In a most remarkable way the discoveries in Crete have corroborated the Greek legends of the Cretan King Minos. It is conjectured that a Minos may have been the founder of a dynasty and that the name passed into a title of all the rulers, corresponding to the title, Pharaoh, in Egypt. Scholars, therefore, have given the name Minoan to the civilisation of Crete; dividing it into Early, Middle, and Late Minoan. In the Early Minoan Period, represented in the contents of early tombs and dwellings and such objects as stone vases and seal-stones, there is evidence that the Cretans had already reached considerable cultivation and had opened up communications with the Nile Valley. The date of this period is conjectured to have centred around 2500 <small>B.C.</small>, and to have corresponded, roughly speaking, with the earlier of the Egyptian dynasties. Most remarkable of Dr. Evans’s discoveries was the finding in 1900 of whole archives of clay tablets in the palace of Cnossus, which prove that the Cretans had a highly developed system of hieroglyphics and lineal script 2000 years before the time when the Phœnicians introduced writing into Greece. Incidentally, this knowledge corroborates the statement of the historian Diodorus, that the Phœnicians did not invent letters, but only altered their forms. The Middle Minoan Period centres round 2000-1850 <small>B.C.</small>, and corresponds with the Twelfth Dynasty in Egypt. It was the age of the earliest palace building. Already appears the beginning of a school of wall-painting, while a manufactory of fine faience was attached to the palace at Cnossus. The Late Minoan Period covers the period of the Hyksos usurpation in Egypt and reached its own culmination about the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the New Egyptian Empire or Second Theban Monarchy commenced. We have already noted the appearance in Egypt of this Cretan influence, inducing a habit of naturalistic representation in place of the old conventionalised forms of sculpture and painting. To this late Minoan period belongs the greatest development of palace building, as seen at Cnossus, Phæstus, and Tiryns, while the painting on walls and vases becomes more free and animated than anything of the kind in Egypt. Toward 1400 <small>B.C.</small> a period of decline becomes apparent in Cretan art, which is reflected all over the Ægean area. The conclusion is that the islands and mainland of Greece had been invaded by less civilised conquerors, who, having no cultivation of their own, adopted the art they found and spoiled it. Probably they came from the North of Greece and were precursors of the later “Hellenes.”