2GÖ

DUNCAN MACKEXZIE

with light design on a dark ground. Thus the border field on the neck of
this vase forma a dark lustrous glaze ground on which a System of rosettes
is ' reserved' by means of the device already referred to. The lower part of
the vase—below the marine design on the body of the vase, dark on a
light ground—probably also had a dark-ground border with light design
of a simpler character than that on the neck. The imporfced vase figured
on page 146 has enough of its neck preserved to show that it also had a
similar dark glaze ground with reserved Ornament in a similar technique.
The bands below on the same vase are also to be considered as light design
on a dark ground. This synthetic application of both techniqu.es, forms
the classical expression of the grand Palace Style in Grete.1 The vase
figured on page 146 and the' fragment XXXI. 1 from this point of view
come absolutely into the same class as the amphora of the Palace Style
illustrated in J.KS., p. 192, Fig. 10.2

The type of vase figured on page 146, with Ornament so closely
analogous to that of the amphora just cited, is extremely common at
Cnossos also in stone, especially alabaster.:! Though no stone example of
this kind was found in Melos, stone vases Coming under another category
occurred in sufficient numbers to deserve special remark. The vases in
question are in steatite and are described and illustrated on pp. 196-199.4
Several similar vases had previously been found in Crete and an aecount
of those has been given by Dr. Evans in ' Cretan Pictographs,' p. 123,
Fig. 123. Since then, however, the excavations at Cnossos have yielded a
rieh harvest of stone vases, among them being vessels in steatite like the
ones found at Phylakopi. The circumstances under which the vases of
Cnossos were found were such as enabled us to come to a definite conclusion
as to the period to which they belonged. They were found "on the Moors of
the palace in deposit which belonged to the second period of the building,
that inaugurated by the ovents which led indirectly to the closing of the
cists in the Fourth Magazine and to other repairs within the palace.
There is no doubt that the steatite vases found in Phylakopi are from Crete,
and that thus they are additional evidence of continued trade-rel'ations
with Crete down to the end of the second period of the palace at Cnossos.
The context in which these vases occurred at Phylakopi is in harmony
with the ceramic and other evidence that this period of the Third City
and the second period of the palace at Cnossos are contemporary with
each other. They were found in the fioor-deposit of a small but important
self-contained house in the region J, K 3: 5-28. This house, like that
at H 2: 14, on the floor of which was found the ivory ring described on
page 193, is onc of those that had apparently become submerged in some

1 In ihe development of this synthetic style
the influenae of the fresoo-painter muBt have
l>een paramount. Indecd the prinoiple of
regulär arohiteotonio alternation of light on u
dark and of dark on a light ground is so
fundamental that from tliis timo onward it

forms the one basis of all true deoorative
wall-painting.
- See ib. 194.

3 See B.8.A. vi. 41.

4 See Ii.S.A. iv. 34.