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. Ill: MINOAN FRESCO: WALL PAINTINGS, ETC. 543

is an unsurpassed rendering of the lively and varied motions of these
' Swallows 1 of the Sea '. Their alternate course in air and water is here
exquisitely, rendered by the play of the wings, now open for flight, now thrown
back for diving beneath the surface of the waves, and all amidst a swirl of
spray and bubbles.

This composition, though more vivacious in character, shows a close
parallelism in style and subject with the much larger fresco of dolphins
and other fish found in the Queen's Megaron at Knossos (Fig. 394).
This Dolphin Fresco seems to have been cleared from the walls on the
occasion of the great remodelling that had set in during the last epoch
of the Palace,2 and its remains were found in too fragmentary a con-
dition for it to be possible
to reconstruct the composition
in its original form. It had
evidently occupied a consider-
able wall-space, but the most
that could be clone was to place
the figured pieces together in
a certain relation to one another
according to a tentative scheme
of my own. Fig. 394, photo-
graphed from the original
fresco, reproduces a part of this
for the better illustration of the details and technique.

The body colour of the upper part of the dolphins and of their fins
and tail is a deep blue of the older class, more ultramarine than cobalt in tone,
with black outlines. A double band of orange yellow runs along their sides
and their bellies are of a creamy white. The smaller fish by which they are sur-
rounded show variations of the same colour scheme. Some remains of a border
were also found, of which a fragment is shown in Fig. 395. It is of a dark
bistre hue and presents an irregular edge with prickly projections, perhaps
intended to depict coralline-covered rocks, and according to analogy, shells,
sponges, or other marine growths would have been coupled with this.

The

' Dolphin
Fresco' of
Knossos.

Dolphin
Fresco :
Knossos.

RED BA

Fig. 395. Fragment of Coralline Border
belonging to dolphin fresco.

1 XeAiSovoi//apa.

2 The fragments mostly occurred along the
line of the comparatively late wall, which
formed the Eastern border of the E. light-area
of this Megaron according to the existing
arrangement. Some sherds of L. M. II pottery

were found among the latest elements of the
stratum in which they occurred.

3 The panel containing this fresco in the
Candia Museum was put together by Mr.
Theodore Fyfe in accordance with this
scheme.