Page 82 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

people who were their cause.
The crews, we may imagine, were not entirely Cretan, but

were drawn from all the islands of the Aegean and from the
scattered cities which, like Troy, stood on the Aegean coast of

Asia Minor and made their living by trade. The ships may not
all have been Cretan-owned, and it is probable that the western

trade was financed by merchants from the whole of the Aegean.
The sailors must have been deeply religious, as events are to

show. They carried images and amulets of the great mother god­
dess of their homelands, strange exaggerated violin-shaped fe­
male figurines, and they came from lands where the burial cus­

toms, undoubtedly of deep religious significance, involved the
practice of collective burial in rock-cut tombs or in round vaulted

chambers built above ground. They took these customs with
them.
There were many routes which the captains could follow.

Their first port of call could be in Malta, or in Sicily, or on the
southeast coast of Italy. And there they would find small trad­

ing stations of their own people. There may not have been more
than a Cretan factor, with two or three assistants, perhaps re­

cruited from among the natives; or there might be two or three
families of Aegeans, supplementing their trading by fishing and

farming. The ships from home, calling in two or three times a
year, would land supplies and trade goods, and take on board
such local products as the factor had collected since the last

visit. There would rarely be a full cargo, and the ships would
sail on, bound for Sardinia or the south of France or southern

Spain.
The Spanish trading posts were perhaps the most important

on the whole route, for in Spain copper could be obtained, and
even gold and tin. In most cases a bulk cargo could be obtained

for the voyage home, and most ships would undoubtedly turn
round here. After all, the voyage from Crete to Spain was long
enough. A place now called Los Millares was at this time the

greatest center of eastern Mediterranean culture in Spain, and
from Los Millares to Knossos was almost exactly as far as from

Ur to the mouth of the Indus river. But some ships, it would