Page 84 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

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with them, and here again the incidences are more numerous the
closer one comes to Crete. On the other hand, direct Cretan im­
ports are rare in these areas in this period. They are in fact as
yet only attested in Italy, Sicily, Malta, and Sardinia. In Spain

and Portugal copper daggers are found which would appear to
be local imitations of Cretan types. But north of Portugal no
bronze or copper is found, although stone axes and daggers,

clearly copies in stone of copper originals, appear in the graves.
This is the evidence to which it is necessary to fit an explana­
tion. It appears clear that a burial practice native to Crete and

the Aegean is introduced about 2200 b.c. into areas to which it
is foreign, all the way around the coasts of Europe, but not in­

land, from Italy to Denmark. (It later extended, by cross-fertili­
zation, to other areas, both coastal and inland.) The worship of
a Cretan goddess accompanies the burial practice, but is not al­

ways, particularly not in the north, attested. And actual objects
made in Crete do not penetrate (or at least do not penetrate in

sufficient numbers to appear in the archaeological record) more
than a quarter of the distance reached by the burial practice.
It has been suggested that this circumstance must mean that

the voyagers who reached the north were not traders but mis­
sionaries. However, the difficulties involved in financing a voyage

of such a length for purely missionary purposes would probably
have been even greater then than now, and the ships must at
least have paid their own running costs by trade. The most prob­

able explanation of the lack of Aegean trade goods in northern
Europe during the spread of the passage-grave religion is that,

in coastal-trade voyages of that length, there would be several
complete turnovers of cargo. Like the Arab coastal trader of
Muscat and Dubai today, who sails yearly to Zanzibar and back,

calling in at every port on the way, the Cretan traders of four
thousand years ago probably exchanged their cargo at the first

port of call, taking on local products, perhaps things so prosaic
(and perishable) as wheat or hides or broadcloth, which would
command a market at the next port of call. Thus the process

would go on, and at each turnover the captain would bank a
profit—converted to more easily transported valuables such as