Herodotus and Thucydides told us above (p. 67) that the Carians inhabited the islands of the Ægean sea. These were they whom Minos had made subject to his dominion. Beside this, we are informed more particularly that the Carians had possessed the island of Rhodes, which lay off their coast, and had dwelt on Chios and Samos (I. 571). What degree of civilisation was reached by the population of the islands of the Ægean sea before the Phenicians came into relations with them may be inferred to some extent from the discoveries made in the island of Thera. In and beneath three layers of ashes and tufa caused by vast eruptions of the volcanos of this island have been discovered stone instruments, pottery of the most rudimentary kind, in part with the rudest indications of the human face and figure, and beside these weapons of copper and brass. In the upper layers of the tufa we find far better pottery decorated in the Phenician style. On Melos also, and in the tombs at Camirus in Rhodes, vessels of the same kind have been discovered; and, finally, in the highest of the layers at Thera are gold ornaments of the most various kinds, and ornaments of electron, _i.e._ of mixed gold and silver, all of a workmanship essentially non-Hellenic. From these facts we may draw the conclusion that the ships of the Phenicians brought to these inhabitants their earliest weapons in brass and copper, their pottery and ornaments; that the Carians of the islands, following these patterns, raised their own efforts to a higher stage, and that afterwards the Phenicians themselves settled in the islands and made themselves masters of them. Perhaps we may even go a step further. In the lower strata of the excavations at Hissarlik, on the Trojan coast, we find exactly the same primitive pottery, with the same indications of human forms, as in Thera, while in the refuse lying above this are idols and pottery adorned after Phenician patterns, which correspond exactly to the idols of Cyprus, as well as ornaments like those of Thera. Hence in this region also we may assume that the Phenicians gave the impulse and the example to the development of civilisation, and the more so as the name of the city of Adramyttion on the Trojan coast repeats the name of a Phenician foundation on the coast of North Africa (Adrames, Hadrumetum), and even Strabo ascribes the worship of the Cabiri to some places on the Trojan coast.[133] Far more definite traces of the Phenician style and skill are in existence on the shore of the bay of Argos. The ancient tombs which have been recently discovered behind the lions' gate at Mycenæ are hewn in the rocks after the manner of the Phenicians. As in the ancient burying-places of the Phenicians, a perpendicular shaft forms the entrance to the sepulchral chambers; the corpses are laid in them without coffins, as was the most ancient custom in Phoenicia. The masks of beaten gold-leaf which were found on the faces of five or six of the corpses buried here are