DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0413
374
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
diagonals was in vogue about this time. Such a pattern in fact occurs as
a motive of wall decoration in the case of the two bays on either side of the
opening of the Northern entrance passage of the Central Court at Phaestos,
belonging to the close of the Middle or the beginning of the Late Minoan
Age (Fig. 271).1 In that case the ornamentation consists of lattice
work, and it is of great interest to note that its exact replica recurs as the
decoration of a square tank that serves the purpose of a decoy in a bull-
grappling scene on a fine Minoan gem of contemporary date (see Fig. 274,
p. 377). Attention will be called below to the importance of this repre-
sentation in this connexion.
To whatever decorative system the bands of the Spiral Fresco were
adapted their simple geometrical scheme, combined with the deep body
colours of the wall surface, must have been decidedly imposing. Its somewhat
sombre aspect contrasts, moreover, with the colour effects of many Late Minoan
frescoes in which the bright ' kyanos' or cobalt blue was so much employed.
It is to be noted that the spur-like excrescences of the spirals fit in with certain
shell-like motives that appear on contemporary pottery.
Ana- The investigations of the parallel stratum immediately underlying the
Fmdsof M-M- 111 b pavement of the Magazine of the 'Medallion' Pithoi, carried
M. M. out by me in 1913, brought to light fragments of another spiraliform band
Spiral repeating the same colour scheme of deep blue, black, and white. A
Frescoes. cnaracteristic feature of this pattern was the border of black dots following
the inner spiral bands. Remains of an almost identical frieze with a similar
detail was found among the fresco heaps on the North border of the Palace,
thrown out apparently at the time of the L. M. II remodelling of that region.
As this was capable of fuller reconstitution it is here reproduced in Fig. 272.2
Its triangular interspaces are alternately black and Venetian red.
The sympathy in tone and design between the Spiral Fresco of the
basement deposit above described and that belongingtothe stratum underlying
the pavement of the Magazine of the ' Medallion' Pithoi, which has been shown
to belong to the closing phase b of M. M. Ill, affords a chronological equation
of great value. The Spiral Fresco in the present stratification occupies in fact
an analogous position beneath a floor-level on which were vessels represent-
ing this latest M. M. Ill stage. From the Section of the various floor-
levels beneath that of the 'Medallion' Pithoi given in Fig. 233, p. 320, above,
we gain in fact a kind of chronological chart of the place occupied by both
these spiral frescoes and the connected deposits in the history of M. M. Ill
1 Pernier, Mon. Ant., vol. xii, p. 81, Fig. 21. the same Deposit, showing the spirals springing
2 After the reconstruction by Mr. Droop from a white disk, is given by Mr. Fyfe, op.
(1914). Another closely allied fragment from at., p. 122, Fig. 48.
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
diagonals was in vogue about this time. Such a pattern in fact occurs as
a motive of wall decoration in the case of the two bays on either side of the
opening of the Northern entrance passage of the Central Court at Phaestos,
belonging to the close of the Middle or the beginning of the Late Minoan
Age (Fig. 271).1 In that case the ornamentation consists of lattice
work, and it is of great interest to note that its exact replica recurs as the
decoration of a square tank that serves the purpose of a decoy in a bull-
grappling scene on a fine Minoan gem of contemporary date (see Fig. 274,
p. 377). Attention will be called below to the importance of this repre-
sentation in this connexion.
To whatever decorative system the bands of the Spiral Fresco were
adapted their simple geometrical scheme, combined with the deep body
colours of the wall surface, must have been decidedly imposing. Its somewhat
sombre aspect contrasts, moreover, with the colour effects of many Late Minoan
frescoes in which the bright ' kyanos' or cobalt blue was so much employed.
It is to be noted that the spur-like excrescences of the spirals fit in with certain
shell-like motives that appear on contemporary pottery.
Ana- The investigations of the parallel stratum immediately underlying the
Fmdsof M-M- 111 b pavement of the Magazine of the 'Medallion' Pithoi, carried
M. M. out by me in 1913, brought to light fragments of another spiraliform band
Spiral repeating the same colour scheme of deep blue, black, and white. A
Frescoes. cnaracteristic feature of this pattern was the border of black dots following
the inner spiral bands. Remains of an almost identical frieze with a similar
detail was found among the fresco heaps on the North border of the Palace,
thrown out apparently at the time of the L. M. II remodelling of that region.
As this was capable of fuller reconstitution it is here reproduced in Fig. 272.2
Its triangular interspaces are alternately black and Venetian red.
The sympathy in tone and design between the Spiral Fresco of the
basement deposit above described and that belongingtothe stratum underlying
the pavement of the Magazine of the ' Medallion' Pithoi, which has been shown
to belong to the closing phase b of M. M. Ill, affords a chronological equation
of great value. The Spiral Fresco in the present stratification occupies in fact
an analogous position beneath a floor-level on which were vessels represent-
ing this latest M. M. Ill stage. From the Section of the various floor-
levels beneath that of the 'Medallion' Pithoi given in Fig. 233, p. 320, above,
we gain in fact a kind of chronological chart of the place occupied by both
these spiral frescoes and the connected deposits in the history of M. M. Ill
1 Pernier, Mon. Ant., vol. xii, p. 81, Fig. 21. the same Deposit, showing the spirals springing
2 After the reconstruction by Mr. Droop from a white disk, is given by Mr. Fyfe, op.
(1914). Another closely allied fragment from at., p. 122, Fig. 48.