Page 279 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

THE FALL OF THE SEA KINGS

I44O-I37O B.C.

w

▼ ▼ h il e old men in Sweden looked out over the waters
of the Skagerak and remembered the Mediterranean, their sons
and grandsons sailed and rowed galleys over the north Atlantic

routes and frequently themselves ventured within the Straits of
Gibraltar. They would often have messages, and cargo, for the
families of former shipmates of their parents, now settled in the
islands of the Aegean, the inlets of Greece, the crowded harbor

cities of the Lebanese coast, and even at the port of Knossos it­
self.
The harbor town of Knossos, lying three miles north of the
actual capital clustered around the palace, was full of all the races

of the known world, and blond Northerners—or half-Northem-
ers—excited no remark among the Egyptians and Amorites,
Greeks and Hittites, Spaniards, Sicilians and Libyans, and the

dark-skinned people who came from an unknown distance far­
ther to the east or south. They were in fact normally taken for
Greeks, for among the mainland Greeks blue eyes and blond or
auburn hair were by no means uncommon. The rulers of Greece,

after all, were a northern people, and even distantly related to
the Scandinavians—or so they said.
There were always many Greeks in the harbor town, sailors
and merchants and peddlers, porters and mercenaries and semi­

official consular agents. The “real” Cretans of the inland city used
to say that the harbor town was more Greek than Cretan, and
complained that the Greek language, with its simple new script,
was ousting Old Cretan entirely as a written medium among the