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. 551

Of great interest, moreover, in this connexion, was the discovery in the 'Notched
circular walled pit of the West Court at Knossos—paved over at the close Motive

of the Third Middle Minoan Period—of fragments of movable clay hearths on Mov-

• • • ab*e

coated with painted plaster with decorative zones, among which appeared Hearths

this notched plume motive. We have thus the antecedent of the fixed Knossos.

Fig. 402. Griffin on Axe-blade from Queen Aah-hotep's Coffin with Name
of King Aahmes, showing degenerated 'Notched Plume' Motive.

hearth of the Megaron at Mycenae, which shows a similar decoration Taken
(Fig. 401 a),1 coupled in this case with a running spiral zone. On the l^^ixed
painted stucco fragment from Knossos (Fig. 401 b) we see the ' notched Hearth
plume and spiral ornament placed in juxtaposition in the same way as Mycenae,
on the hearth at Mycenae. In the earlier period at least, the decorators
of the Palace at Mycenae were craftsmen from the great insular seat of
the Minoan civilization, and their acclimatized successors, as in this instance,
faithfully preserved its tradition.

1 Schuchhardt, Schliemanns Excavations
(Ed. Sellers), p. 289, Fig. 286 a. The drawing
by Ur. Dorpfeld (cf. YipaxTixa, 1886) is
described as representing the third of five
painted plaster layers. Miss Winifred Lamb,
however, of the British School at Athens, who,
in 1921, carefully re-examined the hearth, in-

forms me that it is the eighth layer (out of 10)
though it much resembles the fifth. The
earliest shows the simple ' notched plume'
without the stars. Some of the intervening
layers present mere horizontal bands, indicative
of make-shift restoration. But there is a con-
stant reversion to the sacral prototype.