With the succeeding Cretan epoch, Middle Minoan III., we come into touch with the dark age of Egyptian history, the great gap covering Dynasties XIII.-XVII., towards the close of which is to be placed the Hyksos domination. As the age was so troubled in Egypt, it is scarcely probable that we shall find much evidence there of any connection between the two lands; but the evidence found on Cretan soil, though slight, is conclusive as to the fact that communication was maintained. For the earlier part of the period we have the statuette, already mentioned as having been found at Knossos, bearing the name of 'Ab-nub's child, Sebek-user, deceased, born of the lady Sat-Hathor.' 'Who Sebek-user was,' as Mr. Hall remarks, 'and how his statuette got to Crete, we have no means of knowing.' But the 'deceased' in the inscription shows that the statuette was a funerary or memorial one, and it is hardly likely that such an object was imported merely for its own sake or for its artistic value, which is slight enough. May it not be that either Ab-nub, the father, or Sebek-user, the son, or both, may have been Egyptians resident at the Court of Knossos, either as representatives of Egyptian interests or as skilled artificers, and that the statuette is the memorial of one who died far from his native land, but not without friends to see that he did not lack the funerary attentions which would have been his at home? No doubt there was interchange of persons as well as of commodities between the two lands; some of the artists and craftsmen of both countries would naturally go to where there was a demand arising for their work, or where instructors were being sought to teach the new arts; and Ab-nub and his son Sebek-user may have drifted to Knossos in this manner, and found at last their graves there. Were they conceivably responsible for the 'imported alabaster vases dating from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt,' which were found in the royal tomb at Isopata? Towards the close of this epoch the ceramic art of Knossos shows features which are directly attributable to Egyptian influence. The art of glazing pottery was not a native Cretan, but an Egyptian art; it is in full use in Egypt from the very beginnings of the First Dynasty. But now we find it appearing in a high state of development in Crete in the beautiful faience reliefs of the wild-goat and kids, the vases with the wild-rose in relief on the lip, and the figurines of the Snake Goddess and her votaresses. The Cretan artists, however, though they borrowed the process, adapted it to their own tastes. In Egypt the native faience of the time is of strictly conventional type, with black design on blue; but the Cretan emancipated himself from these limits, and made his faience reliefs in the polychrome style, which still persisted, though now no longer so prevalent as it had once been.