THE OLDEST CIVILISATION OF GREECE.
The Oldest Civilisation of Greece. By H. R. Hall, M.A. (David Nutt. 15s.)—Mr. Hall's position in the British Museum enables him to speak authoritatively on the connection between the civilisation of Mycenaean Greece and that of Egypt and the East He holds the view that the Mycenaean culture is "not merely the forerunner, but the immediate and direct ancestor of the culture of later Greece." The Achaean rulers of the great king- doms of Tiryns, Argos-Mycenae, and pre-Dorian Laconia suc- cumbed in about the twelfth century to the Dorian invaders ; but their civilisation survived in a slightly debased form in Ionia and the Aegean Islands, and the numerous traces of its survival enable us to bridge over the gap between Mycenae and the renascent art of the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. Between the Dorian invasion and the last-named date the rude geo- metrical art of the Dipylon had asserted itself in Greece, and this art, with the mixed culture of Phoenicia, exercised a strongly modifying influence on the later Mycenaean culture of the Aegean, which eventually re-established itself in Continental Greece. Of the Pelasgian forerunners of the Achaeans Mr. Hall has much to say. Be considers them to have been neither Aryan, nor Semitic, but members of a group of races which inhabited Asia Minor and Armenia in historical times. The character of the languages of the Lycian and Carian inscriptions, and the occurrence of curious place names—e.g., Tiryns, Arne, and a number of names ending in "nda " and " setts " which are found throughout Greece—make it highly probable that a large number of the Pelasgian tribes, with the primitive inhabitants of Crete, belonged to this stock. About 2000 B.C. the Hellenes, chief among whom were the Achaeans, came into Greece from the North, and imposed their rule, and eventually their language, on the primitive inhabitants, who were by no means barbarians, as is shown by pre-Mycenaean remains. The Hellenes of history were then like other great nations, a mixed race, and in all probability owed their greatness to the mixture. Mr. Hall's theory certainly explains the fact that the Greeks of history were physically a. Southern race, with but little trace of the Aohaean fairness of which Homer sings, for it is easy to suppose that while the fair Hellenes imposed their speech on the Pelasgians, and were perhaps responsible for the inception of the civilisation of Hellas, they were never much more than an aristocracy, and were gradually absorbed. Is it not possible that they brought with them from the North a culture akin to that of Iceland and Scan. dinavia, and that this culture, coming into contact with the rudi- mentary civilisation of the Pelasgi, coalesced with it, and pro- duced the high civilisation of Mycenae ? Mr. Hall's book is admirably illustrated, and should be very useful to the advanced student of Greek and early Hellenistic antiquities.
Previous page
