DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0717
M. M. Ill: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART
671
vorous animals, while an agate lentoid from Mycenae of clearly contemporary
fabric 1 shows the facing head of a lion, part of the fore-part of another,
a goat's head, a water-fowl, and the running figure of an animal. Seals with
such groups must be referred to the amuletic class described below.
lust as certain signs of the earlier hieroglyphic type can be shown to Surviv-
survive with a talismanic value, so too we see the old prism form of seal three-
itself occasionally preserved in a modified aspect. A specimen of a three- ^'edaedd_
sided cornelian of this class with cordiform and other motives is eiven in seals-
Fig. 491. The pattern on face c of this has a special interest since we see
here an adaptation of a common M. M. II design, itself taken over from
a Twelfth Dynasty scarab type, where the central circle stands as the
hieroglyph of the Sun God, Ra.2 It had, therefore, a traditional amuletic
value. More globular versions of these three-sided types survived well on
into the First Late Minoan Period.
Apart from such occasional survivals, however, the old three- or four-
sided hieroglyphic prism seals and those shaped like a modern signet, come
seemingly to an abrupt end at the close of M. M. II. Their place is taken
by a pictorial class of perforated gems, usually worn—as we know from later
evidence of tombs and from the Cup-bearer fresco—about the wrrist. In the Lentoid
earlier phase the most frequent of these are the circular ' lentoids '. Rudely Gree™.^ent
engraved bead-seals of this type exist in black steatite, which go back, as
the style of their designs and engraving shows, at least to the Second Early
Minoan Period. In a somewhat separate category must be placed the thicker
variety with square-cut edges which seems to have attained prominence in
M. M. II and to have survived into the succeeding Periods.3
By the close of M. M. II, as we learn from the sealings of the Hiero-
glyphic Deposit at Knossos, the engraved designs on these lentoids were
already attaining a considerable degree of naturalistic perfection. Grotesque
rock scenery was, as we have seen already, a favourite subject. The evidence Amygda-
of this Deposit also shows that, side by side with this round type, other seal- ^J36^"
stones of elongated almond-shaped or amygdaloid form were also coming
into vogue. This type, so usual in Late Minoan times, seems to have been
ultimately derived from a proto-Dynastic Egyptian bead-form. It does not
appear to have been used as a field for hieroglyphic sign-groups, but the
impression of a seal-stone of this class, representing a dog chasing a wild
1 Furtwangler, Antike Gem?nen, p. 52, who, F. LI. Griffith informs me, the sign of Ra is
however, speaks of the signs as belonging to replaced by the amuletic nefer symbol = good,
an actual ' Bilderschrift'. 3 See above, p. 275, Fig. 204, a, and p. 565,
2 On other scarabs of this class, as Mr. Fig. 411.
671
vorous animals, while an agate lentoid from Mycenae of clearly contemporary
fabric 1 shows the facing head of a lion, part of the fore-part of another,
a goat's head, a water-fowl, and the running figure of an animal. Seals with
such groups must be referred to the amuletic class described below.
lust as certain signs of the earlier hieroglyphic type can be shown to Surviv-
survive with a talismanic value, so too we see the old prism form of seal three-
itself occasionally preserved in a modified aspect. A specimen of a three- ^'edaedd_
sided cornelian of this class with cordiform and other motives is eiven in seals-
Fig. 491. The pattern on face c of this has a special interest since we see
here an adaptation of a common M. M. II design, itself taken over from
a Twelfth Dynasty scarab type, where the central circle stands as the
hieroglyph of the Sun God, Ra.2 It had, therefore, a traditional amuletic
value. More globular versions of these three-sided types survived well on
into the First Late Minoan Period.
Apart from such occasional survivals, however, the old three- or four-
sided hieroglyphic prism seals and those shaped like a modern signet, come
seemingly to an abrupt end at the close of M. M. II. Their place is taken
by a pictorial class of perforated gems, usually worn—as we know from later
evidence of tombs and from the Cup-bearer fresco—about the wrrist. In the Lentoid
earlier phase the most frequent of these are the circular ' lentoids '. Rudely Gree™.^ent
engraved bead-seals of this type exist in black steatite, which go back, as
the style of their designs and engraving shows, at least to the Second Early
Minoan Period. In a somewhat separate category must be placed the thicker
variety with square-cut edges which seems to have attained prominence in
M. M. II and to have survived into the succeeding Periods.3
By the close of M. M. II, as we learn from the sealings of the Hiero-
glyphic Deposit at Knossos, the engraved designs on these lentoids were
already attaining a considerable degree of naturalistic perfection. Grotesque
rock scenery was, as we have seen already, a favourite subject. The evidence Amygda-
of this Deposit also shows that, side by side with this round type, other seal- ^J36^"
stones of elongated almond-shaped or amygdaloid form were also coming
into vogue. This type, so usual in Late Minoan times, seems to have been
ultimately derived from a proto-Dynastic Egyptian bead-form. It does not
appear to have been used as a field for hieroglyphic sign-groups, but the
impression of a seal-stone of this class, representing a dog chasing a wild
1 Furtwangler, Antike Gem?nen, p. 52, who, F. LI. Griffith informs me, the sign of Ra is
however, speaks of the signs as belonging to replaced by the amuletic nefer symbol = good,
an actual ' Bilderschrift'. 3 See above, p. 275, Fig. 204, a, and p. 565,
2 On other scarabs of this class, as Mr. Fig. 411.