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. THE TOWN MOSAIC

the remarkable fragment Fig. 229, a is part of the prow of a vessel with Prow of
an eye painted on it as on the galleys of later Greece. Vessel.

In examining the figured representations on these tablets we are at
once struck, as in the case of the architectural features, with their archaic
aspect as compared with the types in vogue at the close of the Middle
Minoan Period or in the early part of the Late Minoan Age. Compare
for instance the goat, Fig. 228 e, so stiffly rendered, and the head of the
other, Fig. 228 c, with such a living presentment as that of the she-goat
and young on the faience relief from the Temple Repositories illustrated
below.1

The variation in the size of many of these tablets would not in itself
preclude their having formed parts of the same scene, if we may suppose
that they had been set in the same plaster field. This indeed seems to have
been the case with the component parts of the faience group described below
which includes the flying fish.2 But where, as in certain figures, we have
to do with a difference of scale—for instance in the archer (ft) and the
spearman (/)—we must naturally infer that they belonged to different zones.
It seems probable indeed that the inlays had belonged to separate panels,
forming part of the decoration, perhaps of a large wooden chest,3 a true
SatSaXea \dpvag like that of Danae. We may even venture to see in it Parallels
the prototype of the Chest of Kypselos—porcelain plaques here antici- chest of
pating ivory. The varied character of the subjects themselves—the city, ^J^6103
the scenes of peace and war, of hunting, pastoral life and tilth, the waves Shields of

Hci'rilclcs

of ocean—bring this into the cycle of great Minoan compositions in relief, and
the tradition of which was to be handed down in Greek epic.4 Achilles.

Like the faience material itself, the suggestion of the present mosaic may
have come from Egypt, though the designs themselves are purely indigenous.
We may infer at jzny rate that part of the scenes depicted lay on the
further side of the Libyan Sea—whose actual billows, it seems, were not Libyan
omittedirom the composition. The ship might suggest that we have here |^lecn™ts
the harbour town of ' broad Knossos ', or it may be that we have a pictorial position,
record—tantalizingly incomplete—of some actual Minoan expedition on the
African side. In that case the fenced City here depicted may have repre-
sented some Minoan overseas foundation on the Libyan shores. There
are, as will be seen, some reasons for supposing that the parallel subject,

1 Fig. 366, p. 510. a mass of carbonized cypress wood, apparently

5 See p. 521. forming part of a small chest.
3 A number of faience plaques were found 4 See Minoan and Mycenaean Elements in

in the Room of the Throne, together with Hellenic Life, J. H. S., xxxii, pp. 288, 289.