The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea-Kings of Crete, by James Baikie

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Title: The Sea-Kings of Crete

Author: James Baikie

Release Date: September 19, 2006 [EBook #19328]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall

[Illustration I: THE THRONE OF MINOS (_p_. 72)]

THE SEA-KINGS

OF CRETE

BY REV. JAMES BAIKIE, F.R.A.S.

WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

SECOND EDITION

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1913

TO MY SISTERS AND MY BROTHERS

PREFACE

The object aimed at in the following pages has been to offer to
the general reader a plain account of the wonderful investigations
which have revolutionized all ideas as to the antiquity and the
level of the earliest European culture, and to endeavour to make
intelligible the bearing and significance of the results of these
investigations. In the hope that the extraordinary resurrection
of the first European civilization may appeal to a more extended
constituency than that of professed students of ancient origins,
the book has been kept as free as possible from technicalities
and the discussion of controverted points; and throughout I have
endeavoured to write for those who, while from their school days
they have loved the noble and romantic story of Ancient Greece,
have been denied the opportunity of a more thorough study of it
than comes within the limits of an ordinary education.

In the first chapter this standpoint may seem to have been unduly
emphasized, and the retelling of the ancient legends may be accounted
mere surplusage. Such, no doubt, it will be to some readers, but
perhaps they may be balanced by others whose recollection of the
great stories of Classic Greece has grown a little faint with the
lapse of years, and who are not unwilling to have it prompted again.
Reference to the legends was in any case unavoidable, since one
of the most remarkable results of the explorations has been the
disclosure of the solid basis of historic fact on which they rested;
and, if the book was to accomplish its purpose for the readers
for whom it