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)

§4- EARLY MINOAN III (E. M. Ill)

Partial Set-back; Characteristic E.M. Ill Features; Cyciadic Connexions ;
Egypto-Libyan ' Influences stibstitiUed for Purer Dynastic ; Great Circular
Hypogaea at Knossos; One excavated under S. Porch of Palace; Bee-hive
vault and staircase, tunnelled in rock; Probably subterranean S. entrance of
an earlier Palace; E. M. Ill Pottery; Light on Dark Decoration;
Beginnings of true polychrome technique ; Cyciadic Elements—Pyxides and
Marble ' Idols'; Grotesque Vessels; Ivory Seals ; Animal figures ; Specimens
from Ossuary tholos of Platanos; Cylinders and Conoids; Meander and
Labyrinth Pattern—Sixth Dynasty Comparisons; ' Egypto-Libyan ' Button-
seals—Source of Cretan ' double sickle' Pypes; Three-sided Bead-seals ; Female
potters and draught-player ; Imitation of Egyptian draught-board Sign (men) ;
Leg Amulets; Burial Urns and Clay Cists—Proto-Egyptiau and Libyan
Comparisons ; Approximate dating of E. M. III.

The culture of the last of the Early Minoan Periods does not give the Partial
same brilliant impression as the immediately preceding Age. The richer Set" ac '
tombs at Mochlos are E.M. II. At Vasiliki 'the architecture markedly
deteriorates. The house-walls of this Period are very poor and built of small
stones'.1 The naturalistic spirit in art, however, survives in certain ceramic
works and finds a continuous development in engravings on seals.

Cyciadic connexions, bringing with them the spiral system, now attained Cyciadic
a maximum. On the other hand, owing to the troubled state of Egypt nexions.
between the Sixth and Eleventh Dynasties, the stimulating influences that
had previously operated from that side were now in abeyance. Such in-
fluence as there was—well illustrated in the case of the ' button-seals'—was of
a semi-barbaric kind. To this source, best perhaps described as Egypto-Libyan, ' Egypto-
can be traced the ' double sickle ' pattern which makes its appearance on a ^flu-"
series of Cretan seals. The meander, a odyptic motive at that time popular ence:

. „ , , . : ' ° n r, . 1 1 . 'Button-

in Egypt, also makes its way in various iorms to Crete, to become in time Seals'.

the progenitor of regular ' labyrinth ' designs, an example of which decorated Meander

i t> & ) t> 1 Patterns.

the Palace walls at Knossos.

The Domestic and Sepulchral construction seems to have continued on
the same lines as those of the preceding Period. Both the ossuary tholos
and built tombs, such as those of Mochlos, were still in use.

mi

It is now, however, that for the first time we have to do with monumental G™a.t
works of a wholly new class in connexion with the later Palace site of Hypo-
Knossos. These are in the shape of great ' hypogaea', the scale of which Knossos.

1 Seager, Report, &c, 1906, p. 113.