradual improvement of the climate.

Traces of man in the Azillan stage of culture have been found in Scotland. 5 The MacArthur cave, which overlooks Oban, was inhabited when the sea was 30 feet above its present level, and the Highland troglodytes--the earliest visitors--who were hunters and fishermen, left behind bone and horn implements, including the Azilian harpoon invented during the Magdalenian stage of culture of the Fourth Glacial Epoch in southern France. At Stirling harpoons of the same type were utilized at a period when whales spouted not far from the castle rock. Of late an interesting cave-dwelling, excavated at Rosemarkie in the Black Isle, has yielded a variety of bone and other implements, and human remains. A large fire-place, with upright smoke-blackened stones and surrounded by a cobbled floor, was laid bare. The cave is situated about 15 feet above the present sea-level.

Associated with these caves and other early settlements, chiefly on the ridges of the old coast-lines, are heaps of shells. These have been found as far north as Caithness. 6

Those early settlers, of the "river-bed" race, are believed to be of the same mixed stock, surviving from Pallithic times, as the famous "beach-combers" of the Danish "kitchen middens". When the earliest Mediterranean racial pioneers of the Neolithic Age entered these islands, they met and mingled with the troglodytes who are referred to in Gaelic folk-tales. 7

"It may quite well be", says Professor James Geikie, that Neolithic man appeared in southern Europe before Pallithic man had vanished from the Pyrenean region, and the two races may possibly have here come into contact." Most archlogists have abandoned the old hiatus theory. Dr. Robert Munro argues, after reviewing the latest evidence, that in Europe there was "no break in the continuity of human occupation from late Pallithic to Neolithic times", and accepts Dr. Keith's view that "Pallithic blood is as rife in the British people of today as in those of the European continent". 8 Dr. Keith finds everywhere in England numerous representatives of the "river-bed" Pallithic folks.

The Neolithic folks, who came into contact with the remnants of the Pallithic races in various parts of Europe, were representatives of the widespread Mediterranean or Brown Race. They were men of medium stature, with long heads and high but narrow foreheads, refined faces, dark eyes and hair, and slim bodies. Their brunette complexions suggest that their area of characterization was on the North African coast. Some ethnologists incline to the view that the homeland of this stock was Somaliland, the Punt of the Egyptian records, which, like Arabia, favoured the production of a larger population than it was capable of sustaining permanently. In Egypt they adopted the agricultural mode of life long before the dawn of history. Periodic folk-waves, drifting westward and east, entered Europe across the Straits of Gibraltar and through Palestine and Asia Minor by the coast-line route. In the process of time they overspread southern, central, and western Europe, and entered the British Isles. Probably they crossed over to Ireland from Scotland. Their burial customs indicate that their religious beliefs were well developed prior to the period of "folk-wandering". The Neolithic graves in Europe and Africa are constructed on similar lines, and the great majority of the skeletons they contain are remarkable for their uniformity of type. "So striking", writes Professor Elliot Smith, "is the family likeness between the early Neolithic peoples of the British Isles and the Mediterranean and the bulk of the population, both ancient and modern, of Egypt and East Africa, that the description of the bones of an Early Briton of that remote epoch might apply in all essential details to an inhabitant of Somaliland." 9

It is not necessary to assume that they waged a war of extermination against the Pallithic huntsmen and fishermen of Europe, so as to account for their ultimate superiority of numbers. Their pastoral and agricultural mode of life made it possible for them to live in larger communities and prosper in smaller areas than the Pallithic huntsman, whose activities had necessarily to extend over wide stretches of country. At any rate, they never overcame the Dordogne valley men of Cro-Magnon type. It is possible that in districts in western Europe, as well as in the British Isles, the Neolithic and late Pallithic peoples formed mixed communities.

THE SNAKE GODDESS OF CRETE

From the painting by John Duncan, A.R.S.A.

Dr. Robert Munro suggests that the latter became the servants and "clodhoppers" of the agriculturists.

The Neolithic, like the late Pallithic peoples, were goddess-worshippers. They believed that the "Great Mother" had given origin to the world, the gods, the demons, and the races of mankind. In the various countries in which early Neolithic civilization was developed traces still survive of this early belief, and it will be found that the conception of the "Great Mother" is as varied as were the degrees of culture attained by the separated communities of common stock. Primitive ideas appear to have persisted longer in isolated districts where ethnic disturbances were least frequent and habits of life less liable to undergo change.

In Crete there were three outstanding forms of the mother-goddess-the snake-goddess, the dove-goddess, and the "lady of wild creatures". These may have been different forms of an original deity, or representative of a group composed of mother and daughters. As in Egypt and Babylonia, it is found that the one goddess tends to absorb the attributes of the other. It is possible that the Mother was supposed to manifest herself in different forms, at different seasons, and in different districts, and that one of the results of local ritualistic development was to emphasize a particular form of the original deity. But there can be no doubt that the conception of the Mother was an essential part of the Cretan faith.

The great goddess was depicted wearing a flounced gown suspended from her slim waist, round which a girdle is clasped (Chapter VI). The upper part of the body is bare, and she has enormous breasts. Sometimes she stands on a mountain top, guarded by two great lions, and sometimes she is seated beside trees or plants. In addition to the lions, her wild animals include the wild goat, the horned sheep, the bull, the red deer, the snake, and the dove; and among the symbols associated with her are the horns of the bull, the double axe, the sacred pillar, the moon crescent, and a staff or wand. She was apparently a goddess of death, battle, fertility, and the chase. Offerings were made to her in a mountain-cave she was supposed to inhabit.

It must be recognized at the outset that this ancient deity, like others of her kind, was not necessarily an attractive personality. Our conception of her must not be based solely on Greek sculpture, for instance. She is believed to be identical with Rhea, the mother of Vesta, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus, and that deity was depicted by Phidias as a benign mother of great dignity and tenderness and beauty. The original mother was worshipped and propitiated because she was feared. She was the Fate who measured the lives of men, who sent disasters as well as blessings, and was associated with lions and snakes as well as doves and deer. Withal, she was a voluptuous wanton. Like the Babylonian Ishtar, who was the lover of Gilgamish in one hour and his unrelenting enemy in the next, she was fickle and changeable as the wind and the seasons. She gloried with callous heart in her power to destroy, and was untouched by tender emotions for mankind, when--

Looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.

Greek mythology, in which the beliefs of various ethnic elements were fused, and savage traditions were ultimately transformed by philosophic speculations, survives to us mainly as the product of a cultured Age. But the poets and artists did not divest it wholly of its primitive traits. it is now generally recognized that the savagery of Cronus is not mere symbolism, or the wrath of Artemis, who required the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden, simply a myth based on natural phenomena and not a reflection of "old unhappy far-off things"--a reminiscence of primitive rites performed to propitiate a bloodthirsty deity.

In those parts of ancient Europe in which ancient rites were perpetuated till a comparatively late period the worship of pagan deities was a gloomy memory. The Irish Cromm Cruaich put prostrated hosts under "deadly disgrace" before his golden image--

To him without glory
They would kill their piteous, wretched offspring,
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.

Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
In return for one-third of their healthy issue:
Great was the horror and the scare of him. 10

The mother-goddess of ancient Europe was similarly remembered as a devourer of children. She survives in English folk-lore as a fierce demon. In Leicestershire she is Black Annis, who is associated with the Easter "hare hunt", and has a "cat Anna" form. The earliest reference to her appears in the following extract from an eighteenth-century title-deed: "All that close or parcel of land commonly called or known by the name 'Black Anny's Bower Close'."

It must not be assumed, however, that Black Annis was a comparatively recent importation. She appears to be of as great antiquity as the customs associated with her name. It is impossible to limit the age of these and other customs and beliefs which survive to the present day, not only in rural districts, but even in cities and among the cultured classes, after so many centuries of Christian teaching. If they have persisted so long, in spite of the combined influences of Church, printing-press, and school, like rank weeds among flowers, for how long a period, it may be asked, did they flourish before they were condemned and shown to be unworthy of civilized communities? There can be little doubt that some have been inherited from the earliest settlers in these islands, who brought from the Continent in one of the Inter-glacial Epochs, and again in the Late Stone Age, the prototypes of the charms like the lucky pigs which now dangle from watch-chains and the mascots that figure on motor-cars and aeroplanes as they once figured on coracles, and boats hollowed from trunks of trees.

It is not to be marvelled at that the ancient goddess should be remembered in Leicester district. The city's name is fragrant with ancient memories. It was called after Llyr, the British sea-god, 11 who became the King Lear of the legend on which one of Shakespeare's great dramas was based. "He (King Lear) it was", wrote Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, "that builded the city on the River Soar, that in the British is called Kaerleir, but in the Saxon Leicester (Leirchester)." 12

Black Annis Bower was a cave upon the Dane Hills, 13 which, during the past century, became filled up with earth. Over the cave grew an oak-tree, in the branches of which the bag was wont to conceal herself so that she might pounce out unawares and seize human victims, especially children. A local poet has immortalized the hag and her cave:

An oak, the pride of all the mossy dell,
Spreads its broad arms above the stony cell;
And many a bush, with hostile thorns arrayed,
Forbids the secret cavern to invade.

Here Black Annis "held her solitary reign, the dread and wonder of the neighbouring plain". Shepherds attributed to her the loss of lambs, and mothers their loss of children. According to a local writer, the children of a past generation "who went to run on Dane Hills were assured that Black Anna lay in wait there to snatch them away to her 'bower'."

"Oft the gaunt maid the frantic mother cursed",

sang the poet, who has left the following interesting description of the hag:--

'T is said the soul of mortal man recoiled
To view Black Annis' eye, so fierce and wild.
Vast talons, foul with human flesh, there grew
In place of hands, and features livid blue
Glar'd in her visage; whilst the obscene waist
Warm skins of human victims close embraced. 14

She appears to be identical with the "Yellow Muilearteach" of Gaelic legend:

Her face was blue black of the lustre of coal,
And her bone-tufted tooth was like red rust.
In her head was one deep pool-like eye
Swifter than a star in a winter sky. 15

Another description of her runs:

The name of the dauntless spectre
Was the bald-red, white-maned Muilearteach.
Her face was dark-grey of the hue of coals,
The teeth of her jaw were slanting red;
There was one flabby eye in her head
That quicker moved than lure pursuing mackerel.
Her head bristled dark and grey,
Like scrubwood before hoar-frost.

But the Scoto-Irish hag did not wear "warm skins of human victims".

Oscar caught
The embroidered skirt that was round her body;
They took the apple from the wretch.

She had also a "girdle" like Aphrodite. 16 In India there is a ferocious goddess, who resembles Annis of Leicester. This is Black Kali. She is usually depicted dancing the "dance of fertility", like the Aurignacian and Bushman deities. Modern artists have given her normal eyes, but have retained also the primitive forehead eye. She wears a necklace of human or giant heads, and from her girdle dangle the hands and skins of victims. It would appear that Kali, whose body was smeared with the sacrificial blood, was a form of the earth-goddess; her harvest form was Jagadgauri, the yellow woman; while as the love and fertility deity she was the beautiful Lakshmi or Sri, she was Durga as the goddess of war. 17 The Greek goddess Demeter was black at Phigalia (Chapter VIII), but the ancient black statue of her was only a memory in the days of Pausanias. No doubt the rites associated with her worship were abandoned when "old times had gone and manners changed". Still the memory of Black Demeter survived as the mother of Persephone, the young corn-goddess. The "Green Demeter" was the green corn, and the "yellow Demeter" the ripened harvest grain. As the Roman Ceres her name is perpetuated in cereals--the gifts of the goddess. 18

The Libyan goddess Neith was depicted with a green face. Her symbols included the "shuttle" or thunderbolt, the bow and arrows of deities of fertility, lightning, rain, and war. In Babylonia, where the demoniac forms of gods and goddesses were perpetuated in metrical charms and incantations, the "Labartu" (Sumerian "Dimme") was a female demon. She resembled the English Annis and the Scoto-Irish Muilearteach. This primitive goddess haunted mountain and marsh, and devoured stray children who were not protected against her by wearing magical charms attached to neck-cords. The Egyptian Sekhet-Hathor was similarly a destroyer. In her primitive lion-headed Sekhet form, crowned with the solar disk and urs serpent, she was sometimes depicted with a naked dagger grasped tightly in her right hand, and sometimes with a magic wand. Isis-Hathor, who personified all the goddesses of Egypt in late times, is referred to significantly in a Philae text as follows:--

Kindly is she as Bast (the cat-goddess)
Terrible is she as Sekhet. 19

The association of the Cretan mother-goddess with trees and mountains will be dealt with more intimately in a later chapter. Here, however, it is of interest to note that the demoniac English deity, Black Annis, was a tree as well as a cave deity. Offerings of children were probably made to her in the archlogical Hunting Period, as they were to the Irish Cromm Cruaich in the Agricultural Period in return for milk and corn. The oak in Leicestershire was reverenced as the habitation of the goddess. In Charnwood Forest the "copt oak" was a "trysting-place in olden time". It was long "a place of assembly. . . . Swain motes (courts for the common people) were held for regulation of rights and claims on the forest." In the Highlands Gaelic-speaking people who attend a court at the present day refer to it as a "mote". Trials were conducted at these assemblies, and it is not surprising to find that near the Leicestershire "swain's hill" is situated "Hangman's Stone". "Royal Oak Day" (May 29th) is the "May Day" for Leicestershire children.

In early times the maypole, usually made of oak, was the symbol of authority and justice, as well as of fertility. "The column of May", suggests one writer on the subject, "was the great standard of justice in the Ey Commons, or Fields of May. Here it was that the people, if they saw cause, deposed or punished their governors, their barons, or their kings." When the maypole was brought from the forest the youths and maidens joined in singing songs, of which the chorus was: "We have brought the Summer home". 20 Scrimmages took place between youths who were attired to represent winter and spring. A seventeenth-century writer says that "a company of yonkers, on May-day morning, before day, went into the country to fetch home a maypole with drumme and trumpet, whereat the neighbouring inhabitants were affrighted, supposing some enemies had landed to sack them. The pole being thus brought home and set up, they began to drink healths about it till they could not stand so steady as the pole did." 21 The maypole customs and the "motes" held under oak-trees are evidently relics of tree-worship. Probably the human representative of the Cretan goddess, seated below her tree, dispensed justice and ushered in the season of fertility and growth, like the May Queen.

In Scotland., where there are "motes" also, it is found that certain "church lands" were anciently associated with magical and religious ceremonies. 22 Twisting paths leading to wells and hillocks remain as "rights of way". It is of interest to find, too, that the habit of swearing by the earth was also prevalent. In a Gaelic story it is related that when the heroes formed a compact to avenge insults and injuries suffered by one of their number they "lifted a little piece of earth and shouted 'Vengeance'". They thus effected a ceremonial connection with the Earth Mother. In Greece "the most current formula of the public oath, when a treaty was to be ratified or an alliance cemented, was", writes Dr. Farnell, "the invocation of Zeus, Helios, and Ge (the Earth Mother). "And doubtless", he adds, "one of the earliest forms of oath taken was some kind of primitive communion, whereby both parties place themselves in sacred contact with some divine force." 23

Ge or Gaia was a vague and ancient deity who was sometimes identified with the "earth snake". She was the mother of Titans, Cyclopes, and Hecatoncheires. Similarly the Scoto-Irish hag known as "Cailleach" (old wife), "Grey Eyebrows", "Muilearteach"., was mother of the giants (Fomorians) who had monstrous forms, and against whom gods and mortals waged war. A black lamb was offered to Gaia. The Cailleach was apparently offered the "black boar", or the "green boar", slain by the heroes of folk-tales.

As the Earth Mother was sworn by, she must have been conceived of as an active force, capable of assuming concrete form. Rhea, Demeter, Artemis, and other deities were probably forms or manifestations of her at various seasons.

The Cailleach, with blue-black face and roaring mouth, appears to have been recognized in her Muilearteach form as the spirit of tempest on sea and land. As the mountain-spirit of the Hunting Period she moved restlessly among the hills, followed by herds of wild animals, including deer, goats, and swine. In her right hand she grasped a "hammer", or "magic wand", like the gigantic Cretan goddess on her lion-supported mountain-peak. When standing-stones were struck with the "magic wand", they were immediately transformed into giant warriors, fully armed and ready for battle. After throwing away this, her symbol of fertility and authority, the Cailleach herself was transformed into a standing-stone "looking over the sea". She was also associated with rivers and lakes and overflowing wells.

This hag, who, according to one folk-tale, "existed from the long eternity of the world", was not only the mother of giants but also the ancestress of the various tribes of mankind. In Ireland she appears to have been the earlier Danu, the mother of the Danann gods and people, and Anu, the mountain-hag associated with "the Paps of Anu". As the "Old Woman of Beare" she had "seven periods of youth one after another", writes Professor Kuno Meyer, "so that every man who had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races". 24 In several stories she appears before a hero as a repulsive hag and suddenly transforms herself into a beautiful girl.

As the patroness of wild animals the Cailleach resembles Artemis, whom Browning, like certain of the Greek poets, idealized and consequently robbed of her primitive savage character.

I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace,
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and foxbitch sleek
And every feathered mother's callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.

Artemis occasionally appeared in the form of a hare, a hind, or a bear. As a goddess of the chase she might be depicted seated on the back of a stag or standing with bow in hand beside a hill surmounted by a boar's head. Human sacrifices appear to have been offered to her, and myths were formed in the process of time to justify the substitution of wild animals for girls and lads. Spartan boys were flogged and sprinkled with blood at rites connected with Artemis worship. As a wind-goddess she demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter when the fleet assembled at Aulis in Botia ready to sail against Troy. The Scoto-Irish Cailleach had similarly control over the winds, as had also the hags who "brewed breezes" on Jochgrimm mountain in Tyrol. Artemis haunted the mountains Erymanthus and Taygetus and the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia. It was in Crete that she was fabled to have slain the giant Orion because he loved her.

It will be seen that the idea of the mother-goddess prevailed in ancient times from India to Ireland and throughout Egypt. Although she was closely associated with the Mediterranean or Brown Race, which included the Neolithic Europeans, the proto-Egyptians, the Sumerians, Southern Persians, and Aryo-Indians, she was also a conspicuous figure in the Late Pallithic Period. Long before the ideal types of her had evolved in Greece, she was a terror-inspiring conception among the common people. In isolated areas, which were untouched by Greek idealism, her memory was perpetuated as a repulsive and blood-thirsty hag who terrorized the people and demanded annual dues of human and animal victims. She was associated with the worship of stones, trees, wild animals, wells and rivers, mountains and mounds. As an earth-goddess she was a deity of death, destruction, fertility, and growth; hunters preyed on her flocks and had accordingly to propitiate her; pastoralists made offerings to her to secure the supply of grass, and the agricultural peoples recognized her as the mother of the corn-spirits, male and female. She reflected the culture of various stages of human development, and she assumed the character of the various communities who developed the ritual of her worship; she also mirrored the natural phenomena of the different countries in which she received recognition. Yet she was never wholly divested of her primitive traits. As in Aurignacian times, she remained as the Mother who was the ancestress of all and the source of good and evil, or luck and misfortune. In Crete she was well developed before the earliest island settlers began to carve her images on gems and seals or depict them in frescoes. She symbolized the island and its social life and organization. The Cretans, according to Plutarch, spoke of Crete as their motherland and not their fatherland.

As the mother-goddess in her various forms reflected the habits of life and the degree of civilization attained by her worshippers, it is possible also that the prominence given to the female principle in religious life caused women to be held in higher esteem than among the peoples of the god cult. Mr. J. R. Hall, in his Ancient History in the Far East, referring to the social status of the women in Crete, says that "it is certain they must have lived on a footing of greater equality with men than in any other ancient civilization. . . . We see in the frescoes of Knossos conclusive indications of an open and free association of men and women, corresponding to our idea of 'Society', at the Minoan Court, unparalleled till our own day." Car remarked on the matriarchal conditions which prevailed in certain parts of ancient Britain. Among the Scottish Picts descent was reckoned by the female line, as in the royal families of Egypt and southern European states. It is possible that in Aurignacian times the women of the tribes similarly exercised considerable influence. They appear to have been prominent in the performance of magical and religious rites. Indeed, it is the opinion of some anthropologists, like Bachofen, that women exercised a greater influence than men in developing primitive religious ideas. "Wherever", he comments "gyncracy meets us, the mystery of religion is bound up with it, and lends to motherhood an incorporation of some divinity." 25 The evidence gleaned from certain folktales suggests that women trained young huntsmen and warriors to perform feats of strength and skill. When the Irish Cuchullin visited Alban, to complete his military education, he was tested by an Amazon. Brynhild, of Iceland fame, like Brunhild of the Nibelungenlied, overcame many warriors ere she was won.

The comparative evidence dealt with in this chapter emphasizes the fact that in dealing with the Cretan and pre-Hellenic deities account must be taken of the primitive modes of thought which are traceable n the accumulated myths and legends attached to them. In the process of myth-making many influences were at work. Historical happenings had to be dealt with as well as the experiences of everyday life in a new environment. The growth of civilization changed the character of religious beliefs also. When old savage practices were abandoned, myths were framed to justify innovations, as when, for instance, the innocent girl Iphigenia was to be sacrificed to Artemis but was substituted by a stag. It was related that the goddess carried her off in a cloud and decided that she should become a priestess. The practice of offering up strangers in sacrifice obtained probably when a community began to abhor the idea of offering up one of its own members.

In the next chapter it will be shown how the study of ancient myths has led to the discovery of those traces of ancient civilization in Crete and the ean which has made it possible to reconstruct two thousand years of pre-Hellenic civilization.

Footnotes

1 Malta and the Mediterranean Race, R. N. Bradley, pp. 72 et seq.
2 History of Civilization in Palestine, pp. 9 et seq.
3 The Races of Europe, pp. 172 et seq.
4 Archiv f Anthropologie, Band 351 St. 239 et seq.
5 For earlier traces of Pallithic man see The Stone Ages in North Britain and Ireland, by Rev. Frederick Smith (London & Glasgow, 1909). Dr. A. H. Keane calls the author the "Boucher de Perthes of Scotland".
6 Huxley & Laing's Prehistoric Remains in Caithness (London, 1886).
7 A cave-dweller in a Fingalian story is called Ciofach Mac a' Ghoill ("Ciofach, son of the stranger"). Another version refers to him as Ciuthach (pronounce "Kew'-ach"). Dealing with the legend of the Ciuthach, Professor W. J. Watson considers that he was a hero "of a different race from the Gael" (Celtic Review, January, 1914).
8 Prehistoric Britain, p. 234. (London, 1914 ).
9 The Ancient Egyptians, p. 58.
10 Celtic Myth and Legend, p. 39.
11 Celtic Myth and Legend, pp. 252 et seq.
12 "Kaer" and "Chester" signify cities. London was "Kaer-lud", called after the god Lud, whose name lingers also in "Ludgate".
13 It is suggested that "Dane" is a corruption of the Celtic "Danann".
14 County Folk-lore (Leicestershire and Rutland), by C. J. Billson, Vol. I., London, 1895 (Folk-lore Society's Publications).
15 Campbell's West Highland Tales, Vol. III, p. 138.
16 Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, Vol. IV, pp. 142 et seq. (London, 1891).
17 Indian Myth and Legend, pp. xl. and 149-50.
18 Golden Bough ("Spirits of the Corn and the Wild"), Vol. I, pp. 35 et seq. (third edition).
19 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, p. 138 (London, 1897).
20 Quoted in County Folk-lore, Vol. I, pp. 29 et seq.
21 Brand's Antiquities, Vol. I, pp. 238 et seq.
22 According to Caesar, the Druids of Gaul held sessions at consecrated places of meeting which, from other sources, we learn were called nemeta. In old Irish the term appears as nemed, and in modern Scottish Gaelic it is neimhidh, which signifies "church land". The English rendering is Navity or Nevity.--Professor W. J. Watson in Celtic Review (1915), Vol. X, pp. 263 et seq.
23 Cults of the Greek States, Vol. III, p. 5.
24 Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 88.
25 Das Mutterrecht, p. xv.

MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER I

Primitive Europeans of the Glacial and Inter-glacial Periods

Geological and Mythical Ages of the World--Myths as Products of Environment--The Deluge and Great Winter Legends--New World Cataclysms--Doctrines of Decadence and Evolution in World's Ages Myths--Sages of the "Wandering Jew" Type--The Monsters of Geology and Mythology--Story of the Pleistocene Age--First Glacial Period--Mauer (Heidelberg) Man--Second Glacial Period--The Age of Chellean Culture--The Piltdown Skull--Acheulian Culture Stage--Third Glacial Period and Mousterian Man--Cro--Magnon Race and Grimaldi "Bushmen"--Aurignacian Cave Pictures and Beliefs--Solutrean Culture--Fourth Glacial Period and Magdalenian Man--The Problem of Eoliths--Approximate Duration of Pallithic Age.

THE system which obtains among modern scientists, of dividing the history of the earth into geological epochs and the pre-history of man into cultural periods, was anticipated by the priestly theorists of ancient civilizations, who established the doctrine of the mythical Ages of the World. These early teachers were:, no doubt, as greatly concerned about justifying their own pretensions and the tenets of their cults as in gratifying the growing thirst for knowledge among the educated classes. When they undertook to reveal the process of creation and throw light on the origin and purpose of mankind, they exalted local deities in opposition to those regarded supreme at rival centres of culture and political influence. Many rival systems of a national religion were thus perpetuated. But the various city priesthoods of a particular country found it necessary to deal also with problems of common concern. Among other things, they had to account for the various races of whom they had knowledge and to give divine sanction to existing social conditions; nor could they overlook the accidental discoveries which were occasionally made of the relics of elder and unknown peoples and the bones of extinct animals.

These mythology-makers, of course, possessed but meager knowledge of their country's past, and were accordingly compelled to draw freely upon their imaginations; but they should not be regarded on that account as merely dreamers of dreams and inventors of miraculous stories. Indications are forthcoming which show that they were not wholly devoid of the scientific spirit. They were close observers of natural phenomena, and sometimes made deductions which, considering the narrowness of areas available to them for investigation, were not unworthy of thinking men. It seemed perfectly reasonable to the Babylonian and Egyptian scientists, who saw land growing from accumulations of river-borne silt, and desert wastes rendered cultivable by irrigation, to conclude, for instance, that water was the primary element and the source of all that existed.

This doctrine, which holds that the Universe is derived from one particular form of matter, has been called "Materialistic Monism". Ultimately, when mind was exalted above matter, the belief obtained that the inanimate forces of nature were subject to the control of the supreme Mind, which was the First Cause. This later doctrine is known as "Idealistic Monism". It was embraced by various cults in Babylonia, India, and Egypt. In the latter country, for instance, the great god of Memphis was addressed:

Ptah, the great, is the mind and tongue of the gods. . . .
It (the mind) is the one which bringeth forth every successful issue. . . .
It was the fashioner of all gods.
At a time when every divine word
Came into existence by the thought of the mind
And the command of the tongue. 1

In Egypt and Babylonia, where inundations of river valleys were of periodic occurrence, and where, at rare intervals, floods of excessive volume caused great destruction and loss of life, and even brought about political changes, it was concluded that the old Ages were ended and new Ages inaugurated by world-devastating deluges.

The deductions of the early scientists in northern Europe were similarly drawn from the evidence afforded by environment, and similarly influenced by persistent modes of thought. They saw shoals formed and beaches overlaid by sand washed up by the sea from, as it appeared, some sand-creating source, and conceived that on the floor of ocean there stood a great "World Mill" propelled by giantesses, which ground the bodies of primeval world-giants into earth meal. "'Tis said", a saga author set forth, "that far out, off yonder ness, the Nine Maids of the Island mill stir amain the host-cruel skerry-quern--they who in ages past ground Hamlet's meal. The good chieftain furrows the hull's lair with his ship's beaked prow." 2

In the Elder Edda the god of the mill, who appears to be identical with Frey and the original Hamlet, is called Mundlefore, "the handle-mover":

The Mover of the Handle is father of Moon
And the father eke of Sun.

This "World Mill" caused the heavens to revolve round a fixed point marked by the polar star, which was called veraldar nagli, the "world-spike".

Believing that sun and moon rose from the ocean, and that therefore light came from darkness, they concluded that winter preceded summer at the beginning.

Untold winters ere Earth was fashioned
Roaring Bergelm was born;
His father was Thrudgelm of Mighty Voice,
Loud-sounding Ymer his grandsire. 3

In the north it was observed also that growth was promoted when the ice melted, and the teachers reasoned that the first being, Ymer, came into existence when sparks from the southland, or "poison drops from the sea", fell upon the primeval icebergs, and caused drops of trickling water to fertilize the clay.

From Stormy-billow sprang poison drops
Which waxed into Jotun form.

The Babylonians, on the other hand, who were familiar with the part played by reeds in accumulating mud and binding river-banks, taught that-

Marduk (Merodach) laid a reed upon the face of the waters.
He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed. . . .
He formed mankind. 4

It may be, too, that the ancient teachers, who framed creation myths and expounded local forms of the doctrine of the World's Ages, mingled at times with their pseudoscientific deductions and brilliant imaginings dim and confused racial traditions of early migrations and varied experiences in different areas of settlement. Some of these traditions may have had origin before the dawn of the Neolithic or Late Stone Age. As will be shown, certain customs, which are familiar to students of ancient civilizations, were prevalent among primitive peoples in the vast Pallithic or Early Stone Age. With these customs may have survived in localities legends associated with or based upon them. The possibility remains, therefore, that in Persian mythology there are memories not only of an area of settlement among the mountains where severe winters were as greatly dreaded as exceptional floods in river valleys, but even of one of the last recurring phases of the Ice Age. A poetic narrative relates that the patriarch Yima, who afterwards became Lord of the Dead, constructed a shelter to afford safe protection for mankind and their domesticated animals during the "evil winter", with its "hard, killing frost". He had been forwarned of this approaching world-disaster by the supreme god Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd). Perhaps the "shelter" was a southern valley to which the proto-Persians were compelled to migrate on account of the growing severity of successive winters and the lowering of the perpetual snow-line around mountain-fringed plateaus they were accustomed to inhabit. It is related in the Avesta, one of the Persian sacred books, that "before the winter the land had meadows. . . . The water was wont to flow over it and the snow to melt." A similar prolonged winter is foretold in Icelandic mythology. According to the Prose Edda, which is a patchwork of fragmentary legends of uncertain origin and antiquity, it will precede the destruction of the universe by the giants of frost and fire (lightning). "In the first place will come the winter, called Fimbul winter, during which snow will fall from the four corners of the world; the frosts will be very severe, the wind piercing, the weather tempestuous, and the sun impart no gladness." 5

From the Voluspa poem of the Elder Edda we gather details of--

A Sword Age, Axe Age--shields are cloven,
A Wind Age, Wolf Age, ere the world sinks.

Then, after describing a period of universal destruction, the soothsayer proceeds:

I see uprising a second time
Earth from the ocean, green anew:
The waters fall, on high the eagle
Flies o'er the fell and catches fish. 6

Various accounts of universal cataclysms come from the New World. Representative of these are the legends of the Arawaks of North Brazil regarding periods of flood, storm, and darkness, and those of the Mexicans, which deal with the destruction of early races by deluges caused by several succeeding suns perishing from lack of sustenance.

The most highly developed doctrinal systems of World Ages which have survived from antiquity are found, however, in the Mythologies of India, Greece, and Ireland. There is more than one account in Aryo-Indian literature of the periodic Ages called Yugas. These are embraced in longer Ages of sufficient duration to satisfy the requirements of modern geologists. Four Yugas extend over a period of "divine years" equal to 4,320,000 years of mortals, and a thousand of the combined Yugas comprise a "Day of Brahma", the individualized "World Soul". The Yugas begin with the Krita or Perfect Age, which is White, and decline from that to the Treta, which is Red, and the Dwara, which is Yellow, to Kali Yuga, "the Black or Iron Age".

Hesiod, in his Work and Days, begins the Greek system with the perfect Golden Age, which is followed by the Silver and Bronze Ages, and the two Ages of Heroes and Iron, which may have been local subdivisions of the fourth Age, represented in India by Kali Yuga.

Both in India and Greece, man it will be noted, was believed to have relapsed from a primitive state of perfection. The system found in Ireland, which was probably imported from Gaul with the doctrine of transmigration of souls and the custom of widow-burning or slaying, follows, on the other hand, an evolutionary process. The first Irish Age, that of Partholon and his race, is an Age of folly. It is followed by Nemed's Age, which was distinguished for cruelty, and the Age of the Fir Bolgs, in which the power of evil was supreme. Then comes the Danann Age of benevolent deities and heroes, who are the reputed "ancestors of the men of learning in Erin". The last Age is the Milesian, and during it St. Patrick reached Ireland and preached Christianity.

This ancient doctrine of the World's Ages, which may be traced in Egypt and Babylonia, where certain gods lived for periods upon earth as human. kings, was adapted to suit the needs of different cults in different areas of localization. In India the four great castes were each connected with a Yuga: the Brahmans had origin in the White Age, the Kshatriyas (military aristocrats) in the Red Age, the Vaisyas (traders and agriculturists) in the Yellow Age, and the Sudras (Dravidians and pre-Dravidians) in the Black Age. In Greece an Age was devoted to the Trojan heroes, and in Ireland the Fir Bolgs, Dananns, and Milesians were identified with existing racial types whom St. Patrick found there.

One of the versions of the Indian legend of Mythical Ages is related by the deathless sage Markandeya, who lived through all the Yugas, and was protected during the Deluge by the child-god Narayana. The Irish account was put into the mouth of Tuan MacCarell. He had been a contemporary of Partholon, and afterwards existed for periods as a stag, a boar, a vulture or eagle, and a salmon. In the end his salmon form was devoured by the wife of King Carell, with the result that he was reborn as her son. Another sage of this class is the famous Mus of the Icelandic Bragda Mus saga, who renewed his youth periodically by casting his skin. He also figures in the Charlemagne romances.

If the ancient teachers, who professed to have received revelations from sages like the "Wandering Jew", had been acquainted with the scientific data which is now available, their narratives of past Ages would have described greater changes than ever they conceived of. Nor would these be lacking either in picturesqueness or imaginative appeal. The priestly sages would have no cause to lament with the poet:

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof and texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.

Even greater and more ferocious monsters than were dreamt of in their philosophy might have figured in their wonder-compelling and fearsome legends. Instead of the composite demons of Egypt and Babylonia, the Eur-Asian dragons, the flying serpents of the Nile valley, and the great snakes of ocean, they could have told of the gigantic reptiles of the Triassic and Jurassic systems, the great mammals of the Tertiary Period, and those contemporaries of man in the Pleistocene Age, the hairy mammoths, bulky with fat and fur, the fierce woolly rhinoceroses, the huge cave-bears, and the immense sabre-toothed tigers. No ancient legend of fabled monsters surpasses the modern scientist's account of extinct gigantic fauna. Nor can the creation-myths on Egyptian papyri, Babylonian bricks, or Indian palm-leaf books approach in grandness and charm the dramatic story of the four great geological Ages of the World.

The author of the Tuan MacCarell legend would in our day begin his narrative with the dawn of the Pleistocene Age, which endured for at least 620,000 years, and was yet much shorter than any of the four Tertiary Ages--the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, or Pliocene.

In the post-Pliocene, or early Pleistocene period, Tuan, let it be supposed, awakens from magic sleep in Europe. He gazes with wonder on forests of strange and mighty trees. Monstrous wild animals come and go. Several resemble elephants, and the greatest of these is the long-tusked mastodon of colossal bulk. Hippopotami snort in the rivers, on the banks of which crouch, basking in sunshine, ponderous Dinotheriums, resembling sea-cows, with downward-curving tusks and short trunks. Across verdurous plains gallop herds of little horses with divided hoofs. The dreaded sabre-toothed tiger crouches in the jungle ready to pounce upon its prey.

Tuan, who alternately sleeps for long centuries and wanders about the earth like the legendary Jew, continues his narrative. "When next I awoke", he tells, "I found that Europe had been completely transformed. No great forests flourished on its central plains; bare stretches of frozen ground extended far and near. From northern Germany to the Pole, valleys and rivers were shrouded by ice and seas were frozen over. Great mountain-peaks towered grimly above curving glaciers like rocky islands in a foam-white ocean. Icebergs drifted down the Atlantic past the coast of Spain. This was the First Glacial Period.

"When next I awoke the ice was vanishing, the rivers surged from the melting glaciers) many valleys were flooded, and vegetation flourished. In the years that followed I saw the forests extending northward from the Mediterranean coast, and the ocean ebbing gradually farther and farther away, owing to the widespread elevation of land, until great islands became uplands in vast plains, and continents linked with continents around the world. I must describe Europe as it appeared to me before I next fell asleep. The Mediterranean Sea was divided into two great lakes when Italy became attached to a triangular plain which jutted out from the north African coast. The Strait of Gibraltar was closed, and a broad valley united Spain with Morocco. Corsica and Sardinia formed a promontory when the Gulf of Genoa vanished, and the Balearic Isles were mountains on a finger of land attached to western Spain. The Baltic Sea became a shrunken inland lake, the English Channel and the North Sea had disappeared. The British Isles were then joined to the Continent, and the plains which enclosed them extended far westward beyond Land's End, the western coast-line of Ireland and that of the Scottish Hebrides, and stretched north-eastward beyond the Shetland Isles to the coast of Norway. A "land-bridge", which shrank to a narrow neck 100 miles north-west of Cape Wrath, united Scotland and Iceland) and narrowed again ere it met the extended coast of Greenland. The Rivers Elbe and Rhine drained the broad valley which had been the North Sea, and were united about 150 miles eastward from the Aberdeenshire coast after the Rhine had received the waters of the Forth and Tay. The Conon poured through the valley which had been the Moray Firth, and, sweeping eastward past the Orkney and Shetland Islands, entered the sea 20 miles westward from the mouth of the Elbe. The Seine cut through the valley of the English Channel, and the Severn united, 100 miles westward from Land's End, with a river flowing from a long narrow loch which divided Ireland from Scotland, and extended southward to Carnsore Point in Wexford.

"Over the Eur-African land-bridges came many of the great animals which I saw during the first period of the Pleistocene Age. Attracted by the genial temperature, even the rhinoceros came north, and with the sabre-toothed tiger prowled on the upland plains of England, where I saw also the giant sloth, the hippopotamus, the mastodon, the triple-toed horse, great tortoises, the giant fallow deer, the well-armoured glyptodon, 7 as big as an ox, and numerous great snakes and nimble apes.

"For a long period I searched in vain for traces of mankind, but at length I discovered a tribe of most primitive savages at Mauer, on the banks of the River Neckar, then very broad and deep, near where Heidelberg now stands. They hunted down the horse and the elk, and dreaded greatly the rhinoceros and the cave-lion. Their homes were among the branches of high trees. In aspect they were extremely repulsive: they had low, sharply-retreating foreheads, squat noses, big bulging mouths, and chinless jaws. 8 I never saw these savages except in this First Interglacial Period.

"When next I awoke from the slumber of centuries I found that Europe had once more been transformed. The Mediterranean Sea had snapped the Italian land-bridge and flowed through the Dardanelles to the Black Sea; a blue strait separated Gibraltar from Morocco. The British Islands were entirely isolated. Roaring tides swept up and down the English Channel, and the broad North Sea, overswept by foam-churning tempest, was dotted over by innumerable icebergs. Each succeeding winter the ocean encroached farther and farther inland, burying in deep sand-banks the great trunks of forest trees, creeping up river valleys and forming stony beaches where wild flowers had bloomed and birds had carolled and built their nests. At length the advancing billows shaped out a rough shore-line round the island coasts over 40 feet above their present level. In time the land was re-elevated and the sea shrank back again.

"The snow-line of Scottish mountains crept down gradually lower and lower, and glaciers appeared once more. Ultimately vast fields of ice jutted across the North Sea, and the Baltic remained frozen during the months of summer. Icebergs were stranded on Dogger Bank and drifted down the English Channel in early summer through veils of white fog into the Bay of Biscay and round Cape Finisterre.

"Ere I went to sleep again the ice-fields had obliterated Holland and Belgium and crept up the Elbe valley almost to the plain of Bohemia, where the climate was sub-arctic and tundra conditions prevailed as in northern Siberia at the present time. Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were ice-locked, and England was covered over as far south as Essex on the east and Gloucester on the west, except where the battling glaciers left bare patches in the middle districts and in the East Riding of Yorkshire. This was the Second Glacial Period. When it had reached its maximum, I wandered southward through France, then a dreary waste, and saw herds of musk-oxen and reindeer, lumbering woolly rhinoceroses, and fat mammoths with great recurving tusks and shaggy red manes.

"I had sought shelter from a blinding dust-storm in a cave on a bare hill-side, and slept there. When next I awoke and crept forth, I found myself in a deep shady forest. It was a fragrant morning of bright sunshine, and although it seemed to be midsummer, the sweet spring season had not yet spent itself. The rivers at this, the dawn of the Second Inter-glacial Period, ran broad and deep, swollen by the melting glaciers, but they shrank gradually as weeks of heat and dryness went past. Wide shallow lakes grew smaller each succeeding summer until they vanished entirely, and their dark beds grew verdant with long grasses. When I went northward I found that the British Isles were once again a part of the Continent. The African hippopotamus snorted in the Thames, the rhinoceros lumbered along the plains of the English Channel, and through the forests of the North Sea valley herds of elephants ranged as far north as the banks of the Forth. I saw many tribes of human beings. I first met them at Chelles, on the banks of the Seine, 8 miles eastward from the site of Paris. The Chellean men were of higher type than the grotesque tree-dwellers of Mauer. Their dark skins bespoke their southern origin, and they resembled certain tribes of Australian savages. They were entirely devoid of clothing. The men carried long staves, which were sharpened to points, with which they speared fish and hunted the little wild horse. I saw them chipping flint and shaping "hand-axes", 9 which they used for a variety of purposes-cutting branches from trees, skinning and dividing animals, and weapons. They also made small flint scrapers and small flint daggers with rough curved hefts.

"I saw these men hunting in England and in Central and Western Europe. They crossed over to Africa by the Italian land-bridge, round the rock of Gibraltar, and along the Palestinian coast., and they were numerous in Persia and India. Ere I fell asleep I was transported round the world, and saw thousands of human beings following the edible animals over the northern land-bridge from Asia to Canada, and down the western sea-coast to South America. Then I slumbered again.

"Long centuries went past as I slept. When next I awoke I found that Europe had once again become changed. The sea was washing round the shores of the British Isles, and the Italian land-bridge to Africa had been severed. Crete was no longer a part of the main land, and the green mountains which had towered on the well-watered valley connecting Greece with Asia Minor were islands in the ean Sea. The temperature had suffered decline. Summer was shorter and winter longer and of growing severity. During the warm weather the southern animals wandered through France, and, when the snow began to fall, the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the reindeer came down from the north in search of food. I saw new types of humanity which had arrived from Asia. They mingled with Chellean men in some localities, and in others fought with them for possession of hunting-grounds. Many tribes were isolated in Britain when the land was lowered and the sea advanced. There were Asiatics in Sussex, and I saw some camping on the banks of the Ouse at Piltdown, near Uckfield. 10 During the winter these people sought shelter in caves.

"The change of climate had intensified the struggle for existence) and sharpened the wits of men. At St. Acheul, at Amiens, in the Somme valley, I found the flint-workers displaying increased skill and producing several new implements which the altered conditions of life had made necessary. Acheulian man had achieved a considerable degree of progress in other directions. Those tribes which remained in western and central Europe, owing to the winter season found it necessary to provide themselves with skin clothing, but the great majority migrated to genial climes, and these continued their old habits of life. I fell asleep at the close of this the Second Interglacial Period, which was longer and more genial than any of the others.

"The Third Glacial Epoch was well advanced when next I set forth a wanderer through the valleys of Europe. It was less widespread than the second. Two-thirds of England and about a fourth of Ireland were clear of ice, nor was the Zuyder Zee frozen during summer. The site of Berlin, however, was well within the glacial area, as was also that of Warsaw. The Alpine snow-line had crept down over 3000 feet. Yet although Europe resembled in some parts Greenland and in others North Siberia in the present Age, I saw numerous tribes of human beings. They were of small stature but muscular and active. Their heads were narrow but of great size, and their faces, although not devoid of intelligence, were exceedingly rugged; their big dark eyes were overshadowed by enormous brow ridges, they had broad flattened noses, projecting mouths, and chinless jaws. 11 They made their homes in caves, and in these they lit fires, round which they sat to chip their flints and fashion their skin garments.

"I will describe what I saw when I sought shelter with a tribe of these people at Le Moustier, in the valley of Dordogne, in south-western France. The River Ve then flowed go feet higher than in modern times. I entered a cave on a damp and chilly summer day. Haunches of venison were being roasted on a fire-place constructed of upright stones, and near it several workmen were busily engaged chipping flints. They constructed a greater variety of implements than the men of the Chellean and Acheulean Periods, and showed greater skill in economizing their material: flakes were removed at a single blow and utilized for smaller artifacts, and when an implement was given form it was carefully dressed with minute chipping until it became an artistic product, exceedingly pleasing to the eye. Men took delight in their work and rivalled one another to gain the praises of their fellows. The tailors cut the dried skins with their sharp hand-axes. Then they squatted with crossed legs to sew the pieces together into not unshapely garments. They made holes, through which to thrust their dried thongs, with little flint awls. In the evening a company of hunters returned from the chase, dragging on a skin sledge the carcass of a musk-ox; and when they had feasted heavily, I heard them tell of battles with the cave-bear, of escapes from the cave-lion and the dreaded woolly rhinoceros, of the slaying

EXAMPLES OF PALLITHIC ART

The objects include: handles of knives and daggers carved in ivory and bone, line drawings of wild animals, faces of men or demons, of animal-headed demon or deity with arms uplifted (compare Egyptian "Ka" attitude of adoration), of wild horses on perforated "arrow straightener", of men stalking a bison, of seal, cow, reindeer, cave bear, and perforated amulets of a great mammoth, and of how they guarded their food-supplies against the ravages of prowling hyenas, gluttons, and arctic foxes. Meanwhile the women busily engaged themselves at the mouth of the cave cutting up the body of the musk-ox and cleaning the skin with flint scrapers. Ere night fell, the chief announced that on the morrow they would go eastward to hunt reindeer. I gathered that these people migrated northward during the summer, and returned again, on the approach of cold weather, to their southern caves. Not infrequently they had to fight with other tribes who took possession of their winter homes.

"I went to sleep during this period, and when next I awoke I found that the Third Inter-glacial Period had dawned. The glaciers melted and again there were great floods in the valleys, and the ice retreated from the lowlands of Scotland. The summers in Central Europe were exceedingly pleasant, but never so warm as during the Chellean Age, and dust-storms were of frequent occurrence. Forests were once again flourishing, and I saw in the midst of them many southern animals which were migrating farther and farther northward. During winter the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros came as far south as Prussia. Mousterian man was able to pursue the hunt high among the mountains, where he found caves in which to shelter himself from wild animals by night. He returned to the valleys when the blizzards of winter drove southward the fierce and numerous beasts of prey he dreaded most.

"I saw new types of mankind. In the Dordogne valley were tribes of slender-limbed human giants who were fearless warriors and mighty huntsmen. Some were 6 feet 6 inches in height. But it was not only in stature that they contrasted sharply with the vanishing

Mousterians, who were rarely higher than 5 feet 3 inches. They had big long heads and broad faces, high foreheads, deep-set brown eyes, prominent cheek-bones, sharply curved lips, and well-formed chins. They resembled modern Europeans more closely than any human beings I had yet met with. Their faces, tanned by wind and sun, were alert and keen, and, although rugged, were greatly softened when their ready smile laid bare their white gleaming teeth. I observed that the young men showed great respect for their elders. It was of common occurrence to see many gathered round a cave entrance listening to the counsel of some white-haired sage. An old man, who had achieved widespread renown as an explorer and leader of men, lived in a cave at Cro-Magnon, and was often approached to settle disputes and give advice regarding great undertakings; he was also skilled as a healer of wounds and a curer of disease. These men had greater regard for their dead than obtained among their Mousterian predecessors. I once saw them laying to rest a slain warrior in his family burial-grotto at Aurignac. He was clad in his skin robe. His headdress was adorned with a string of sea-shells and round his neck was a collar of the perforated teeth of a reindeer, the skeleton of the salmon of wisdom was laid on his breast, and the whole body was sprinkled with magic pigment. A fire was lit, and the warriors danced round the grave with slow, measured steps, while a sage recited the mighty deeds performed by the dead man. Women knelt near at hand, wailing a chorus of sorrow. Beside the warrior they laid his weapons and implements as well as food which had been cooked for him and water for refreshment; then the grotto was closed up with a large slab of limestone. Aurignacian man of Cro-Magnon type was a lover of his kind. saw other tribes which had entered southern France at this period from Africa. At a Grimaldi cave near Mentone I dwelt for a space with a family of dark-skinned people with broad noses and protruding mouths. They resembled somewhat the modern Bushmen of South Africa and were similarly of short stature, but their heads were larger and their faces more intelligent. Middle-aged women had enormous development of fatty tissue; their steatopygous figures were invariably exceedingly grotesque, but were yet greatly admired. 12

"These Aurignacian peoples worshipped the mother-goddess, and there were among them clever artists who carved out of ivory and bone, limestone and steatite, female figures to represent their deity. Sometimes they depicted the slim-waisted, long-haired Cro-Magnon women, and sometimes the woolly-haired bulging forms of Grimaldi type. In those districts where the Bushmen-like people were the slaves of the tall huntsmen a steatopygous woman was sometimes selected at religious ceremonies to represent the mother-goddess.

The Aurignacian artists were wont to decorate their caverns with figures of wild animals, which they sketched in outline with pointed flints, and often coloured with crayons of red ochre or painted with pigment which they carried in bone tubes. In the deep cave of Altamira, in Spain, I saw a great picture-gallery in which various artists had exhibited their skill. One part of the vaulted roof was covered with lifelike representations of edible animals, including wild horses, deer, and boars, and elsewhere I saw artistic productions of similarly high merit. In some caves, which were constantly inhabited, were impressions of human hands. These were intended to avert the influences of the evil eye and the attacks of demons. Huntsmen left records of their experiences in summer hunting districts by inscribing symbols on cave walls, so that those who came nigh might know how they were likely to fare there. They also depicted the forms of monstrous demons that had to be propitiated.

The hunters of the Aurignacian Age were the first I saw using bows and arrows. In preparing the arrow-shafts they utilized perforated bone straighteners. 13 Their flint implements were worked with skill far surpassing that of the Mousterian Age.

"How long I slept during this period I cannot tell. When next I woke up I found that the temperature had suffered sharp decline. Cro-Magnon man still inhabited a great portion of southern France, 14 but I observed also other types which were new to me. At Solutre, Saone-et-Loire, where tall and short types gave evidence of race intermixture, I fell in with highly-skilled artisans who shaped flint lance-heads of laurel-leaf and willow-leaf shape, and accomplished delicate secondary flaking by pressure with bone implements. They also made comfortable skin clothing, which they sewed with bone needles which had perforated eyes. 15 The winters grew gradually longer and more severe, and the men of the Solutrean Age achieved rapid progress in their conflict with the elements. Huntsmen favoured the horse, but slew also the reindeer.

"The Fourth Glacial Period followed, and it was suffering decline when I next went out to explore those districts that had seen so many changes. I awoke at La Madelaine, on the right bank of the Ve, which then flowed higher

PALEOLITHIC ART: REPRESENTATIVE PAINTINGS OF BISON AND DEER, FROM THE CAVE OF ALTAMIRA, NEAR SANTANDER, SPAIN

The bison was evidently painted during summer, after it had rubbed its shaggy winter coat off the greater part of its body than at the present day.

In this district the tall men of Cro-Magnon type were less numerous than the stumpy intruders of this Magdalenian Age, who had some resemblance to the present-day Esquimaux. Half-breeds, however, were not uncommon. The little men had much more refined and intelligent faces than the Mousterians; their foreheads were large and their chins prominent, and they were clad in closely-fitting skin garments to resist the sub-arctic climate. Like the cave-dwellers of the Aurignacian Age, they were skilled artists and artisans. The Grimaldi folks had migrated southward, and ivory carvings of the mother goddess were modelled on the slim-waisted female type. Artists continued to decorate the caves with paintings of animals, and they also engraved their implements and weapons, and even stones and pieces of slate. The bison and the wild horse were often depicted, but the most favoured models were the northern animals of this cold European Age. Mammoths were growing scarce, for men had acquired skill in trapping them, and the artists engraved ivory charms with their bulky forms, and numerous were their studies of reindeer grazing on snowy plains, crouched up at bay, or panting in rapid flight to escape the dogs and arrows of the huntsmen. The Magdalenian artists also drew the snarling cave-bear, the double-horned and snouted head of the woolly rhinoceros, the antelope and the chamois, and the scampering wolf with gaping jaws. Among birds they were familiar with the goose and the swan, and, as they were accomplished fishermen, they could carve in many characteristic attitudes the graceful salmon and the keen-eyed seal. Many huntsmen had the handles of their daggers fashioned to represent the animals they were wont to stalk and slay.

"During this period flint-working declined somewhat, for the fashion became prevalent of pointing lances and arrows with ivory and bone and reindeer horn. A great inventor equipped huntsmen with a new weapon-the barbed harpoon-and another provided for it a thrower made from reindeer horn, so that it could be thrown farther and directed with surer aim. A long cord was attached to the harpoon, which was utilized to catch salmon and seals. This wonderful invention was the means of increasing greatly the food-supply. It thus rendered the struggle for existence less arduous, especially when the tribes increased in number.

"Great changes took place when the Fourth Glacial Period began to decline, and more genial conditions became prevalent. The Magdalenian huntsmen migrated farther and farther northward as the ice area shrank in dimensions, because the reindeer deserted those districts which failed to yield them in sufficient abundance the lichens upon which they fed."

In the Gaelic legend of the Irish Ages it is stated that, when Tuan ended, "the auditors thanked him. . . . They remained a whole week talking with him." But his modern narrative deals with problems which are not likely to be solved In so brief a space of time. It touches the fringes of not a few controversies which have been waged vigorously for a number of years, and are likely to be continued indefinitely. In this volume, however, which deals mainly with the intellectual life of early peoples, it is unnecessary to state in detail the various conflicting views regarding the geological periods and the earliest traces of man in Europe; but a brief summary of the results of modern research may be given, so that the general reader may be familiarized with one particular phase of the subject which is pregnant with human interest.

In Tuan's references to early man in Europe, six stages of development, or levels of culture, have been referred to.

These are:

1. The Chellean, in the Second Inter-glacial Period.
2. The Acheulian, a late phase of the Chellean.
3. The Mousterian, in the Third Glacial Period and later.
4. The Aurignacian, in the Third Inter-glacial Period and later.
5. The Solutrean, in the late Third Inter-glacial Period and later.
6. The Magdalenian, in the Fourth Glacial Period.

Some archlogists place before the Chellean, Stage 1 the Mesvinian, and 2, the Strepyan, but others regard them as earlier phases of the Chellean. A still earlier stage, called the Mafflian, with which the Galley Hill (Kent) skeleton and implements were associated, has been taken down to the Strepyan Period of Chellean man. The various stages have been subdivided into Upper, Middle, and Lower Periods.

Of late years certain scientists have sought to establish a pre-Pallithic Age called the Eolithic. They thus place the appearance of man in the geological Tertiary system, not only in the Pliocene Age, which preceded the Pleistocene, but also back through the Miocene and Oligocene Ages to the Eocene. The Tertiary stages of culture are called Reutelian, and are as follows:--

1. Eocene Age, Duan (Reutelian).
2. Oligocene Age, Fagnian (Reutelian).
3. Miocene Age, Cantalian (Reutelian).
4. Pliocene Age, Kentian (Reutelian).
5. Early Pleistocene, Thames basin (Reutelian).

Then follow the Mesvinian and Strepyan phases of early Chellean culture.

Professor James Geikie confesses he is "staggered" by the theory that man existed in the Tertiary system of Ages. "Since the Eocene Period, which must date back", he says, "several millions of years, the whole mammalian fauna has undergone modifications and changes, continuous evolution having resulted in the more or less complete transformation of numerous types, while many others have long been extinct. And yet, if we accept the eoliths as proofs of man's existence in Eocene and Oligocene times, we must admit that in this case--and in this case alone--evolution must have been at a standstill during a prodigiously extended period. For it must be understood that the eoliths of the older Tertiary formations cannot be distinguished from those met with in the Miocene, Pliocene, and even Pleistocene deposits. 16

These "eoliths" are chipped flints which were either flaked by man or by natural causes--the movements of strata settling under pressure or the action of water. The problem is a difficult one. "The unprejudiced", says Professor Duckworth, "will maintain an open mind, pending the advent of more conclusive evidence than has been adduced hitherto." 17 Professor Sollas, on the other hand, is convinced that not a trace of unquestionable evidence of man's existence has been found in strata admittedly older than the Pleistocene. 18

Estimates of the approximate duration of the Pleistocene Age vary considerably. Geikie, following Penck, gives 620,000 years as a minimum; Rutot confines it to 139,000 years, and thus reduces greatly the age of his "eoliths", while Sturge estimates that a single period of it lasted for 700,000 years. The majority of leading scientists, however, have of late inclined to favour Penck's system of dating, and to allow 400,000 years as a minimum for the Pallithic or Early Stone Age, which begins with the first stages of Chellean culture. The dawn of the Neolithic, or Late Stone Age, is dated in southern Europe and Palestine at roughly 10,000 B.C.

In the next chapter consideration will be given to those traces which survive of the religious and magical beliefs of the Pallithic peoples, and it will be shown that the evidence accumulated has an important bearing on the problems raised by Cretan and pre-Hellenic discoveries, as well as upon the study of the myths and legends of Babylonia and Egypt, and those of peoples less renowned but no less important from the point of view of the student of comparative mythology.

Footnotes

1 Breasted's History of Egypt, p. 357.
2 Translated from Amlodi Saga, by F. York Powell.
3 Bergelm and Thrudgelm, nature-giants, and Ymer, the primeval world-giant. The Elder Edda, O. Bray, pp. 471 49; and Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 1 et seq.
4 The Seven Tablets of Creation, L. W. King, p. 129.
5 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 451.
6 The Elder Edda, O. Bray, pp. 291, 295.
7 Resembling the armadillo.
8 The jaw-bone of the earliest European was found in a Mauer sand-pit, 78 feet from the surface. Sollas holds that this primitive German belonged to none of the existing races of mankind. The jaw-bone has Simian characteristics.
9 The so-called coup-de-poing of the French archlogists; also named "bouchers", after M. Boucher de Perthes, who half a century ago identified them as primitive artifacts of human contemporaries of extinct wild animals.
10 The Piltdown skull of a broad-headed woman was discovered in 1913.
11 The Neanderthal-Spy type.
12 Two Grimaldi skulls which have been discovered have distinct negroid characteristics: the jaw protrudes sharply.
13 This implement has also been called a "sceptre"; it was more probably an "arrow straightener".
14 And is still found there, as ethnologists have demonstrated.
15 The bone needle with perforated eye is an invention of this period.
16 Antiquity of Man in Europe, p. 5 (1914.).
17 Prehistoric Man, pp. 106-21 (1912).
18 Ancient Hunters, pp. 67, 69 (1911).