earlier and greater phase, while “Mycenæan” merely covers the latest phase; the whole being designated “Ægean.” There is, to complete the nomenclature, a further epithet, “Cycladic,” which is sometimes substituted for “Minoan” when one speaks exclusively of the island sites outside of Crete. With the fall of Knossos, which took place shortly before 1400 B.C.--I adopt Dr. Burrows’s dating--the centre of influence in the Ægean passed over from Crete to the mainland of Greece, and the true “Mycenæan” period started. Thereafter followed the Dark Ages, which themselves immediately preceded “historical” Greece. Recorded Greek history begins about 800 B.C. Chapter 3: _Minos and the Minotaur_ If the nine Minoan periods into which Sir Arthur Evans has divided the Bronze Age in Crete are primarily a fanciful play upon the “nine seasons” of King Minos’s reign in Knossos, the system of dating itself is by no means fanciful. It rests on a solid basis. It has been made possible mainly by the fact that the ancient Cretans were sea-farers. Cretan products were exported to Egypt, and have been found there alongside Egyptian deposits of more or less known date. Hence a system of sequence-dating can be established. It is obvious that a Cretan vase found side by side with an Egyptian vase of 2500 B.C. belongs to an earlier period than one found with deposits of 1500 B.C. This fixing of landmarks is the first step. The second is to assign to them absolute dates in the terms of our own chronology. Owing to the fact that Egyptian dates (within at least certain limits) are known in terms of our own, and that Egyptian ware has been found in Crete as well as Cretan in Egypt, equation is possible. The chief difficulty is that Egyptian chronology is itself variously interpreted, and one particular version has had to be fixed on for comparison. Three convenient and easily-remembered landmarks have been established: (_a_) Early Minoan II corresponds to Dynasty VI in the early Dynastic Period of Egypt, circa 2500 B.C. As the evidence for this equation is slight compared with that for the other two, it must be accepted with reserve at present as a good working hypothesis. (_b_) Middle Minoan II corresponds to Dynasties XII and XIII in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, circa 1900-1700 B.C. (_c_) Late Minoan II corresponds to Dynasty XVIII in the New Empire of Egypt, circa 1500 B.C.