July–December 1936

Continued from scan 14

… inconceivable in the 7th century, when he wants a late date for Attic geometric, but he claims it here. He did not until he had my article to contend with. It is a subterfuge, and I am convinced that it is a fallacious one.

As I noted before, he has the fault of preconceived ideas, formulated years ago, and he is unable to give them up. He told me in so many words today: your article seems sound, but it can't be, because _I know that Greeks came to Cyprus in great numbers after the fall of Mycenae_, and your conclusions cannot be reconciled to that. I argued that the pottery should be studied absolutely by itself, the skeletal material by itself, etc., and then the different lists of evidence weighed against each other. I maintained that it is not impossible for the L.C. III pottery to be derived in Cyprus, and for Mycenaeans to have come even so. It is conceivable for them to come without bringing sub-Mycenaean pottery. But Gjerstad can't see that at all. He says that the pottery cannot be divorced from the other material at all, not even long enough to analyse it in detail.

He discussed his other evidence with me, and I strongly suspect that none of it holds water. His whole thought is muddled by certain pseudo-anthropological theories, to which he clings for dear life. The most amazing, and the one which has lead him astray both in Cyprus and Cilicia, is the theory that there is no such thing as one race to copying from another. It is a-priori impossible for Cypriotes to copy Mycenaean art. If there is a time at which Cyprus produces art akin to that of Mycenae it is to be inferred that they were also racially akin at that time. There is, he says, no other possible solution! Cypriotes, he says, could not, in the nature of things, copy Mycenaean art. This is, of course, sheer poppycock. It is shocking to me that an intelligent man should have any such guiding principles.