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These Keftiu, then, were the Minoans of the Great Palace period of Crete, the pre-Hellenic Greeks, the Pelasgi of old Greek tradition, in whose time the great civilization of the Minoan Empire reached its culminating point, and was within a little of its final disaster.
It has been remarked that 'cooking in Homer is monotonous, because no one eats anything but roast meat'; but this accusation could not be brought against the Minoans, who had evidently attained to a considerable skill and variety in the way in which they prepared their viands for the table.
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 Cretan discoveries have tended as much as any work of recent years to reduce the extravagant claims which used to be put forward on behalf of the Phnicians as originators of many of the elements of ancient civilization, and evidence is now forthcoming to show that originality in even their most famous and characteristic industry, the dyeing of robes with the renowned 'Tyrian purple, must be denied to them and claimed for the Minoans.
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