About 600 metres due north of the prehistoric Palace of Knossos begins the rise of a flat-topped hill, here traversed by a long line of Roman walling, from which the neighbouring hamlet, sole survivor of the ancient city, gains its name of Makryteichos. The hill itself is known as Zafer Papoura (Τοῠ ΖαΦέρ ή παποῠρα) and on its lower slope there had already been brought to light remains of houses belonging to the extensive Minoan town, the “Wide Knossos” of Homeric tradition, which seems to have extended on every side of the Palace.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. AMONG the greater monuments or actual structural remains of the Mycenaean world hitherto made known, it is remarkable how little there is to be found having a clear and obvious relation to religious belief. The great wealth of many of the tombs, the rich contents of the pit-graves of Mycenae itself, the rock-cut chambers, the massive vaults of the bee-hive tombs, are all indeed so many evidences of a highly developed cult of departed Spirits. The pit-altar over grave IV. of the Akropolis area at Mycenae, and the somewhat similar erection found in the Court-yard of the Palace at Tiryns, take us a step further in this direction ; but it still remains possible that the second, like the first, may have been dedicated to the cult of the ancestors of the household, and it supplies in itself no conclusive evidences of a connexion with any higher form of worship. In the great South-Western Court, and again in the Central Area of the Palace of Knossos, have now, however, been brought to light the foundations of what seem to have been two rectangular altars; and the special relation in which this building stood to the God of the Double Axe makes a dedication to the Cretan Zeus in this case extremely probable.In Crete indeed we are on somewhat different ground. Throughout the island are a series of caves, containing votive and sacrificial deposits, going back from the borders of the historic period to Mycenaean and still more remote antiquity. The two greatest of these, on the heights of Ida and Dikta, are connected by immemorial tradition with the cult of the ancient indigenous divinity later described by the Greeks as the Cretan Zeus, whose special symbol was the double axe. The colossal rock-hewn altar at the mouth of the Idaean Cave was unquestionably devoted to the service of this God.1 In the steatite libation-table found at the bottom of the votive stratum of the Diktaean Cave 2 we have an article of cult the special 1 F. Halbherr and P, Orsi, Antro di Zeus Ideo, p. 3 and Tav. xi. SJ.H.S. xvii. (1897), p. 350 seqq. 11H2 This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:16:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 100 ARTHUR J. EVANS significance of which will be pointed out ini a succeeding section.' The thorough exploration of this cave, now carried out by Mr. D. G. Hogaith,2 on behalf of the British School at Athens, has conclusively proved that the old traditions of the birth-place and oracular shrine of the Cretan Zeus attached themselves to this spot. The blasting away of the fallen rocks that encumb...

In a former communication attention was called to an indigenous system of writing in Crete, the earlier stages of which go back, not only far beyond the date of the first introduction of the Phoenician alphabet among the Greeks, but to a period considerably anterior to the most ancient monumental record of the Semitic letters.From the evidence of ancient Cretan seals it was possible to demonstrate the existence of a form of pictographic writing from its simplest beginnings to a more conventional and abbreviated stage. Side by side with this a variety of data supplied by seals, vases, and inscribed stones, showed the further existence of a linear system of writing, connected with the other and presenting some striking comparisons on the one hand with certain characters found by Professor Petrie in Egypt and by Mr. Bliss at Lachish; on the other hand with the syllabic script of Cyprus and some Anatolian regions. It was further pointed out that in some instances Cretan linear characters displayed a remarkable correspondence with Phoenician and early Greek letter forms.

No abstract