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)

488

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Egyptian
Origins
of Cretan
Faience.

Moulds
for

Faience
Objects
found at
Knossos.

Mosaic V The extraordinary proficiency attained in the fabric of this
beautiful glazed ware as seen in the relics from the Temple Repositories is
itself indeed a sufficient indication of a long independent development of the
art on Cretan soil.

The art itself had been beyond all doubt implanted there, together
with many other technical acquirements, through that early contact with
Egypt to which in the

Mi

ji iiijiii

FRONT

course of this survey we
have had such frequent
occasion to refer. The
parallelism of the marks 2
found on some of the
Knossian inlays itself
affords an indication of
a continued relation of
the Egyptian and Cretan
craftsmen down to Late
Minoan times.

It is impossible to
doubt that these wares
were actually made on
the site of Knossos, and
indeed a black steatite
mould for objects of this

class, probably belonging to the epoch immediately succeeding that of the
Temple Repositories,3 was actually found in a dependency to the North-
West of the Palace.4 One side of this presents matrices (Fig. 349,c) of
trochus and trumpet shells,5 a segment of a spiral bracelet, a rosette,
and semilunar plaque. The other side of the stone shows a mould for
a clenched human hand, probably an amulet, b, and a very elegant kind of
bracket/5 a, developed in Fig. 350. Faience specimens of such objects,

SIDE.

PLAN ON TOP

Fig. 350. Development of Bracket based on
Section given by Mould, Fig. 349, a.

1 See above, p. 301 seqq. The small gold-
mounted vase of blue faience from the Loom-
Weight basement belongs to the same epoch
(see p. 252, Fig. 189a, above).

- See A. J. E., Knossos, Report, 1900, p. 42.
The marks on the faience roundels found in the
Room of the Throne are there compared tc
those of Tell-el-Yahudiyeh, but they are of an
earlier date. Similar signs were found on
faience plaques at Phaestos and H. Triada.

On the faience inlays from the Temple Re-
positories—with the exception of the double
axe—there are only notches and dots.

3 Cf. the slightly later L. M. I b example
from the Messenian Pylos (p. 489, note 1).

4 The ' North-West Building' (see Vol. II).

5 Apparently copied from a fossil form, e. g.
Ptychoceras gaultinus, a cretaceous species.

6 On a smaller side of the stone is a mould
for a larger console of the same class.