re was a demand arising
for their work, or where instructors were being sought to teach
the new arts; and Ab-nub and his son Sebek-user may have drifted
to Knossos in this manner, and found at last their graves there.
Were they conceivably responsible for the 'imported alabaster vases
dating from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt,' which were found in the
royal tomb at Isopata?

Towards the close of this epoch the ceramic art of Knossos shows
features which are directly attributable to Egyptian influence.
The art of glazing pottery was not a native Cretan, but an Egyptian
art; it is in full use in Egypt from the very beginnings of the
First Dynasty. But now we find it appearing in a high state of
development in Crete in the beautiful faience reliefs of the wild-goat
and kids, the vases with the wild-rose in relief on the lip, and
the figurines of the Snake Goddess and her votaresses. The Cretan
artists, however, though they borrowed the process, adapted it
to their own tastes. In Egypt the native faience of the time is
of strictly conventional type, with black design on blue; but the
Cretan emancipated himself from these limits, and made his faience
reliefs in the polychrome style, which still persisted, though
now no longer so prevalent as it had once been.

The disastrous period of the Hyksos domination in Egypt has left
but one trace at Knossos, but that is of peculiar interest, for
it is the lid of an alabastron bearing the name of the Hyksos King
Khyan. It cannot be said that we know any of the Hyksos Kings,
but Khyan is the one whose relics are the most widely distributed
and have the most interest. The finding of the lid at Knossos, his
farthest west, is balanced by the lion, bearing his cartouche,
found many years ago at Baghdad, his farthest east, while in his
inscriptions he calls himself 'Embracer of territories.' So it
has been suggested that the Knossos lid and the Baghdad lion are
the scanty relics of a great Hyksos empire which once extended
from the Euphrates to the First Cataract of the Nile, and possibly
also held Crete in subjection. In all likelihood, however, the
idea is merely a dream; certainly so far as regards Crete it is
most improbable. In the palmiest days of the Egyptian navy the
Pharaohs never held any dominion over Crete, and even Cyprus was
never really under their rule. It is much less likely still that a
King of the Hyksos race, whose whole tradition is of the land and
the desert, should