be thrust out beyond the Straits of Gibraltar
to satisfy the wider ideas of the men of Solon's and Necho's time.

Almost certainly then, Plato's story gives the Saite version of the
actual Egyptian records of the greatness and the final disaster of
that great island state with which Egypt so long maintained intercourse.
Doubtless to the men of the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty the
sudden blotting out of Minoan trade and influence by the overthrow
of Knossos seemed as strange and mysterious as though Crete had
actually been swallowed up by the sea. The island never regained
its lost supremacy, and gradually sank into the insignificance
which is its characteristic throughout the Classical period. So,
though neither the priest of Sais nor his Greek auditor, and still
less Plato, dreamed of the fact, the wonderful island State of which
the Egyptian tradition preserved the memory, was indeed Minoan
Crete, and the men of the Lost Atlantis whose portraits Produs saw
in Egypt were none other than the Keftiu of the tombs of Sen-mut
and Rekh-ma-ra.

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY

Prior to 1580 B.C. the dates in the summary must be regarded as
merely provisional, and the margin of possible error is wide. The
tendency on the part of the Cretan explorers has been to accept
in the main the Berlin system of Egyptian dating in preference
to that advocated by Professor Flinders Petrie ('Researches in
Sinai,' pp. 163-185), on the ground that the development of the
Minoan culture can scarcely have required so long a period as that
given by the Sinai dating. It must be remembered, however, that
the question is still unsettled, and that the longer system of
Professor Petrie must be regarded as at least possible.

CRETE.
EGYPT (BERLIN).
EGYPT (PETRIE).

B.C.
10000-3000, Neolithic Age.
_c._ 3000-2600, Early Minoan I.
Dynasties I.-V., 3400-2625 B.C.
Dynasties I.-V., 5510-4206 B.C.
_c._ 2600-2400 " " II.
Dynasty VI., 2625-2475 "
Dynasty VI., 4206-4003 "
_c._ 2400-2200 " " III.
Dynasties VII.-X., 2475-2160 "
Dynasties VII.-X., 4003-3502 "
_c._ 2200-2000, Middle Minoan I.
(earlier palaces at Knossos and Phaestos).
Dynasty XI., 2160-2000 "