Show the inventors ot the alphabet have of crete working in tho island of cete where he baa made a series of discoveries diso veries which have shed new light on the origin of european arthur J evans the eminent english archaeologist chae has discovered fragments of an inscription which carries back the diec oTery of writing tor centuries beyond the date hitherto assigned not merely this bat the home of the invention commonly awarded to the ingenious phoenicians Phoenicia ns ia transferred to another race the mysterious and prehistoric mycenaean Myce nean whose remains now constitute the most interesting problem ot antiquity A year ago at the oxford meeting of the british association erans demon the existence of prehistoric cretan script evolved by gradual simplification and selection from an earlier picture writing akin to that ot egypt and babylon this script is airet found in ae with the curious seals and caraba which the ancients were fond of carving and which have themselves served to trace the advancement of art and proximately the history of these early people succeeding this primitive script came another more and often linear revealing the p ogress made in the at in his last exploring tour however evans brought to light an inscribed historic relic far surpassing these in interest and importance it consists of a fragment of what may be described as a steatite 0 soapstone scap stone table of to zeus bearing a part of what appears to be a dedication of nine betteis let teis with two punctuation marks answering to the same early cretan script found in the seals it was found in the lowest level of mycenaean stratum containing numerous native objects in the great cave 0 mt diata which according to the the birthplace of zeus this early script centuries the most ancient of phoenician writing and tupp liea very close analogies to what may be opposed to have been the pictorial prototypes of several of the phoenician characters it Bt andson ane other hand in direct relation to the syllabic characters med at later date by the greeks in about half the characters used by the cretans are believed to be represented in the fragment and it this be true the phoenicians Phoenicia ns who borrowed this alphabet added bat little to it since their own contained but characters in the succeeding improvement through homeric times ther number was increased with some change and the addition of signs for the vowels eo that the alphabet greece emerges with 22 to 24 characters substantially that which used by the european race today it ie noar altogether probable that other relics will be found showing the cretan script in its entirety though the great tep in he history of the art of writing implied in th evolution of symbols of phonetic value from primitive picture writings has now been conclusively to baye taken place on european toil and been by a european and not an somatic race but the yet remains who was this people there Is no ya estion that they belong to the brilliant prehistoric yace who developed the civilization and art to which the name of mycenaean or Myk ensen ia pro tino nally given so far aa ecca have yet extended thia race seems to found its apogee in the city of mycenae Myc anae explored first by dr manar though ite remains are widely distributed from in abia minor the probable site of ancient troy through the inlands of the aegean sea to sicily and the chaat of italy crete cyprus the were settled at come time ruled by the Eyce who appear to have been the viking of the antique world it ia probable that with them navigation arose they were explorers and con quer ere they have left vestiges of their intercourse with the valleys of the nile and danube and probably extended their outposts as far as southern france and spain it is not improbable that the chief god of the greeks zeus was one of their larli eat rulers and from ahm many it not most of the and legends which comprise the beginning of greek literature must have been handed down of later than of euphrates and the nile they appear to have borrowed nothing from these until their own culture bad reached a brilliant and independent maturity to trace the origin of this remarkable people to from remains their history their wanderings and achievement and to find of their decadena decad enc and dispersal is today the most fascinating field of antiquarian research yet 20 year ago there wis w is not so much as a surmise that the Mycenae ns had even existed so rapidly does knowledge progress pro greis in our day |