Evans, Arthur: The ‘Tomb of the Double Axes’ and associated group, and the pillar rooms and ritual vessels of the ‘Little Palace’ at Knossos’ (London, 1914)

AND ASSOCIATED GROUP AT KNOSSOS

3

stone vessel (fig. i).1 Its material is a kind of brown limestone, the upper part
being- decorated with white shell inlays inserted in drilled sockets.2 This vessel,
with its holed spout, flat rim, and two handles,
rising on either side, resembles a well-known
Middle Minoan ceramic class of 'hole-mouthed
vases' associated with the finest style of poly-
chromy. It has, moreover, a special chrono-
logical value, since remains of vessels of the
same material with an identical system of shell
claying occurred in Palace deposits at Knossos
belonging to the close of the Middle Minoan
Age (M. M. III). They came to light in the
deposit accumulated in the 'North Bath', and
again in that underlying a Late Minoan wall in
which the inscribed alabastron lid with the
cartouche of the Hyksos King Khyan was discovered.

With this inlaid vessel was found part of a large alabaster vessel (fig. 2), and
remains of another smaller example which it was possible to restore in its
entirety (fig. 3). It is of somewhat coarse alabaster, and in form resembles a type
already in vogue during the Xllth Dynasty, but which continued to be in use

Fig. 1.

Brown limestone vessel with
shell inlays. (^)

Fig.

(I)

Fig.

3- (5)

Fig. 4- (J)

T ear"ly part of the XVII Ith, and of which specimens occurred in the Royal
t *8 .1 his type gave origin to a series of clay forms of the First and Second
c Minoan Age, the painted waved decoration on some of which is clearly

2 T|he jeigllt of tIle vessel ^ 108 cm.; width at handles, 14 3 cm.

a p]e dn'ls show a central hole, as if a borer of the centre-bit kind had been used.

rehistoric Tonibs of Ktiussos [Archaeologia, lix, 1906), p. 147, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and fig. 152, 3, etc.

B 2