| [t]he Minoans dazzled Evans, too, and convinced him that Greece was "a Mainland branch of the Minoan culture", a mere "Minoan plantation"... If any classical specialist -- such as the archaeologists digging in mainland Greece -- disagreed with Evans, they seldom voiced their opinion... When the director of the British School at Athens ventured to differ in 1923, he had to retire from his position and was excluded from digging in Greece for a considerable period... According to the Cypriot phonetic values, the two signs should read polo...Evans duly noted that it resembled the classical Greek word 'polos', young horse or foal... But Evans rejected this plausible beginning, almost out of hand... Evans simply could not accept that the Minoans spoke and wrote an archaic form of Greek... In 1939, the American archaeologist Carl Blegen... had struck lucky with his first trial trench at a place he believed to be the site of ancient Pylos... almost 600 new pieces of Linear B... [Evans'] followers rapidly came up with explanations, such as that the tablets were "loot from Crete" or that a Greek ruler had raided Minoan Crete and carried off its scribes to work in his own palace at Pylos. [pp 76-84] |
