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Updated: June 29, 2025
But the discovery which will doubtless prove in the end to be of greater importance than any other, though as yet the main part of its value is latent, was that of large numbers of clay tablets incised with inscriptions in the unknown script of the Minoans.
But the discoveries of the last few years have demolished that idea for ever, along with many other beliefs as to the influence of the overrated Phnicians upon the culture of the Mediterranean area, and the pictures of the Minoans of Knossos have made it certain that the Keftiu of the Eighteenth Dynasty were none others than the ambassadors, sailors, and merchants of the Sea-Kings of Crete.
Whether these were genuine Minoans or not, it is impossible to tell; their immediate connection was apparently with Dor, on the coast of Palestine; but their name suggests the town of Zakro, in Eastern Crete, and it is not unlikely that they belonged to the same race as the Zakkaru of the time of Ramses III.
On their feet they wore sometimes shoes, with puttees twisted round the lower part of the leg, and sometimes half-boots, as shown on the Chieftain Vase and one of the Petsofa figurines. Indeed, the footgear of the Minoans seems to have been somewhat elaborate.
Evidently the last Minoans succeeded in creating an atmosphere for themselves in Palestine, and in impressing the surrounding peoples with a wholesome terror of them.
Unquestionably it was a great and important service which was thus rendered by them; but, all the same, the beginnings of European writing must be traced not to them, but to their predecessors the Minoans, and the clay tablets of Knossos, Phæstos, and Hagia Triada are the lineal ancestors of all the written literature of Europe.
The Minoans, or, at least, the Minoan rulers, were not prepared to admit peacefully the incursion of this new element into their kingdom; and the wanderers, under the spur of desperate need, took by force what was denied to them as suppliants. Dr. In such circumstances there would be no sudden eclipse of the ancient culture.
We may remember that in ancient warfare the Cretan bowmen were as famous as the Balearic slingers or the archers of England. On the whole, however, the genius of the Minoans, like our own, was more commercial than military, though, no doubt, they were not devoid of the fighting spirit when occasion arose.
Weaving was an art in which the Minoans were well skilled, to judge from the fabrics which are represented in the frescoes. As in Penelope's time, it was a domestic art, and probably almost every household had its loom, where the women turned out the materials for ordinary wear.
The story which makes Theseus bring up from the Palace of Amphitrite the ring which Minos had thrown into the sea, seems almost certainly to be a symbolic expression of the passing over of the sea-power of the Ægean from the once-omnipotent Minoans to the Achæans and the other restless tribes who for generations after the fall of Knossos held the dominion of the ocean, and were the terror of all peaceful nations, and a menace to the existence of even so great a power as Egypt.
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