Minoan Influences in Ancient Syria

Abstract

SIR ARTHUR EVANS, commenting on the results of Sir Leonard Woolley's recent archaeological investigations in Syria (see NATURE of July 4, p. 20 and August 8, p. 235), pronounces the Minoan impact on inner Syria at so early a date, for which the ceramic relics from Tell-Atchana afford evidence, as “a new historic fact of far reaching importance and revolutionizing all previous ideas”. It is, he points out in The Times of August 19, a step forward of at least two centuries; for although there are no actual imports from Minoan Crete, the starting point in repeated examples of pottery reflecting Cretan models must certainly touch 1700 B.C. Sir Arthur bases this conclusion on the chronological datum of remains of cups, of somewhat thin make, showing white rosettes on a black ground, recalling the “egg-shell ware” bowls of the great age of Minoan Crete of the Second Middle Minoan period, which goes back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in Syria equating with the succeeding Third Middle Minoan style. At the same time, mixed influence is to be seen in the combination of arcaded zones, characteristically Minoan, with highly conventionalized ducks, which find a parallel in early Palestine, while one of the sherds depicts an uprearing goat charged by another, whereas animal designs were excluded from the vase painting of Cretan Palace art. In concluding with an analysis of motifs, which point to a fusion of Cretan and indigenous religious and symbolic ideas, relating to the cult of the double axe, and reference to tradition of a royal alliance with Cyprus, Sir Arthur holds out the alluring possibility that the spade may yet uncover a royal sepulchre at Tell-Atchana.