Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 2,1): Fresh lights on origins and external relations (London, 1928)

58 IMPULSE FROM THE SOUTH: EARLY NILOTIC

unpublished, a fact which makes the discovery of a specimen at Knossos the
more remarkable.

The remains of these diorite and other vessels of Early Dynastic fabric
on the site of Knossos were in no case associated with floor deposits of the

a 1.

3 1. 3 2.

Fig. 27. Egyptian Eared Cups : a 1-2, Alabaster, El Kab IVth Dynasty.
3 1-2, Diorite, Knossos, restored.

Knossos
a staple
for proto-
dynastic
Egypt

Palace itself. Examples of such exotic works at times, owing to the dura-
bility of the material, undoubtedly survived as heirlooms, like the bowl
of Spartan porphyry found in the Isopata tomb. But the evidence is
cumulative, and the only legitimate archaeological deduction is that these
vessels at any rate reached Crete at the time when their fabric was in vogue
with the Egyptian lapidaries, in the case, that is, of the fine diorite bowls
and cups, during the culminating phase of the Early Kingdom of Egypt
from the Fourth to the Sixth Dynasty.