Abstract
OPPORTUNITY for further study of the archaeological material found in a cave at Arkalokhori in Crete (see NATURE, July 6, p. 15) has led to some modification of opinion as to its character, though not as to its importance. Sir Arthur Evans, in a communication to The Times of July 29, states that as a result of comparative study of the hieroglyphic inscription in three vertical lines on the votive bronze double axe, he has arrived at the conclusion that it does not, as at first supposed, represent an exotic script. He finds that while one or two new forms appear, nearly all the signs have close parallels in the Cretan series, while two recur in the same collocation on a faceted hieroglyphic cylinder in his possession. He is, therefore, of the opinion that the language is identical, though the new inscription, from its associations with material belonging to Late Middle Minoan, must be regarded as late in its class, dating from about 1600 B.C. From one of the lairs of a badger, from which animal the locality takes its name, a fairly complete series of potsherds, covering most of the Minoan periods, was recovered. Sir Arthur, passing on in the same communication to recent work at Knossos, chronicles an exploration of Minoan deposits, in which the most remarkable discovery was a small limestone head. This was of a markedly dolichocephalic early Egyptian type, though associated with relics of the closing Middle Minoan age. Mosaics of Hadrianic age from a villa recently found in the vineyard of the Villa Ariadne, in which the heads of Dionysiac figures in medallions are the recurring subject, have been pronounced to excel any Roman specimens of the kind yet found in Greece.
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Recent Archæological Discoveries in Crete. Nature 136, 175 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136175a0