DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0567
M. M. Ill: MINOAN FRESCO: WALL PAINTINGS, ETC. 525
Of contemporary reliefs of this character we have abundant though Painted
R.clicfs
unfortunately very fragmentary remains from the Area of the Spiral Fresco, 0f Spiral
belonging to bull-grappling episodes. These remains, as shown above,1 ^2°°
were derived from what seems to have been the M. M. I LI a predecessor of
this great Palace Hall. Reasons have been given, moreover, for regarding;
the Spiral Fresco itself, found with these reliefs and consisting of a frame and
diagonals, as having formed part of the design illustrating one of these
performances. The combination of painted reliefs with subsidiary subjects
executed in the flat was indeed a constantly recurring device of the Minoan
artists.
The tendency of all works executed in the very hard material that Dating
was the Minoan equivalent for ' gesso duro ' to persist on the Palace walls Mural
makes it often difficult in dealing with this part of the subject to attain to Reliefs,
absolute chronological precision. It is clear, however, that the analogous
bull-grappling scenes found with the high reliefs of human subjects in an
adjacent area belonged to a later structure than that from which the Spiral
Fresco remains were derived. These later reliefs had reached the position
in which they were found at the time of the final castrophe of the Palace,
and there is every reason for assigning them to the East Hall as, ex
hypothesis reconstructed at the beginning of the Late Minoan Age.
In a Section devoted to that epoch it has also been thought preferable
to include the noble relief of the bull's head and other associated fragments
found in the Northern Entrance Passage, and which seem to form part of
the same cycle as that illustrated by the Vapheio Gold Cups. It is by no
means impossible that these works slightly overlap the last M. M. Ill phase,
but the circumstances of their discovery bring them into the closest connexion
with the history of the later phase of the Minoan Palace, while, from the
superficial position of the deposit in which some of the fragments lay, it is
probable that a part at least of these reliefs had still clung to the walls in days
when an Achaean Knossos was already rising on the neighbouring slope.
For the present Period, on the other hand, may certainly be claimed a fine The Jewel
painted plaster relief fragment found at a low level in a basement West of Fra°--
the later Stepped Portico. A man's fingers are here seen holding the end ment-
of a gold necklace to which is tied some article of attire of a deep blue
colour, and chequered in a manner recalling the tartan of the ' Sacral Knots'
already described.2 The necklace itself consists of globular beads and
pendant heads of a negroid type, which have been illustrated in detail above.3
1 See p. 375 seqq.
2 See p. 430 seqq.
3 See p. 312, and Fig. 231.
Of contemporary reliefs of this character we have abundant though Painted
R.clicfs
unfortunately very fragmentary remains from the Area of the Spiral Fresco, 0f Spiral
belonging to bull-grappling episodes. These remains, as shown above,1 ^2°°
were derived from what seems to have been the M. M. I LI a predecessor of
this great Palace Hall. Reasons have been given, moreover, for regarding;
the Spiral Fresco itself, found with these reliefs and consisting of a frame and
diagonals, as having formed part of the design illustrating one of these
performances. The combination of painted reliefs with subsidiary subjects
executed in the flat was indeed a constantly recurring device of the Minoan
artists.
The tendency of all works executed in the very hard material that Dating
was the Minoan equivalent for ' gesso duro ' to persist on the Palace walls Mural
makes it often difficult in dealing with this part of the subject to attain to Reliefs,
absolute chronological precision. It is clear, however, that the analogous
bull-grappling scenes found with the high reliefs of human subjects in an
adjacent area belonged to a later structure than that from which the Spiral
Fresco remains were derived. These later reliefs had reached the position
in which they were found at the time of the final castrophe of the Palace,
and there is every reason for assigning them to the East Hall as, ex
hypothesis reconstructed at the beginning of the Late Minoan Age.
In a Section devoted to that epoch it has also been thought preferable
to include the noble relief of the bull's head and other associated fragments
found in the Northern Entrance Passage, and which seem to form part of
the same cycle as that illustrated by the Vapheio Gold Cups. It is by no
means impossible that these works slightly overlap the last M. M. Ill phase,
but the circumstances of their discovery bring them into the closest connexion
with the history of the later phase of the Minoan Palace, while, from the
superficial position of the deposit in which some of the fragments lay, it is
probable that a part at least of these reliefs had still clung to the walls in days
when an Achaean Knossos was already rising on the neighbouring slope.
For the present Period, on the other hand, may certainly be claimed a fine The Jewel
painted plaster relief fragment found at a low level in a basement West of Fra°--
the later Stepped Portico. A man's fingers are here seen holding the end ment-
of a gold necklace to which is tied some article of attire of a deep blue
colour, and chequered in a manner recalling the tartan of the ' Sacral Knots'
already described.2 The necklace itself consists of globular beads and
pendant heads of a negroid type, which have been illustrated in detail above.3
1 See p. 375 seqq.
2 See p. 430 seqq.
3 See p. 312, and Fig. 231.