Early Egyptian Influence in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The question of the influence of the Eastern Mediterranean on the Central and Western is not a new one, and an apology is perhaps needed for re-opening it. If so it must be taken to lie in the fact that the last five years have thrown a new light on the Eastern Mediterranean. It was easy to say that what seemed strange or new in Crete or Italy must be due to ‘Oriental influence’ so long as this alluring phrase remained without content. Now, however, when we are beginning to catch glimpses of what was really happening in nearer Asia in remote days, we are almost daily finding that something of that which was so readily labelled ‘oriental’ is not oriental at all.It is, then, a time for reconsidering this question, and no doubt it will be discussed in all its bearings at the coming Archaeological Congress in Rome, where the following problem is to be dealt with: ‘In what consists the evidence of the influence of the pre-Hellenic East on the countries of the Western Mediterranean?’ Here I shall confine myself mainly to a single aspect of the question. It is an aspect which has lately been brought into prominence by Professor Elliot Smith's book on the Ancient Egyptians. This book is of course mainly concerned with Egypt and the Egyptians, but its last chapter is an attempt to reconcile the craniological evidence available for Egypt and the Mediterranean with the archaeological.