Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 1): The Neolithic and Early and Middle Minoan Ages (London, 1921)

EARLY MINOAN I (WITH SUB-NEOLITHIC) 63

two main classes of later Minoan wares. In one series we see an imitation of
the black hand-polished ware of the Later Stone Age. A black glaze slip is
in this case spread over the surface of the clay, and at times bands of lustreless
cream-white, apparently the old chalk medium, appear on this. In the other
series the buff ground of the clay is left exposed, and dark glaze bands
are painted on this. This represents the first appearance of the true glaze
technique in the Aegean World.1 The inner texture of the vessels is no
longer the peaty grey of the Neolithic wares, but brick red. The finer
fragments ' when dropped, give a clink like that of Mycenaean ware '.

The class of painted ware presenting dark or deep reddish brown
geometrical ornaments on a buff ground comes into prominence towards the

close of this Period, and supplies
the precursors of the earliest phase
of the E. M. II ceramic style. This
dark on buff style, after an interval
of comparative latency in the suc-
ceeding era, once more emerges
into greater prominence at the
beginning; of the First Middle
Minoan Period, and under superior
conditions of fabric and o-laze
finally triumphs in the character-
istic ceramic class of the Late
Minoan Age.

It is often difficult to distin-
guish the E. M. I products of the
above class from those of the succeeding Period. It will be convenient, how-
ever, to include in the present class certain painted vessels of the ' gourd '
type with a high beak and round bottom,- the last feature being a usual
characteristic of the more primitive wares. Such a vessel from the early
deposit of Hagios Onuphrios, near Phaestos,:i is given in Fig. 25.
A similar vessel (Fig. 26)4 with globular body but a flat base, from
an early rock-shelter burial at Gournia, presents hatched decoration in
reddish brown paint, forming two out-curving triangles or wings. A special
interest attaches to this class of pattern, since the 1 butterfly ' or ' double-axe'
motives of the succeeding Periods are evidently derived from it.

1 Cf. Mackenzie, loc. cit. (Franchet. loc. cit., formerly grouped this class with E. M. II.
p. 207, treats this as his own discovery). 3 Pictographs, &c, p. 114, Fig. 106.

2 Mr. Seager agrees with me in the con- 4 Gournia, PI. A. 3.
venience of this classification though he had

E. M. I
Geome-
trical
Class of
Brown
on Buff.

Fig. 27. E. M. I Painted Pot, HagiaPhotiac)

' Butter-
fly ' and
' Double-
Axe'
Motives.