that some of them are contracts or
public acts, which may give some actual formulae of Minoan legislation.
There is, indeed, an atmosphere of legal nicety, worthy of the
House of Minos, in the way in which these records were secured.
The knots of string which, according to the ancient fashion, stood
in the place of locks for the coffers containing the tablets, were
rendered inviolable by the attachment of clay seals, impressed
with the finely engraved signets, the types of which represented a
great variety of subjects, such as ships, chariots, religious scenes,
lions, bulls, and other animals. But--as if this precaution was not
in itself considered sufficient--while the clay was still wet the
face of the seal was countermarked by a controlling official, and
the back countersigned and endorsed by an inscription in the same
Mycenaean script as that inscribed on the tablets themselves.'[*]

[Footnote *: _Monthly Review_, March, 1901, pp. 129, 130.]

The tablets had been stored in coffers of wood, clay, or gypsum.
The wooden coffers had perished in the great conflagration which
destroyed the palace, and only their charred fragments remained;
but the destroying fire had probably contributed to the preservation
of the precious writings within, by baking more thoroughly the clay
of which they were composed. As yet, in spite of all efforts, it
has not proved possible to decipher the inscriptions, for there has
so far been no such good fortune as the discovery of a bilingual
inscription to do for Minoan what the Rosetta Stone did for Egyptian
hieroglyphics. But it is not beyond the bounds of probability that
there may yet come to light some treaty between Crete and Egypt
which may put the key into the eager searcher's hands, and enable
us to read the original records of this long-forgotten kingdom
(Plate XIV.).

[Illustration XI: PILLAR OF THE DOUBLE AXES (_p_. 70)]

Even as it is, the discovery of these tablets has altered the whole
conception of the relative ages of the various early beginnings
of writing in the Eastern Mediterranean area. The Hellenic script
is seen to have been in all likelihood no late-born child of the
Phoenician, but to have had an ancestor of its own race; and the old
Cretan tradition on which Dr. Evans relied at the commencement of
his work, has proved to be amply justified. 'In any case,' said Dr.
Evans, summing up his first year's results, 'the weighty question,
which years before I had set myse