DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0034
THE MINOAN AGE
9
nose (Fig. 2, a). On another sealing the head of the same personage is coupled
with that of a very young boy, presumably his son, and a portrait of a child
would hardly have been executed except in the case of one of royal blood
(Fig. 2, b)\ There is then a very strong presumption that the adult head por-
trayed is the actual likeness of a Minoan priest-king, whose personal badge,
as we learn from a contemporary prism-seal with the hieroglyphic title in
a fuller form, was a seated cat,1 suggestive of Egyptian relations. The profile
before us—dating from the Second Middle Minoan Period—certainly suggests
that at any rate the earlier priest-kings themselves belonged to a ruling caste
of the old Anatolian type, to which the name ' Armenoid'2 may be given.
On the other hand the Late Minoan profiles c and d suggest the intrusion of
a new dynastic element of ' Mediterranean ' stock.
A consciousness of the essential foreignness of Minos to the Greeks
comes out in a passage of the Iliad where he is made the son of the
daughter (Europa) of Phoenix,:i a version which nearly approaches the truth if
we may regard the term OotVt/ce? or ' red-men '4 as having been first suggested
by the ruddy brown race of the Cretan frescoes. An ethnic relationship,
moreover, is implied in the tradition that Minos was brother of Sarpeclon,
who stands for the Lykian race, which at any rate was not Hittite.
If there were any real historic warrant lor the existence of more Wasthere
than one kino- of the name of Minos it would serve to corroborate the ^T nc
© i\i mos :
dynastic use of the term. The idea is mainly based on the genealogy of
which Diodoros is the principal source, ' a statement in Plutarch's Theseus?
and earlier and later entries in the Parian Chronicle, in which the name
of a Minos is mentioned at two different epochs.7 But the accounts by no
means tall)'. According to the tradition followed by Diodoros there were
two kings of the name, the first the grandfather ol the second. This would
give an interval between the two of about ninety years. In the Chronicle it
is over a century and a half. The whole genealogy, moreover, is involved in
mythical elements.8
A too obvious intention of this interpolation of a second Minos is
1 See below, p. 277, Fig. 207, a: op. tit., 7 Chandler's restoration of the first entry
p. 270, Fig. i2r, a. (Marmora Oxonicnsia, p. 21, 1. 41), A<t> OY
- For a somewhat exaggerated example see MINUS [OJ nP[nT0Z EJBA[ZI AEYZE
the Armenian type from Aintab, illustrated by KPHTHZ], still seems preferable to T7[P0-
von Luschan, Anthr. Inst. Journ., xli (1911), TEPOS, &c], substituted by Boeekh, as Flach
PI. XXV. 3 //. xiv. 321. (yChronicon Parium, p. 6) points out, 'invito
4 Cf. Fick, Vorgriechische Ortsiiamen, pp. 123, lapide.'
124. 8 Hoeck's criticism of ' Minos I' and ' Minos
Diod. iv. 60. 6 Plut. Thes. iS. II' (A're/a, ii, p. 50 seqq.) still holds good.
9
nose (Fig. 2, a). On another sealing the head of the same personage is coupled
with that of a very young boy, presumably his son, and a portrait of a child
would hardly have been executed except in the case of one of royal blood
(Fig. 2, b)\ There is then a very strong presumption that the adult head por-
trayed is the actual likeness of a Minoan priest-king, whose personal badge,
as we learn from a contemporary prism-seal with the hieroglyphic title in
a fuller form, was a seated cat,1 suggestive of Egyptian relations. The profile
before us—dating from the Second Middle Minoan Period—certainly suggests
that at any rate the earlier priest-kings themselves belonged to a ruling caste
of the old Anatolian type, to which the name ' Armenoid'2 may be given.
On the other hand the Late Minoan profiles c and d suggest the intrusion of
a new dynastic element of ' Mediterranean ' stock.
A consciousness of the essential foreignness of Minos to the Greeks
comes out in a passage of the Iliad where he is made the son of the
daughter (Europa) of Phoenix,:i a version which nearly approaches the truth if
we may regard the term OotVt/ce? or ' red-men '4 as having been first suggested
by the ruddy brown race of the Cretan frescoes. An ethnic relationship,
moreover, is implied in the tradition that Minos was brother of Sarpeclon,
who stands for the Lykian race, which at any rate was not Hittite.
If there were any real historic warrant lor the existence of more Wasthere
than one kino- of the name of Minos it would serve to corroborate the ^T nc
© i\i mos :
dynastic use of the term. The idea is mainly based on the genealogy of
which Diodoros is the principal source, ' a statement in Plutarch's Theseus?
and earlier and later entries in the Parian Chronicle, in which the name
of a Minos is mentioned at two different epochs.7 But the accounts by no
means tall)'. According to the tradition followed by Diodoros there were
two kings of the name, the first the grandfather ol the second. This would
give an interval between the two of about ninety years. In the Chronicle it
is over a century and a half. The whole genealogy, moreover, is involved in
mythical elements.8
A too obvious intention of this interpolation of a second Minos is
1 See below, p. 277, Fig. 207, a: op. tit., 7 Chandler's restoration of the first entry
p. 270, Fig. i2r, a. (Marmora Oxonicnsia, p. 21, 1. 41), A<t> OY
- For a somewhat exaggerated example see MINUS [OJ nP[nT0Z EJBA[ZI AEYZE
the Armenian type from Aintab, illustrated by KPHTHZ], still seems preferable to T7[P0-
von Luschan, Anthr. Inst. Journ., xli (1911), TEPOS, &c], substituted by Boeekh, as Flach
PI. XXV. 3 //. xiv. 321. (yChronicon Parium, p. 6) points out, 'invito
4 Cf. Fick, Vorgriechische Ortsiiamen, pp. 123, lapide.'
124. 8 Hoeck's criticism of ' Minos I' and ' Minos
Diod. iv. 60. 6 Plut. Thes. iS. II' (A're/a, ii, p. 50 seqq.) still holds good.