DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0416
M. M. Ill: N.E. BORDERS AND BASEMENTS OF E. HALL 377
(Fig. 271). But on the contemporary gem reproduced in Fig. 274 1 we en-
counter a still more remarkable parallel. Here the lattice-work border with
its diagonal is applied to what seems to have been a tank that has given
a Minoan cow-boy the opportunity of springing down from some coign
of vantage and seizing the neck and fore-legs of a gigantic bull as he drinks.
The hair of the acrobatic performer flies upwards as he springs, and his
sinewy figure is rendered on a diminutive scale as compared with the beast.
To the Minoan artist the bull was evidently of greater importance, and the
skill and boldness of the engraving of this part of the design is almost
unsurpassed in its own line, though the perspective of the left horn is
Fig. 274. Minoan Intaglio showing Bull captured
while drinking at a tank. (3^)
curiously rendered. The gem belongs to the culminating phase of Minoan
art that marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Minoan Ag-e.
It is not necesssary to suppose that this tour de force was actually
performed in a Palace Court, though the Phaestian parallel might supply
some warrant for such a supposition. But the feat itself evidently belonged
to a recognized class in which the King of Minoan beasts was grappled in
some specially prepared area rather than while ranging at large. It fits on
in fact to the Circus scenes which, as will be shown below, were a special
theme of the later wall-paintings on the Palace walls of Knossos. But
1 This gem, a ' flattened cylinder ' of onyx, presented by the Phaestos wall pattern, be
once in the Tyskiewicz Collection (Furtwangler, certainly regarded as of Cretan fabric. It was
Antike Gemmen, PI. VI, 9, and Vol. II, p. 26), said to have been found at Priene. The gem
must, in view of the extraordinary parallel is at present in my own Collection.
(Fig. 271). But on the contemporary gem reproduced in Fig. 274 1 we en-
counter a still more remarkable parallel. Here the lattice-work border with
its diagonal is applied to what seems to have been a tank that has given
a Minoan cow-boy the opportunity of springing down from some coign
of vantage and seizing the neck and fore-legs of a gigantic bull as he drinks.
The hair of the acrobatic performer flies upwards as he springs, and his
sinewy figure is rendered on a diminutive scale as compared with the beast.
To the Minoan artist the bull was evidently of greater importance, and the
skill and boldness of the engraving of this part of the design is almost
unsurpassed in its own line, though the perspective of the left horn is
Fig. 274. Minoan Intaglio showing Bull captured
while drinking at a tank. (3^)
curiously rendered. The gem belongs to the culminating phase of Minoan
art that marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Minoan Ag-e.
It is not necesssary to suppose that this tour de force was actually
performed in a Palace Court, though the Phaestian parallel might supply
some warrant for such a supposition. But the feat itself evidently belonged
to a recognized class in which the King of Minoan beasts was grappled in
some specially prepared area rather than while ranging at large. It fits on
in fact to the Circus scenes which, as will be shown below, were a special
theme of the later wall-paintings on the Palace walls of Knossos. But
1 This gem, a ' flattened cylinder ' of onyx, presented by the Phaestos wall pattern, be
once in the Tyskiewicz Collection (Furtwangler, certainly regarded as of Cretan fabric. It was
Antike Gemmen, PI. VI, 9, and Vol. II, p. 26), said to have been found at Priene. The gem
must, in view of the extraordinary parallel is at present in my own Collection.