§ 3. Crete BIBLIOGRAPHY Dumont-Pottier, i. p. 64 (finds in 1878 at Knossos); Milchhoefer, _Anfänge der Kunst_; Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, _Myken. Vasen_, p. 22; Pottier, _Louvre Cat._ i. p. 173; _Mon. Antichi_, vi. p. 333 ff.; _J.H.S._ xxi. p. 78 ff., xxiii. p. 157 ff.; _British School Annual_, vi. p. 85 ff., vii. p. 51, and ix. p. 297 ff.; _Proc. Soc. Antiqs._ xv. (1894), p. 351 ff. In turning our attention next to the island of Crete, we are confronted with a new element in Greek archaeology; namely, the results of the recent discoveries, which as yet have hardly become material ripe for use in a general handbook. On the other hand, their singular importance deserves full recognition. It must, therefore, be borne in mind that much in the succeeding section is merely the embodiment of previous researches, and that the new evidence can only be briefly summarised. Allusion has just been made to the thalassocracy of Minos and its bearing on the history of early Greek civilisations, and the recent discoveries have done much to show that the prince who built the great palace at Knossos in the early days of Mycenaean civilisation, if he is not actually the Minos of Greek legend, yet represents the rising power which extended its dominion over the Aegean and drove the Carian people to the mainland. This supremacy of Crete from the fifteenth to the eleventh century was artistic as well as political. The Crete of Minos was, moreover, the point of contact between the Aegean peoples and the Oriental races; and in the story of the Minotaur we may perhaps see a reflection of the human sacrifices offered to the Phoenician Moloch or Melkarth. The familiar passage in Homer[887] which deals with the ethnography of Crete speaks of four component elements, which may be explained as (1) the Eteokretes, or aborigines of the island, to whom the early civilisation exemplified in their ceramic and glyptic products is mainly due; (2) the Kydonii or Leleges, brought by Minos from the islands[888]; (3) the Achaeans or mainland Greeks of the period of the Trojan War; (4) the Dorians, whose connection with the island dates from the eleventh century onwards.