The island first attracted the notice of archaeologists by the remarkable archaic Greek bronzes found in a cave on Mount Ida in 1885, as well as by epigraphic monuments such as the famous law of Gortyna; but the first undoubted Aegean remains reported from it were a few objects extracted from Cnossus by Minos Kalokhairinos of Candia in 1878.
Bathgen's Beitriige zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (1888) is most useful, and contains valuable epigraphic material.
All that can be said is that both archaeological and epigraphic evidence indicates that no very long interval separated the empire of the Semitic kings of Agade from that of the kings of Sumer and Akkad, whose rule was inaugurated by the founding of the Dynasty of Ur.1 To use caution in accepting the chronological notices of the later kings is very far removed from suggesting emendations of their figures.
The latter is based on Busolt's monograph and includes subsequent epigraphic evidence, with a full list of authorities.
HieroglyphicThe main division is into monumental or epigraphic nieroglyphs and written hieroglyphs.
