Mycenaean War with Crete

The Mycenaean civilization, which reached its peaked between 1500 and 1200 BC, was the first great civilization on the Greek mainland.

Mycenaean civilization ruled by kings who inhibited places enclosed within massive was in easily defensible hilltops.

By the time they invaded Crete, the kings had strongly fortified these palaces, suggesting that theirs was a more warlike society.

Mycenae’s power was complete when a volcanic eruption in Crete weakened the power of the kingdom, which had been Mycenae’s main power rival.

The civilization of Crete began to decline after 1628 BC though a series of disaster. First volcanic island of Thera exploded, sending massive tidal wave to crash into the northern shore of Crete.

Crete war with the mainland Mycenaeans eroded wealth, and in 1450 BC, Mycenaean swept through Crete.


The Mycenaean colonization of Crete lasted from 1400 to 1100 BC. Knossos probably retained its position as capital of the island, but its rules were subject to the the mainland.

The Cretan places were not fortified . Conditions were evident regularly peaceful on Crete. The priest kings of Crete dwelt secure in comfortable. Rambling places, brightly colored and open to the warm sky.

From 14th century BC, roughly in the same period that the society on largely collapsed due to warfare and invasion, massive Cyclopean walls were erected at Mycenae, presumably replacing less impressive fortification.

Cyclopean architecture seems to have evolved in the Greek Argolid, is very notable in Mycenean architecture.

After the fall of Crete, Mycenaeans expanded their sphere of influence across the Mediterranean.
Mycenaean War with Crete

Sifting the Soil of Greece

David W.J. Gill, Sifting the Soil of Greece: the Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919). Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, suppl. 111. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2011. ISBN 978-1-905670-32-1. £38. xiv + 474 pp.
[WorldCat]

The British School at Athens opened in 1886 “to promote all researches and studies” which could “advance the knowledge of Hellenic history, literature, and art from the earliest age to the present day”. Over the next thirty years the School initiated a major programme of excavations, initially on Cyprus, then at Megalopolis, on Melos, and at Sparta. School students took part in the work of the Cretan Exploration Fund and in the major regional surveys of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund.

Most of the students who were admitted to the School in this period had been educated at either Cambridge or Oxford. Women, mostly from Cambridge, took part in the School’s activities including the excavations at Phylakopi. The students’ research interests included Greek pottery, Aegean prehistory, and epigraphy. The experience of Greece prepared the students for later work in British universities and in other professions. Many extended their archaeological experience in Greece to fieldwork in Britain, Egypt, and India.

During the First World War former students were involved in intelligence work in the eastern Mediterranean through the activities of the Arab Bureau in Cairo.

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BSA Students and Crete in the First World War

Students of the BSA had been involved in a series of excavations across Crete since the foundation of the Cretan Exploration Fund. These had included Knossos, the Dictaean Cave, Kato Zakro, Praesos, Palaikastro, the Kamares Cave and Plati.

Three former BSA students were commissioned as officers in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR): Richard M. Dawkins (1871-1955), John C. Lawson (1874-1935), and William R. Halliday (1886-1966). Their role was to monitor the activity of German submarines and to be involved in counter-espionage.

Lawson was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Dawkins had just resigned as Director of the BSA and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Both were in their 40s. Halliday had been appointed Rathbone Professor of Ancient History at Liverpool in 1914. Lawson was commissioned in February 1916, Halliday in May, and Dawkins in December. All held the rank of Lieutenant; Lawson rose to be Lt-Commander. (Dawkins' father had retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of Read-Admiral.) Lawson was based at Suda Bay, Dawkins to eastern Crete (an area he knew well from his excavations there), and Halliday to the western part of the island.

Lawson later wrote about aspects of his activity as an intelligence officer:

He must secure native agents ashore along coastlines of many hundred miles to report sightings of submarines, and movements of ships or persons suspected of communicating with or re-victualling them, and devise codes for the passing of such information. He must direct the tracking and procure the arrest of spies and enemy agents in general.

One of Lawson's actions was to annexe (briefly) the island of Kythera in January 1917 as he considered it to be acting as a base for enemy submarines responsible for a series of sinkings.

This work on Crete was conducted alongside other intelligence work through the Eastern Mediterranean Special Intelligence Bureau (EMSIB) in Salonica (see Harry Pirie-Gordon) or through civilian activity in Athens.

Cretan Exploration Fund: Anthropology

Human and animal remains from excavations of the Cretan Exploration Fund were send to Professor William Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929) of Manchester University. Boyd Dawkins was a friend of Evans and was invited to Knossos. He had worked on cave deposits in England, notably Wookey Hole and Cresswell Crags, and was thus a natural choice to advise Hogarth for the interpretation of animal remains from the Dictaean Cave. He also made comments on the skulls found during Hogarth's excavations at Kato Zakro.

Bosanquet wrote about the human remains from Palaikastro:

Old C---'s [presumably Charles Comyn] fondness for skulls is notorious; to-day he packed 13 of them in two large mule-paniers and sent them off to the Museum at Candia, hoping they may arrive there in time to be measured and reported on by Body-Dawkins. B.-D. is the author of a sporting book on 'Cave-hunting,' and what he doesn't know about bones isn't worth knowing. Also he's a pal of Evans', and is coming to Cnossos to stay with E. [April 21, 1902]

The following season Wynfrid L.H. Duckworth, Cambridge university lecturer in physical anthropology, joined the team to work on the remains found in the ossuaries. As he was a qualified medical doctor (St Bartholomew's Hospital in London) he was able to meet the medical needs of the local community.

Duckworth has a lot of doctoring to do and is very good and patient. Our drugs, sufficient for my modest practice, aren't enough for his, but that's just as well, for we have no business to take the place of the local doctors and chemists by a too wholesale distribution of medicines. [March 28, 1903]

Charles H. Hawes of Trinity College, Cambridge, joined the project in 1905 to continue this work.

References
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1900/01. "Skulls from cave burials at Zakro." Annual of the British School at Athens 7: 150-56. [See comment by J.L. Myres, Man 2 [1902] 122-23.]
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1902. "Remains of animals found in the Dictaean Cave in 1901." Man 2: 162-65. [JSTOR]
Duckworth, W. L. H. 1902/03a. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 11. Human remains at Hagios Nikolaos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 344-50.
—. 1902/03b. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 12. Ossuaries at Roussolakkos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 350-55.
Hawes, C. H. 1904/05. "Excavations at Palaikastro. IV. § 7. Larnax burials at Sarandari." Annual of the British School at Athens 11: 293-97.

Image
Skull from Zakro.

Oxford and the Managing Committee

The University of Oxford's nominee on the Managing committee was David Binning Monro (1836-1905), Provost of Oriel College (from 1882). On his death the nominee was Professor Percy Gardner (1846-1937) who held the Lincoln and Merton chair in Classical Archaeology (from 1887). Gardner had served on the original Managing Committee when he held the Disney chair of archaeology in Cambridge.

Those elected by the subscribers were:

• Professor Henry Francis Pelham (1846-1907) was the Camden Professor Ancient History (from 1889). Pelham's interest was in the work of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund though he supported the work of the School (and was later to be influential in the foundation of the British School at Rome).
• Professor (Sir) John Linton Myres (1869-1954) had been a student at the BSA (1892-95) alongside a fellowship at Magdalen College (1892-95). He returned to Oxford as a Student of Christ Church (1895-1907) and university lecturer in Classical Archaeology. After a time as professor in Liverpool (1907-10) Myres returned to Oxford as the Wykeham professor of Ancient History (1910-39).
• (Sir) Arthur John Evans (1851-1941) had been appointed Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in 1884. He had initiated the work at Knossos and was a key figure in the Cretan Exploration Fund.
• Francis John Haverfield (1860-1919) senior student and tutor at Christ Church. In 1907 he was elected Camden Professor of Ancient History.
  
• David George Hogarth (1862-1927) had been the first Oxford student at the BSA (1886/87). He had subsequently been Director of the BSA (1897-1900) and had worked with the Cretan Exploration Fund. In 1908 succeeded Evans as Keeepr of the Ashmolean Museum.
• Marcus Niebuhr Tod (1878-1974) was a student at the BSA (1901/02) and then Assistant Director (1902-04). He was elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1903 (though was allowed to remain in Greece) and became tutor in ancient history in 1905. In 1907 he was appointed university lecturer in Greek Epigraphy.
  

Publishing the results of BSA projects

Articles on BSA projects were initially published in The Journal of Hellenic Studies and then in The Annual of the British School at Athens (from vol. 1 for the session 1894/95). Reports on major projects (Megalopolis, Phylakopi and Sparta) then appeared as Supplementary Papers for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies:

• Gardner, E. A., W. Loring, G. C. Richards, W. J. Woodhouse, and R. W. Schultz. 1892. Excavations at Megalopolis, 1890-1891. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 1. London: Macmillan.
• Atkinson, T. D., R. C. Bosanquet, C. C. Edgar, A. J. Evans, D. G. Hogarth, D. Mackenzie, C. Harcourt-Smith, and F. B. Welch. 1904. Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper, vol. 4. London: Macmillan.
  
• Dawkins, R. M. 1929. The sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper, vol. 5. London: Macmillan. [digital]
  

These Supplementary Papers also published the results of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund:

• Headlam, A. C. 1892. Ecclesiastical sites in Isauria (Cilicia Trachea). Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 2. London: Macmillan.

The third Supplementary Paper was relevant to the work in Athens:

• Middleton, J. H. (ed. E.A. Gardner) 1900. Plans and drawings of Athenian buildings. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 3. London: Macmillan.

Results from excavations at Palaikastro were published after the First World War as a supplement to the Annual:

• Bosanquet, R. C., and R. M. Dawkins. 1923. The unpublished objects from Palaikastro excavations, 1902-1906. British School at Athens supplementary papers, vol. 1. London: British School at Athens.

John Pendlebury: The Rash Adventurer

The research of John Pendlebury (1904-41) bridged the gap between Bronze Age Crete and Egypt. He was educated at Winchester, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Grundon's detailed study gives a view of research at the BSA during the 1920s and 1930s. It covers Pendlebury's key work on Crete and his excavations at Amarna. There is a detailed discussion of Pendlebury's role in the defence of Crete in 1941.

Grundon, I. 2007. The rash adventurer: a life of John Pendlebury. London: Libri. [Amazon] [WorldCat]