trument was mutilated by the unsympathetic
judges at Sparta to put him on a level with his four-stringed
competitors.

[Illustration XVI: A FLIGHT OF THE QUADRUPLE STAIRCASE (_p_. 85)

WALL WITH DRAIN (_p_. 98)]

More important, however, is the suggestion of Egyptian influence
in the grouping of the figures. No one familiar with the details of
the ceremony of 'opening the mouth' of the deceased, so continually
represented in Egyptian funerary scenes, can fail to recognize the
original inspiration of the scene on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus.
The tomb in the background, the stiff swathed figure propped like
a log in front of it, the leafy branch before the dead man, taking
the place of the bunches of lotus-blooms, the offerings of meat,
and the sacrifice of the bull--this is an Egyptian funeral with
the mourners dressed in Cretan clothes. We have already seen a
priest from the banks of the Nile brandishing his sistrum in the
Harvest Procession; and the sarcophagus suggests that Egyptian
religious influence was telling, if not on the actual views of
the Cretans as to the state of man after death, at all events upon
the ceremonial by means of which these views were expressed. Phaestos
and Hagia Triada, we must remember, owing to their position, would
be more exposed to Egyptian influence than even Knossos, where
traces of it are not lacking.

The villa at Hagia Triada showed the same attentive care for sanitary
arrangements which has been already noticed at Knossos. Mosso has
noted an illustration of the honesty with which the work had been
executed. 'One day, after a heavy downpour of rain, I was interested
to find that all the drains acted perfectly, and I saw the water
flow from sewers through which a man could walk upright. I doubt
if there is any other instance of a drainage system acting after
4,000 years.'

The excavations at Knossos, Phaestos, and Hagia Triada have yielded,
in the main, evidence of the splendour of the Minoan Kings; but
other sites in the island, while presenting perhaps nothing so
striking, have added largely to our knowledge of the common life
of the Minoan race. At Gournia an American lady, Miss Harriet Boyd
(now Mrs. Hawes), made the remarkable discovery of a whole town,
mainly dating from the close of the Middle Minoan period, though
the site had been occupied from the beginning of the Bronze Age.
Gournia had had its modest palace, occupying an area of about half
an acre, with its adap