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)

M. M. II : ROYAL POTTERY STORES (CERAMIC PHASE a) 243

influences is supplied by the under side of a bowl of a tall fruit dish, of
which part of the pedestal was also found, belonging to the latter part of
the present Period.1 It is covered below with a creamy whitewash appa-
rently suggested by the sheen of its silver model (Suppl. PI. Ill, £>).

The prototypes in precious metals are reflected in other ways in the imita-
painted decoration. A fine example of this is seen in the cup, Fig. 183 2,2 j1"^0
where the delicate fluting- of the original is reproduced in orange yellow on Metal

& . Cups.

the dark ground in a manner that seems to represent gold inlay.3 A bronze
dagger-blade with designs of a boar hunt and fighting bulls, illustrated in
a later Section of this volume,4 carries back the beginnings at least of the
splendid art of the Mycenae blades to this epoch.5

In connexion, moreover, with some of the most typical cups in precious Arcaded
metal found in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae the imitative goblets like the Knossos
above, with arcade ornament derived from metal fluting, have a peculiar

&' r Mycenae.

value. In Fig. 183 a, 4, showing a clay copy of cups like the gold examples
below from Mycenae we have the record of fluting arched both above and
below like that of 5 from the Fourth Shaft Grave, coupled with a foliate
band equivalent to that which strengthens the middle zone of 8. The Sacral S
lustrous dark olive-tinted glaze of this goblet is relieved with matt white, goblet011
yellow, and deep crimson decoration,6 a conspicuous feature in which is the
SS motive, alternately red and yellow, repeated between the double arcading
both on the outer zones of the goblet and round the interior of its rim. This
symbol is repeated on a clay table of offerings from Phaestos—accompanied
by figures of oxen—and it is reduplicated beside a biicranium on a hieroglyphic
seal. Its sacral significance is clear, and its appearance round the cup oddly
recalls the reiteration of the jewelled SS on the high Order of much later
sovereign Pontiffs—the collar of the Santo Spirito.

In Fig. 183 a, 1, is shown a section, restored in the drawing from frag- Egg-shell
ments of another cup from the Royal Stores, of an egg-shell ware bowl quite copies of
as fine as its metallic prototype. The exterior effect of its delicately fluted Vessels in

11 • 1 • • Precious

walls is emphasized by matt white and red decoration on a lustrous dark Metals of
oround, and the arches of the lower row are surmounted by fleur-de-lis

o -'ii easui y.

1 It was found in a well on the right side heads. See coloured reproduction, Knossos,
of the Vlissia brook, SAW of the Palace site at Report, 1903 (B.S.A., ix), PI. II. 1.
Knossos, in company with the little polychrome 3 For the interior pattern see Fig. 194, c.
jug presenting the lily sprays, J. H. S., xxi, 4 See below, p. 718, and Fig. 541, a, b.

p. 8o, and below, Fig. 196. 5 See below, p. 715 and Fig. 538.

2 Found with the thorn-bossed tazza, Supp. 0 For a fuller description of the details of this
PI. Ill, a, East of the Room of the Stone Drain- cup, see Mackenzie, J. H. S., xxiii, p. 177.

R 2