f the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt are inspired by the same
spirit, though in either case the result is modified by national
characteristics.

[Illustration XXVII: THE HARVESTER VASE, HAGIA TRIADA (_p_. 124)

_G. Maraghiannis_]

_Late Minoan III_.--This, the last period of the Minoan civilization,
commences with the destruction of the palace of Knossost somewhere
before 1400 B.C., and presents no definite line of termination.
The great style of art represented by the preceding period does
not at once degenerate into barbarism. If, as seems probable, the
men who destroyed the Cretan palaces were Mycenaeans of the mainland,
more or less of the same stock as the Cretan representatives of the
Minoan tradition, we can see how the catastrophe of the palaces
need not have been followed by any immediate catastrophe of the art
of Crete. At the same time the true spirit of the Minoan race had
been destroyed, and degeneration of the standard of art naturally
followed. The level of artistic work in the earlier part of the
period is still high--in fact, it is that of what is considered
the best Mycenaean art--the technical skill which produced the
masterpieces of the Palace period still survives, but the inspiration
which gave it life is gone. Originality in design vanishes first,
and is gradually followed by skill in execution; the old types are
reproduced in more and more slovenly fashion, and at last even
the material employed follows the example of degeneration. This
period of gradual decadence is, however, the period of greatest
diffusion of the products of Minoan, or, rather, as we may now
call it, of Mycenaean art. At Ialysos in Rhodes, and in the lower
town of Mycenae, types parallel with the work of Crete are found,
and Tell-el-Amarna furnishes specimens of pottery whose degeneracy
from the type of the Palace period declares them to belong to these
days of decadence. Specimens of Late Minoan III. work are found
at Tarentum, and the island of Torcello, near Venice, and even
as far west as Spain. One of the characteristic features of the
period is the fact that the stirrup-vase, found at Hagia Triada
and Gournia in Late Minoan I., but almost totally wanting in Late
Minoan II., now becomes common.

Towards the close of the period the site of the palace at Knossos
was partially reoccupied by a humbler race of men, who used the
rooms that had once witnessed the pride of the Minoan Sovereigns,
dividing them up by flimsy part