Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Blaðsíða 83

SWEDISH EXCAVATIONS
73
town, most of which was brought to light. No less than ten
building periods could be separated out from the Early Bronze
Age down to and including the Geometric Age to about 700
B. C., and a Hellenistic and a Roman stage. The relics from
the Middle and Late Bronze Age are the most interesting ones,
thus with previously unknown house types suggesting a strong
Aegean influence. One of the houses from the Early Bronze
Age proved to be of an oblong form with a rounded termina-
tion. This type is known from other places and is distinct from
the later, more complex houses. In a house from the Middle
Bronze Age a Greek megaron enters as the centre of a larger
complex of rooms. To this large building, which dominates the
Asine of the Middle Bronze Age, also belongs a large store-
house with narrow, parallel store-rooms. We recognize the ar-
rangement from the large palaces in Crete, although the store-
rooms there are laid out as belonging to the same building-com-
plex. The house type also survives in the Mycenaean Period of
Asine, where two other buildings showed striking parallels to the
lay-out mentioned. A certain settlement could be traced in the
Geometric Age, too, although these houses were badly damaged.
Some well-preserved thermae date from the Roman Period. Be-
tween these architectural remains also a large number of tombs
from various periods were excavated. Among the finds from the
lower town the pottery is in the majority. It was collected very
carefully and the study of it has yielded important results for
the study especially of Prehistoric Greece. The connexion with
the Aegean archipelago and Crete could often be demonstrated.
From late Mycenaean times originates a small terra-cotta head
found in a house together with other objects, among them a pot-
sherd with an inscription which, after an attempt at interpretation
by A. W. Persson, proved to be of the greatest importance for the
interpretation of Minoan script.9 Outside the area of the town
itself, on top of the neighbouring mountain of Barbouna, a small
Apollo temple, perhaps identical with the one mentioned by Pau-
sanias, was excavated. On the slopes of the Barbouna also were
large necropolises. Here tombs from the Mycenaean and Geometric
Ages were examined. Of particular interest were the splendid
9 Persson, Schrift und Sprache in Alt-Kreta, Uppsala 1930; More Cypro-
Minoan Inscriptions, in the Swed. Cyp. Exp. III, p. 601. B. Collinder,
Die altkretische Kephtisprache, in the Sprakvet. Sallskapets Hand-
lingar 1932—33.