DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.805#0064
[324] PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND SCRIPT 55
Fig. 40 exhibits a group of four distinct symbols and part of a fifth, which
has unfortunately been broken off. Fig. 41 again contains three signs
apparently of the same hieroglyphic character, one of which—the arm holding
a curved instrument—resembles the symbol on Fig. 32&. These specimens
belong apparently to the earlier class of lentoid beads and, like all those of
this early class, which in Crete is especially well represented, are cut in soft
stone, apparently steatite. One is from Knosos, the other from the Messara
district of Central Crete, and with them may be grouped another similar
lentoid bead from the latter region, with a figure which clearly represents an
insular copy of the Egyptian Aiikh.
§ VI.—The Earlier Classes of Cretan Seal-stones.
The comparisons already accumulated sufficiently warrant us in refer-
ring the most characteristic of the hieroglyphic stones to the great days of
Mycenaean art. The connexion established is indeed from many points of
view so intimate that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there
existed within the regions dominated by the Mycenaean culture—in Crete
certainly, perhaps in the Peloponnesus—a form of picture-writing of much the
same general character as that in use throughout this same period in the
' Hittite ' countries of Asia Minor.
But with these Mycenaean comparisons the last word has by no means
been said on the origin and evolution of the hieroglyphic forms. There are
distinct indications that the beginnings of this picture-writing go back to a
far more remote period of Cretan story. Everything tends to show that
they are in fact deeply rooted in the soil. The most typical forms of the
stones themselves come, as will be seen, of an old indigenous stock. As we
go farther back the signs become more pictorial, but they seem still to
stand in a personal relation to their owners not to be found on merely
decorative gems, and they serve essentially the same purpose as elements of
seals.
Of the types described the four-sided equilateral prisms represented by
Class II., all of which seem to belong to the Mycenaean period, correspond
with an Egyptian form of seal-stone that was in vogue in the time of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, and a good specimen of which in green jasper dating
from the reign of Thothmes II. (o. 1516—1503 B.C.) was found by Mr.
Petrie in the Maket Tomb at Kalmn. But the three-sided form seems to
be a characteristically Cretan product and to go back in the island to a
much more remote period.
In the course of my journey through Central and Eastern Crete I came
across a series of stones which, though of distinctly earlier fabric, showed the
same typical triangular form as Class I. of the later hieroglyphic series.
Some of these have the same elongated form, others resemble in shape the
more globular variety, but they are larger, and unlike the others, always cut
in steatite and never out of harder materials such as cornelian or jasper.
Fig. 40 exhibits a group of four distinct symbols and part of a fifth, which
has unfortunately been broken off. Fig. 41 again contains three signs
apparently of the same hieroglyphic character, one of which—the arm holding
a curved instrument—resembles the symbol on Fig. 32&. These specimens
belong apparently to the earlier class of lentoid beads and, like all those of
this early class, which in Crete is especially well represented, are cut in soft
stone, apparently steatite. One is from Knosos, the other from the Messara
district of Central Crete, and with them may be grouped another similar
lentoid bead from the latter region, with a figure which clearly represents an
insular copy of the Egyptian Aiikh.
§ VI.—The Earlier Classes of Cretan Seal-stones.
The comparisons already accumulated sufficiently warrant us in refer-
ring the most characteristic of the hieroglyphic stones to the great days of
Mycenaean art. The connexion established is indeed from many points of
view so intimate that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there
existed within the regions dominated by the Mycenaean culture—in Crete
certainly, perhaps in the Peloponnesus—a form of picture-writing of much the
same general character as that in use throughout this same period in the
' Hittite ' countries of Asia Minor.
But with these Mycenaean comparisons the last word has by no means
been said on the origin and evolution of the hieroglyphic forms. There are
distinct indications that the beginnings of this picture-writing go back to a
far more remote period of Cretan story. Everything tends to show that
they are in fact deeply rooted in the soil. The most typical forms of the
stones themselves come, as will be seen, of an old indigenous stock. As we
go farther back the signs become more pictorial, but they seem still to
stand in a personal relation to their owners not to be found on merely
decorative gems, and they serve essentially the same purpose as elements of
seals.
Of the types described the four-sided equilateral prisms represented by
Class II., all of which seem to belong to the Mycenaean period, correspond
with an Egyptian form of seal-stone that was in vogue in the time of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, and a good specimen of which in green jasper dating
from the reign of Thothmes II. (o. 1516—1503 B.C.) was found by Mr.
Petrie in the Maket Tomb at Kalmn. But the three-sided form seems to
be a characteristically Cretan product and to go back in the island to a
much more remote period.
In the course of my journey through Central and Eastern Crete I came
across a series of stones which, though of distinctly earlier fabric, showed the
same typical triangular form as Class I. of the later hieroglyphic series.
Some of these have the same elongated form, others resemble in shape the
more globular variety, but they are larger, and unlike the others, always cut
in steatite and never out of harder materials such as cornelian or jasper.