Evans, Arthur J.: Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos (Band 1): The hieroglyphic and primitive linear classes (Oxford, 1909)

Survivals
of picto-
graphy in
far North.

4 SCRIPTA MINOA

such signs appearing on a horse's flank.1 Similar characters occur in connexion
with animals in the marvellous rock-paintings of the Altamira Cave near Santander,2
and in the kindred paintings on the walls of the Grotte de Marsoulas in the Haute-
Garonne, belonging to the same ' Magdalenian * period as the Cantabrian cave.3 One
of these shows a bison with three signs painted on his flank in red ochre (Fig. i).*
Certain signs (Fig. 2) carved on a fragment of reindeer horn are specially interesting
from the primitive anticipation that they present of the Phoenician ate/. It is
interesting to observe, however, that though these early marks often appear in

Fig. 3. Table showing degeneration of goat's-head pictograph. (Magdalenian Period.)

this linearized and almost alphabetic form, it is sometimes possible to trace these back
to pictorial prototypes. Thus a Table recently published by the Abb6 Breuil,5 here
reproduced in Fig. 3, shows the regular degeneration of pictographic figures of
goats' heads into mere linear marks. It must at the same time be observed that the
earliest pictographs, as seen in the lowest layers of the rock palimpsests of the
Pyrenaean Caves, themselves present simple linear forms nearer to alphabetic types
than those found in the more advanced stages of this ' parietal' art.

The picture records and conventionalized signs of the men of the Late Palaeo-
lithic Age may be almost said to belong to another world. The fauna, climate, and

1 Among the rock engravings of the Grotte de la
Mouthe near Combareltes in the Dordogne described by
Messrs. Capitan and Breuil. A lozenge-shaped mark,
perhaps a sign of ownership, appears on the flank ol
another horse.

1 E. Cartailhac et L'Abbe H. Breuil {Anthropologic, xv
(1904), pp. 630, 631). The wall-paintings of the Cave
of Altamira were discovered by Sefior de Santuola in
1879, but their methodical investigation was first due to
Messrs. Cartailhac and Breuil. The materials will shortly

receive full illustration in a special work by the explorers.

3 Cartailhac et Breuil {An/hmpttlogie, xvi (1905), pp. 440,
441, and Fig. 10).

* Op. cit, p. 438, Fig. 8.

6 Congres International d'Anthropologic et d'Archiologie
frihistoriques, XIII"le Session, 1906, T. I., p. 398, Fig. 145
(Monaco, 1907). E. Piette, Lesgaiets colorie's de Mas-dAsil,
(Anihropologie, vii, pp. 385-427), has published a series
of coloured pebbles showing remarkably alphabetiform
types, but these belong to an early Neolithic stage.