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)

26

SCRIPTA MINOA

Peculiar
Ship on
Phaestos
Disk.

like

building.

Its Lycia;
parallels.

Minoan hieroglyphs we see a vessel with oars and a central mast with ropes attached.
On some of the linear tablets of Class B this is abbreviated into a half ship, but
also showing the mast. Here we have neither mast nor oars;' on the other hand we
have what seems to be an arrow pointed forwards across the prow. If we may
regard the figure as an ideograph, it seems to be of a compound kind, possibly to
be compared with the 'Nome' signs on primitive Nilotic barks. The slave or
captive (h) with his arms bound behind his back suggests the results of some armed
enterprise.

It must be observed that the ships of the Confederate invaders of the Delta from
the close of the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards so far agree with the Minoan type that
they always show a central mast. The present-vessel in some respects resembles certain
primitive canoes, of which miniature models.in'.lead have been found in a tomb at
Amorgos, the date of which roughly corresponds with the beginning of the Middle
Minoan Period in Crete. The beak, however, is here a much more prominent feature.

The natural inference which the absence of sails might suggest is that the people
to which this record belongs came from very near Phaestos itself. The early remains
of Western Crete are still so superficially known that many surprises may be yet in store
for us from that side. But it may be reasonably asked, Was there room within the
limits of the island for a parallel form of culture so distinct from the Minoan as that
revealed to us by some of the most characteristic among the picture-signs upon
the Disk? Or, again, could there have been two separate hieroglyphic systems
at such close quarters with one another? That the ordinary Minoan system was in
use in Phaestos itself is shown from the hieroglyphic tablet found in the Palace.

But the most remarkable of all the signs on the Disk is the architectural figure b.
The first impression produced by this design might possibly be that it is intended
to represent a circular-domed building with a projecting platform. But the more
probable explanation is that we have here the face of a rectangular building with a
hull-shaped roof—a view which receives some confirmation from the fact that the two
interior supports of the apex do not converge upwards towards the point of the roof,
as if radiating from it, as they would do in a circular building, but seem to support the
curving sides of a gable. But, if we have here an oblong building with a carinated
hull-shaped roof, it is obvious that the scheme closely approaches the traditional
architectural type preserved by the tombs and rock carvings of Lycia. The frame-
work of the structure was necessarily of wood, and the projecting eaves and platform
certainly recall the typical features presented, for example, by the well-known facade
of the rock-tomb at Myra,2 or certain prominent buildings, probably also tombs, rising
above the town walls on the Pinara reliefs.3 It is natural that the sepulchral art of
classical Lycia should have preserved the domestic architecture of a more remote period.

1 The meaning of the knob visible in the fore-part of end of the lower projecting beam of the building on the

the vessel is not clear. Disk is turned up like that of the Myra tomb.

* Texier, Description, &c, T. Ill, PI. ccxsvii, Fig. 2. 3 Benndorf, Reisen, I, Fig. 36; Perrot, op. til., p.368,

Perrot, L'Art, Sic, V, p. 377, Fig. 264. It may be noticed Fig. 252,
as a curious correspondence in detail that the upturned