its gate with heraldic lions, and the great ``Treasury of
Atreus'' had borne silent witness for ages before Schliemann's
time; but they were supposed only to speak to the Homeric,
or at farthest a rude Heroic beginning of purely Hellenic,
civilization. It was not till Schliemann exposed the
contents of the graves which lay just inside the gate (see
MYCENAE), that scholars recognized the advanced stage of
art to which prehistoric dwellers in the Mycenaean citadel
had attained. There had been, however, a good deal of
other evidence available before 1876, which, had it been
collated and seriously studied, might have discounted the
sensation that the discovery of the citadel graves eventually
made. Although it was recognized that certain tributaries,
represented e.g. in the XVIIIth Dynasty tomb of Rekhmara
at Egyptian Thebes as bearing vases of peculiar forms, were
of some Mediterranean race, neither their precise habitat nor
the degree of their civilization could be determined while so
few actual prehistoric remains were known in the Mediterranean
lands. Nor did the Aegean objects which were lying obscurely
in museums in 1870, or thereabouts, provide a sufficient
test of the real basis underlying the Hellenic myths of the
Argolid, the Troad and Crete, to cause these to he taken
seriously. Both at Sevres and Neuchatel Aegean vases have
been exhibited since about 1840, the provenience being in
the one case Phylakope in Melos, in the other Cephalonia.
Ludwig Ross, by his explorations in the Greek islands from
1835 onwards, called attention to certain early intaglios,
since known as Inselsteine; but it was not till 1878 that
C. T. Newton demonstrated these to be no strayed Phoenician
products. In 1866 primitive structures were discovered in the
island of Therasia by quarrymen extracting pozzolana for the
Suez Canal works; and when this discovery was followed up in
1870, on the neighbouring Santorin (Thera), by representatives
of the French School at Athens, much pottery of a class now
known immediately to precede the typical late Aegean ware,
and many stone and metal objects, were found and dated by
the geologist Fouque, somewhat arbitrarily, to 2000 B.C.,
by consideration of the superincumbent eruptive stratum.
Meanwhile, in 1868, tombs at Ialysus in Rhodes had yielded
to M. A. Biliotti many fine painted vases of styles which
were called later the third and fourth ``Mycenaean''; but
these, bought by John Ruskin, and presented to the British
Museum, excited less attention than they deserved, being
supposed to be of some local Asiatic fabric of uncertain
date. Nor was a connexion immediately detected between them
and the objects found four years later in a tomb at Menidi in
Attica and a rock-cut ``bee-hive'' grave near the Argive Heraeum.
Even Schliemann's first excavations at Hissarlik in the Troad
(q.v.) did not excite surprise. But the ``Burnt City'' of
his second stratum, revealed in 1873, with its fortifications
and vases, and a hoard of gold, silver and bronze objects,
which the discoverer connected with it, began to arouse a
curiosity which was destined presently to spread far outside
the narrow circle of scholars. As soon as Schliemann came on
the Mycenae graves three years later, light poured from all
sides on the prehistotic period of Greece. It was recognized
that the character of both the fabric and the decoration
of the Mycenaean objects was not that of any well-known
art. A wide range in space was proved by the identification
of the Inselsteine and the Ialysus vases with the new style,
and a wide range in time by collation of the earlier Theraean
and Hissarlik discoveries. A relation between objects of art
described by Homer and the Mycenaean treasure was generally
allowed, and a correct opinion prevailed that, while certainly
posterior, the civilization of the Iliad was reminiscent of the
Mycenaean. Schliemann got to work again at Hissarlik in 1878,
and greatly increased our knowledge of the lower strata, but
did not recognize the Aegean remains in his ``Lydian'' city
of the sixth stratum, which were not to be fully revealed
till Dr W. Dorpfeld resumed the work at Hissarlik in 1892
after the first explorer's death (see TROAD). But by
laying bare in 1884 the upper stratum of remains on the rock
of Tiryns (q.v.), Schliemann made a contribution to our
knowledge of prehistoric domestic life which was amplified
two years later by Chr. Tsountas's discovery of the Mycenae
palace. Schliemann's work at Tiryns was not resumed till
1905, when it was proved, as had long been suspected, that
an earlier palace underlies the one he had exposed. From
1886 dates the finding of Mycenaean sepulchres outside the
Argolid, from which, and from the continuation of Tsountas's
exploration of the buildings and lesser graves at Mycenae,
a large treasure, independent of Schliemann's princely gift,
has been gathered into the National Museum at Athens. In
that year were excavated dome-tombs, most already rifled but
retaining some of their furniture, at Arkina and Eleusis in
Attica, at Dimini near Volo in Thessaly, at Kampos on the
west of Mount Taygetus, and at Maskarata in Cephalonia.
The richest grave of all was explored at Vaphio in Laconia
in 1889, and yielded, besides many gems and miscellaneous
goldsmiths' work, two golden goblets chased with scenes of
bull-hunting, and certain broken vases painted in a large
bold style which remained an enigma till the excavation of
Cnossus. In 1890 and 1893 Staes cleared out certain less
rich dome-tombs at Thoricus in Attica; and other graves,
either rock-cut ``bee-hives'' or chambers, were found at Spata
and Aphidna in Attica, in Aegina and Salamis, at the Heraeum
(see ARGOS) and Nauplia in the Argolid, near Thebes and
Delphi, and not far from the Thessalian Larissa. During the
excavations on the Acropolis at Athens, terminated in 1888,
many potsherds of the Mycenaean style were found; but Olympia
had yielded either none, or such as had not been recognized
before being thrown away, and the temple site at Delphi produced
nothing distinctively Aegean. The American explorations of
the Argive Heraeum, concluded in 1895, also failed to prove
that site to have been important in the prehistoric time,
though, as was to be expected from its neighbourhood to Mycenae
itself, there were traces of occupation in the later Aegean
periods. Prehistoric research had now begun to extend
beyond the Greek mainland. Certain central Aegean islands,
Antiparos, Ios, Amorgos, Syros and Siphnos, were all found
to be singularly rich in evidence of the middle-Aegean
period. The series of Syran built graves, containing
crouching corpses, is the best and most representative that
is known in the Legean. Melos, long marked as a source of
early objects, but not systematically excavated until taken
in hand by the British School at Athens in 1896, yielded
at Phylakope remains of all the Aegean periods, except the
Neolithic. A map of Cyprus in the later Bronze Age (such
as is given by J. L. Myres and M. O. Richter in Catalogue
of the Cyprus Museum) shows more than five-and-twenty
settlements in and about the Mesaorea district alone, of which
one, that at Enkomi, near the site of Salamis, has yielded
the richest Aegean treasure in precious metal found outside
Mycenae. E. Chantre in 1894 picked up lustreless ware,
like that of Hissariik, in central Phtygia and at Pteria
(q.v.), and the English archaeological expeditions, sent
subsequently into north-western Anatolia, have never falled
to bring back ceramic specimens of Aegean appearance from
the valleys of the Rhyndncus, Sangarius and Halys. In Egypt
in 1887 W. M. F. Petrie found painted sherds of Cretan style
at Kahun in the Fayum, and farther up the Nile, at Tell
el-Amarna, chanced on bits of no fewer than 800 Aegean vases in
1889. There have now been recognized in the collections at
Cairo, Florence, London, Paris and Bologna several Egyptian
imitations of the Aegean style which can be set off against
the many debts which the centres of Aegean culture owed to
Egypt. Two Aegean vases were found at Sidon in 1885, and
many fragments of Aegean and especially Cypriote pottery have
been turned up during recent excavations of sites in Philistia
by the Palestine Fund. South-eastern Sicily, ever since P.
Orsi excavated the Sicel cemetery near Lentini in 1877, has
proved a mine of early remains, among which appear in regular
succession Aegean fabrics and motives of decoration from
the period of the second stratum at Hissarlik. Sardinia has
Aegean sites, e.g. at Abini near Teti; and Spain has yielded
objects recognized as Aegean from tombs near Cadiz and from
Saragossa. One land, however, has eclipsed all others in the
Aegean by the wealth of its remains of all the prehistoric
ages, viz. Crete, so much so that, for the present, we
must regard it as the fountain-head of Aegean civilization,
and probably for long its political and social centre. The
island first attracted the notice of archaeologists by the
remarkable archaic Greek bronzes found in a cave on Mount
Ida in 1885, as well as by epigraphic monuments such as the
famous law of Gortyna; but the first undoubted Aegean remains
reported from it were a few objects extracted from Cnossus by
Minos Kalokhairinos of Candia in 1878. These were followed
by certain discoveries made in the S. plain Messara by F.
Halbherr. W. J. Stillman and H. Schliemann both made
unsuccessful attempts at Cnossus, and A. J. Evans, coming on
the scene in 1893, travelled in succeeding years about the
island picking up trifles of unconsidered evidence, which
gradually convinced him that greater things would eventually be
found. He obtained enough to enable him to forecast the
discovery of written characters, till then not suspected in
Aegean civilization. The revolution of 1897-98 opened the
door to wider knowledge, and much exploration has ensued,
for which see CRETE. Thus the ``Aegean Area'' has now come
to mean the Archipelago with Crete and Cyprus, the Hellenic
peninsula with the Ionian isles, and Western Anatolic.
Evidence is still wanting for the Macedonian and Thracian
coasts. Offshoots are found in the W. Mediterranean, in
Sicily, Italy, Sardinia and Spain, and in the E. in Syria and
Egypt. About the Cyrenaica we are still insufficiently informed.
II. General Nature of the Evidence.---For details of
monumental evidence the articles on CRETE, MYCENAE,
TIRYNS, TROAD, CYPRUS, &c., must be consulted. The
most representative site explored up to now is Cnossus (see
CRETE, sect. Archaeology), which has yielded not only
the most various but the most continuous evidence from the
Neolithic age to the twilight of classical civilization.
Next in importance come Hissarlik, Mycenae, Phaestus,
Hagia, Triada, Tiryns, Phylakope, Palaikastro and Gournia.
A. The internal evidence at present available comprises--
Structures.---Ruins of palaces, palatial villas, houses,
built dome- or cist-graves and fortifications (Aegean isles,
Greek mainland and N.W. Anatolia), but not distinct temples;
small shrines, however, and temene (religious enclosures,
remains or one of which were probably found at Petsofa
near Palaikastro by J. L. Myres in 1904) are represented
on intaglios and frescoes. From the sources and from
inlay-work we have also representations of palaces and houses.
(2) Structural Decoration.--Architectural features, such as
columns, friezes and various mouldings; mural decoration,
such as fresco-paintings, coloured reliefs and mosaic inlay.
