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)

88

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Cari- A derivative of one of the early carinated Egyptian bowls must be

Bowl of seen in a fine example (Fig. 56) executed in a deep green and black
L"Pis porphyry with white crystals—the lapis Lacedaemonms—found in the Royal
/nonius. Tomb at Isopata.1 It had been provided with a pair of holes, vertically bored,
on either side, apparently for the insertion of metal handles, but these perfora-
tions had been filled in with similar stone at a later date. It seems, therefore, to
have been itself an heirloom, though its material points toadate not earlier than
M. M. III. Large stores of this ' Spartan basalt' were found in the Domestic
Quarter of Knossos, and served as the raw material of the Palace lapidaries.

It has been shown that the tradition of these carinated Egyptian bowls
in diorite and other hard materials was preserved intact by the Minoan
lapidaries to the early part of the Middle Minoan Age, and that they were
imitated by them in materials as hard and fine as those of the prototypes. But
the Egyptian prototypes themselves go back to a distinctly earlier epoch
and there is an overwhelming presumption that the date of the first intro-
duction of these vessels into Crete corresponds with the Period during which
their fabric was rife in Egypt2—the Middle Period, namely, of the Early
Kingdom. In other words, they probably belong to the Fourth, and are
not later than the Fifth or, at most, the Sixth Dynasty.

Of the indebtedness of the Cretan lapidaries to Nilotic models, not

Early

influence only throughout the above Period but at a still earlier date, there can no
Models*10 l°nger be any reasonable doubt. Without such an apprenticeship, indeed,
on Cretan how is it possible to conceive that the insular workmen could have attained
daries. such a mastery in their craft as to enable them to produce the beautiful

series of original forms of vessels executed in native materials revealed to

us by Mr. Seager's explorations of the Early Minoan tombs of Mochlos ?

The ultimate derivation of these types, in a large number of instances, from
j ,. Nilotic prototypes, can hardly be contested. Yet in the rich array of stone
genous vases here found, as seen already in the tombs of E. M. II date, the shapes
tion. as well as the materials have already assumed an indigenous character.

They are once, or even twice, removed from the Proto-dynastic or Pre-dynastic

1 Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos, p. 146, and a single instance of revival in the same hard
PI. XCVIII, s. 1 (Archaeologia, lix). materials (diorite, syenite, &c.) of Early

2 Fr. von Bissing, indeed, Der Anteil der Dynastic shapes.

agyptischen Kunst am Kunstkben der Viilker, As to the alternative thesis, according to
Munich, 1912, p. 36, cites certain instances which the manufactures of one Age were
of the revival of archaic forms of stone vases exported in another, it is not too much to say
referred to in his catalogue of those in the that, if such a supposition is to prevail, Arch-
Cairo Museum (Steitigefasse, Einleitung, &c, aeology as a science is at an end.
pp. iv, xvi, xxxiii, xlv). But he cannot cite