Cradle and Rocks
Prehistoric Crete. By R. W. Hutchinson. (Pelican, 10s. 6d.)
AT the outset of this eagerly anticipated and deeply satisfying survey, Mr. Hutchinson has a reminder for the general reader: 'the first civilisation that we scan term European was that of Crete.' Cradle and cockpit, Crete has never been long out of the headline news. Tough cam- paigners today refight the crazy raids and re- treats of the Second World War. Oldish and youngish eggheads are still there digging, as- sembling, reinterpreting the detritus of the island's continuous past. Dr. Mallowan here. in an editorial postscript, asserts that 'within the last year excavations by Professor John Evans (not to be confused with Sir Arthur) in the deep neolithic levels of early Knossos, have yielded C. 14 dates which take us back to the sixth and fifth millennia ac, and have thus rocked the top end of Mr. Hutchinson's chronological table while the ink was still wet.' If the book isn't UP to the minute, it's up to the current year. In his lively, timely and personal gloss on an able précis of Pendlebury's standard work on The Archeeology of Crete, Mr. Hutchinson starts with the geography and geology which are so often decisive for an island's history and destittY• Like the Levant, Crete was ordained from scratch to be one of the great Lord's pitches, though one far too rough for straight cricket. Nests of pirates infested the caves and fastnesses, in between occupations by Dorians, Romans, Saracens; by Venetians, Turks and Germans- They came in the van of catastrophes not all man-made. The ensuing crossings of racial and cultural strains were seminal.
A third map, missing, should show the SC routes to Egypt and Libya, to the Canaanite coast, Anatolia and, from the northern ports, to the double string of close-linked kgean islands. These were the constant contacts. Yet of the Minoans we still know nothing, aside from some proper names and some more or less improper myths. History is bunk, before round about the fifth century BC; one might better trust Graves than the inhibited reticences of archxoloeY t° fill in the picture. In four engrossing chapters, Mr. Hutchinson adds a new dimension to Pendlebury and Evans. Chapter three, on the 'Cretan Peoples, Languages and Scripts,' is the invaluable, objective review of the decipherment which we have not vainlY awaited: a masterly summary, scrupulously fair to both Palmer and Beattie, to instance two ex- tremists in recent controversies; and as clear as one could wish in exposition and critical ap- praisal. The remaining chapters mentioned cover commerce, communications and day-to-day life. Mr. Hutchinson's long and intimate liais" with Crete and Greece allows him to illumine his commentary on Pendlebury with many 3 sonal observation. He can sharply correct In informed pronouncements on flora and fauna:, He is full of amusing and apposite literal' quotes. Refuting Beattie's attempted refutatio,n of Ventris's interpretation of Ta-ra-ny as a fo°1', stool, 'on the ground that it represents a pan with two handles,' he drops in a dry lit` footnote : the object bears a superficial resemblance to the, hot water cans also used as footstools an! employed to heat railway carriages before t: Ise were furnished with central heating; thoue._. am not suggesting Ta-ra-ny was such an artic10
This places the professor in the kindliest way.
There are other observations I should like to quote, if I could trace them through the ludicrously inadequate index : e.g., Dates. Some- Where Mr. Hutchinson noticed the imprint of date-leaves in the volcanic ash on Thera; an alleged Arab legacy. Thera, one hundred kilo- metres north of Crete, is still an active volcano. 'Between Crete and Thera lies the seismic epi- centre. 'Crete averages about two severe earth- quakes a century.' So, from the cradle to the rocks. Sir Arthur Evans had already noted evi- dence of violent earthquake activity near Knossos. Spiridion Marinatos more recently has speculated on the effect of even more violent eruptions from Santorin. That such action might be a major factor in Cretan history I suggested some months ago in these pages. I am pleased to find that Mr. Hutchinson takes the possibility seriously on page 301, where he cites lurid de- tails of the eruption he attributes (against the 150() BC of Marinatos) to the crucial 1400 BC phase. Certainly there is much yet to be measured and verified in the past of Crete. Almost all that is known to date is between
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