DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7525#0173
550
The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos.
put together. The shoulders of the vase are surrounded by scrolls and a foliate band, and
similar foliate bands descending from beneath the handles to the base divide the whole
body into three parts.
The lower spaces are decorated with plain curving sprays, but the upper part of the
body is occupied with two zones of a remarkably architectonic character divided from one
another horizontally by a checkered band, which recalls the black and white representations
of masonry on the " miniature frescoes " oE the Knossian Palace." From this again vertical
bands of the same checker work, rising like piers from the imitation masonry below,
traverse the upper of the two zones in question, while others descend across the lower
zone. ISTor does the architectural parallel end here. The imitation masonry is associated
in both zones with figures in the form of two half-ovals with an upright division in the
centre. These figures obviously represent the elongated half-rosettes, with the rudimentary
triglyphs between them, which characterises the Minoan and Mycenasan friezes. No one
indeed can compare the miniature fresco from the Palace of Knossos, showing the facade
of a shrine in which a frieze of this kind is combined with black and white checker work,
indicative of masonry, without recognising the indebtedness of the present ceramic design
to some such model. In some cases here we see the checker work forming the division
between the two wings of the frieze ornament, a feature which also recurs in the central
bar of the triglyph of the Knossian shrine. In other cases this middle division is filled
with a decoration consisting of interlocked spirals, and a similar ornament again recurs in
the same connexion on portions of stone friezes found at Knossos and Mycenae.
One feature remains to be considered of special value in defining the source from which
this ceramic design was derived. This is the appearance of two objects with strongly
recurved edges proceeding from either side of the middle division of these designs and
filling the two arched spaces left by their double borders. There can be little doubt, in
view of other decorative degenerations of the same object, that these are derived from
the two curving ends of the ever-recurring sacred double-axe of the Minoan cult, as seen
■on either side of its shaft. We are once more carried back to the same sphere of Minoan
religious architecture as that illustrated by the temple fresco. The ceramic remains of the
Palace of Knossos have indeed, as I have elsewhere pointed out, abundantly attested the
existence of a special class of vases exhibiting the sacred double axe as their principal
design. In the present case we have a closely parallel example of a religious decorative
style, in which not only the sacred emblem but details taken from the shrine itself are
represented. On a recently discovered fresco from the South-West Hall of the Palace at
Knossos are seen parts of a shrine with checker work imitation of masonry associated with
a It must be at the same time observed that, both in the case of the architectural frescoes and
the vase, this checker work design is by no means an exact representation of the isodomic courses of
the best Minoan masonry. It is rather a conventional equivalent for similar construction suggested,
it seems, by Egyptian painted facades, on which such checker work is frequent, blather, indeed, it
represents the appearance of a painted plaster facing than of actual structural features.
The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos.
put together. The shoulders of the vase are surrounded by scrolls and a foliate band, and
similar foliate bands descending from beneath the handles to the base divide the whole
body into three parts.
The lower spaces are decorated with plain curving sprays, but the upper part of the
body is occupied with two zones of a remarkably architectonic character divided from one
another horizontally by a checkered band, which recalls the black and white representations
of masonry on the " miniature frescoes " oE the Knossian Palace." From this again vertical
bands of the same checker work, rising like piers from the imitation masonry below,
traverse the upper of the two zones in question, while others descend across the lower
zone. ISTor does the architectural parallel end here. The imitation masonry is associated
in both zones with figures in the form of two half-ovals with an upright division in the
centre. These figures obviously represent the elongated half-rosettes, with the rudimentary
triglyphs between them, which characterises the Minoan and Mycenasan friezes. No one
indeed can compare the miniature fresco from the Palace of Knossos, showing the facade
of a shrine in which a frieze of this kind is combined with black and white checker work,
indicative of masonry, without recognising the indebtedness of the present ceramic design
to some such model. In some cases here we see the checker work forming the division
between the two wings of the frieze ornament, a feature which also recurs in the central
bar of the triglyph of the Knossian shrine. In other cases this middle division is filled
with a decoration consisting of interlocked spirals, and a similar ornament again recurs in
the same connexion on portions of stone friezes found at Knossos and Mycenae.
One feature remains to be considered of special value in defining the source from which
this ceramic design was derived. This is the appearance of two objects with strongly
recurved edges proceeding from either side of the middle division of these designs and
filling the two arched spaces left by their double borders. There can be little doubt, in
view of other decorative degenerations of the same object, that these are derived from
the two curving ends of the ever-recurring sacred double-axe of the Minoan cult, as seen
■on either side of its shaft. We are once more carried back to the same sphere of Minoan
religious architecture as that illustrated by the temple fresco. The ceramic remains of the
Palace of Knossos have indeed, as I have elsewhere pointed out, abundantly attested the
existence of a special class of vases exhibiting the sacred double axe as their principal
design. In the present case we have a closely parallel example of a religious decorative
style, in which not only the sacred emblem but details taken from the shrine itself are
represented. On a recently discovered fresco from the South-West Hall of the Palace at
Knossos are seen parts of a shrine with checker work imitation of masonry associated with
a It must be at the same time observed that, both in the case of the architectural frescoes and
the vase, this checker work design is by no means an exact representation of the isodomic courses of
the best Minoan masonry. It is rather a conventional equivalent for similar construction suggested,
it seems, by Egyptian painted facades, on which such checker work is frequent, blather, indeed, it
represents the appearance of a painted plaster facing than of actual structural features.