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It may be that the drainage system so highly developed at Knossos and Hagia Triada found its first suggestion in the terra-cotta drain-pipes discovered at Niffur by Hilprecht, though it is by no means obvious that copying should be necessary in such a matter.
One of the characteristic features of the period is the fact that the stirrup-vase, found at Hagia Triada and Gournia in Late Minoan I., but almost totally wanting in Late Minoan II., now becomes common.
To this period belong the oldest parts of the deposit at Hagios Onouphrios, and the greater part of the contents of the bee-hive chamber tomb at Hagia Triada, where, along with incised and early painted vases, were found copper daggers with very short triangular blades, a number of rude stone seals, and very primitive idols, rudely imitating the human form.
But from the great rhyton found at Hagia Triada, from a steatite relief found at Knossos in Igor, and from various seal-impressions, we know that boxing was one of the favourite sports of the Minoans, as it was of the Homeric and the classical Greeks; and the Theatral Area may have served well enough for such exhibitions as those in which Epeus knocked out Euryalus, and Odysseus smashed the jaw of Irus.
The hill of Hagia Triada, about two miles to the north-west of Phæstos, proved sufficiently fruitful to compensate the Italian explorers for the incomprehensible barrenness of Phæstos. Here stand the ruins of the Venetian church of St. George, itself built of stone which was hewn originally by Minoan masons.
Similar scenes must have been enacted at Phæstos and Hagia Triada, either by other forces of invaders, or by the same host sweeping round the island. From this overwhelming disaster the Minoan Empire never recovered. The palace at Knossos was never reoccupied as a palace, at least on anything like the scale of its former magnificence.
Part of the ritual evidently consisted of dancing, and music also had its place, as is evident from the figures of the lyre and flute players on the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The question of whether the Minoans had any worship of ancesters or sacrifice to the dead is raised by several relics.
At Agia Triada, as we rode up the stately avenue of cypresses, between vineyards and almond trees in blossom, servants advanced to take our horses, and the abbot shouted, "Welcome," from the top of the steps. We were ushered into a clean room, furnished with a tolerable library of orthodox volumes.
The fact that two of the Keftiu envoys in the Rekh-ma-ra frescoes carry ingots of copper of the same shape as those found by Dr. Halbherr at Hagia Triada suggests that Crete may have exported copper to Egypt in the time of Tahutmes III. as Cyprus exported it in large quantities in that of Amenhotep III.
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