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)

596

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Poly-
chrome
Vessels
from
Temple
Reposi-
tories.

Poly-
chrome
imita-
tions of

discoveries was the occurrence, in the stratum containing the remains of the
lily jars, of fragments of cups and bowls belonging to a unique class of late
polychrome ware, specimens of which are shown in Fig. 437.

The patterns here are of a finicking kind, and are executed in a dull
madder red, picked out with white, on the brownish glaze ground. On the
fragment shown in d, a white twisted chain runs along the border, succeeded
by a reddish band, and below again by a running pattern of somewhat lace-
like character. The portion of a cup, e, presents analogous features and the
twisted white band or 'guilloche' is a feature in several cases.

The circumstances of their dis-
covery show that the remarkable
class that these fragments represent
belongs to the concluding phase of
M. M. Ill and the same conclusion
applies to certain large polychrome
jars from the Temple Repositories,
specimens of which are given in the
Coloured Plate VII.

The vessel to the left, the top
part of which is seen from above in
the middle of the Plate, is a very
characteristic type of M. M. Ill
pitcher with oval mouth. Thecoloured
design on it, which had been con-
cealed by a calcareous incrustation,
only came out in the course of its
reconstitution.1 We see here, on
the brown ground, a highly conven-
tional representation of a plant with white foliage and pointed petals and
disk-shaped buds of yellow ochre, also white bordered. The cusped canopy
above, curiously Gothic in aspect, recurs over the crocus clumps painted on
the votive robes of faience found in the Temple Repository, The complete
cusped circle, as we have seen, is very characteristic of a group of con-
temporary jars with white on dark decoration, of which an example is given
in Fig. 428 above.

It must be said that both the technique and polychromy of the
vessels shown on Plate VII fall far below the fine M. M. II standard.

yd low Sfgri

Fig 438. Small Jar from Gournia,
showing Polychrome Reproduction
of Conglomerate.

1 The vessel was reconstructed from fragments in the Ashrnolean Museum.