lion chasing and capturing a wild-goat. Great bronze vessels
were wrought with splendid conventional designs, and some of the
stone vases of the period are amazing in the skill with which they
were worked and decorated. 'How the hard material was worked with
precision in the _inside_ of vessels which have only the narrowest
of neck orifices, and that in an age of soft bronze tools, is as
great a mystery as the mode of working diorite and granite in
prehistoric Egypt.'[*] Perhaps the most splendid specimen is the
great amphora, 2 feet high by 6 feet in circumference, with its
two magnificent spiral bands, which was found in the so-called
Sculptor's Workshop at Knossos, beside the smaller vessel which
had only been roughed out when the catastrophe of the palace came.

[Footnote *: D. G. Hogarth, _Cornhill Magazine_, March, 1903, p.
329.]

The linear script, Class B, now supersedes the earlier type, Class
A.

In this period we come for the first time into a sphere where there
is practically an absolute certainty in dating; for now we have the
Keftiu appearing in the tomb frescoes of the Eighteenth Dynasty
at Thebes, with their vessels of characteristic Minoan type, and
their purely Minoan style of dress and general appearance. Sen-mut's
tomb gives us a date about 1480 B.C., and Rekh-ma-ra's may bring
us down to 1450 B.C., or thereby. It is somewhat striking that
the periods of greatest splendour alike for the Egyptian Empire
and for the Minoan should virtually coincide. In either case, the
duration of the culmination of splendour was short. The magnificence
of the Egypt of Hatshepsut, Tahutmes III., and Amenhotep III., was
speedily to be clouded and dimmed by the disasters of the reign
of Akhenaten; but even before the glory of the Eighteenth Dynasty
had passed away, the sun of the Minoan Empire had set. Late Minoan
II., with all its triumphs of architecture and art, was brought to
an abrupt close by the sack of the palaces, probably about 1400
B.C., and the great frescoes of the palace at Knossos were the last
evidences of a magnificence which was never to be revived again
on Cretan soil.

During this period intercourse between Crete and Egypt must have
been frequent and close. It is not only indicated by the evidence
of the Sen-mut and Rekh-ma-ra tombs, but by the parallelism in
the styles of art in the two countries. The art of each remains
truly national, but the frescoes of Knossos and Hagia Triada and
those o