DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0755
M. M. Ill: WINGED CREATIONS AND 'FLYING GALLOP' 709
of the wings, and traces of the wing- covers of scarabaeus sacer, visible in many
of the Melian types, show at any rate that they are thoroughly transfused
with Egyptianizing oriental influences.
The first appearance, at the epoch with which we are now concerned,1 winged
of a series of winged types, the wings of which are of purely natural forma- TppreQs_
tion, is in an)- case a phenomenon of the greatest interest. There is, priate to
indeed, a curious felicity in the circumstance that at the epoch in which Daedalos.
Minoan arts and crafts attained their highest development—the formative
Age of the New Palaces, specially associated by later tradition with the
activity of Daedalos—the air, so to speak, should be full of wings !
The diffusion of winged forms on these Cretan seal-types must to winged
a certain extent be brought into relation with a tendency already visible in creteVnd
Twelfth Dynasty Egypt. The motive from a M. M. II hieroglyphic signet Twelfth
illustrated in Fig. 530 above shows winged appendages associated with an Egypt,
outgrowth of the familiar papyrus wand. The winged Griffin, as we have
seen, had already acclimatized itself in Minoan Crete at an epoch con-
temporary with the Middle Kingdom, and in the case of this monster—the
most important of all the bird-winged forms that appear on this contemporary
group of sealings—a direct indebtedness to Egyptian suggestion cannot be
denied. Already, among the fantastic forms of monsters that haunted the Proto-
desert-wastes, such as they are depicted on the Twelfth Dynasty tomb- GiMn^
paintings of Beni-Hasan, we recognize the prototype of Griffins of both
sexes. The male monster labelled Seref, Fig. 538, a, is in fact a lion with the
head of a hawk, and with two wings symmetrically expanded on its back. The
female form Saha (Fig. 533, b), also hawk-headed, had the body of a lioness, Hawk-
and, ' being a female, threatened to produce other monsters as horrid as of
itself, with a facility unknown to ordinary hybrids'.2 Its wings are folded at Rem-
its side, its tail ends in a full-blown lotus, and it wears a collar with a long
spike in front.
The suggestion has been made on more than one side that this winged Egyptian
Egyptian monster, which guarded tombs, and appears on the spear of Karnes phfm'~and
(Fig. 533; c) as the champion of the Pharaoh, betrays in its name Se7'ef as well 'Cheru-
as its attributes a relationship with the Hebrew Seraphim.3 It is certainly
a curious coincidence that the Seref should be associated on the walls of one
1 The winged ' goblin ' types on Melian vases
associated with M. M. II. sherds point to the
existence in that island of fantastic winged types
at least before the close of that Period. See
below, p. 711, Fig. 535
2 Sir Gardner Wilkinson, The Ancient
Egyptians, vol. hi, p. 312 (187S ed.) Cf., too,
vol. i, p. 93, Fig. 358. 5.
3 Tompkins, cited by Cheyne, Encyclopaedia
Biblica, s. v. Seraphim.
of the wings, and traces of the wing- covers of scarabaeus sacer, visible in many
of the Melian types, show at any rate that they are thoroughly transfused
with Egyptianizing oriental influences.
The first appearance, at the epoch with which we are now concerned,1 winged
of a series of winged types, the wings of which are of purely natural forma- TppreQs_
tion, is in an)- case a phenomenon of the greatest interest. There is, priate to
indeed, a curious felicity in the circumstance that at the epoch in which Daedalos.
Minoan arts and crafts attained their highest development—the formative
Age of the New Palaces, specially associated by later tradition with the
activity of Daedalos—the air, so to speak, should be full of wings !
The diffusion of winged forms on these Cretan seal-types must to winged
a certain extent be brought into relation with a tendency already visible in creteVnd
Twelfth Dynasty Egypt. The motive from a M. M. II hieroglyphic signet Twelfth
illustrated in Fig. 530 above shows winged appendages associated with an Egypt,
outgrowth of the familiar papyrus wand. The winged Griffin, as we have
seen, had already acclimatized itself in Minoan Crete at an epoch con-
temporary with the Middle Kingdom, and in the case of this monster—the
most important of all the bird-winged forms that appear on this contemporary
group of sealings—a direct indebtedness to Egyptian suggestion cannot be
denied. Already, among the fantastic forms of monsters that haunted the Proto-
desert-wastes, such as they are depicted on the Twelfth Dynasty tomb- GiMn^
paintings of Beni-Hasan, we recognize the prototype of Griffins of both
sexes. The male monster labelled Seref, Fig. 538, a, is in fact a lion with the
head of a hawk, and with two wings symmetrically expanded on its back. The
female form Saha (Fig. 533, b), also hawk-headed, had the body of a lioness, Hawk-
and, ' being a female, threatened to produce other monsters as horrid as of
itself, with a facility unknown to ordinary hybrids'.2 Its wings are folded at Rem-
its side, its tail ends in a full-blown lotus, and it wears a collar with a long
spike in front.
The suggestion has been made on more than one side that this winged Egyptian
Egyptian monster, which guarded tombs, and appears on the spear of Karnes phfm'~and
(Fig. 533; c) as the champion of the Pharaoh, betrays in its name Se7'ef as well 'Cheru-
as its attributes a relationship with the Hebrew Seraphim.3 It is certainly
a curious coincidence that the Seref should be associated on the walls of one
1 The winged ' goblin ' types on Melian vases
associated with M. M. II. sherds point to the
existence in that island of fantastic winged types
at least before the close of that Period. See
below, p. 711, Fig. 535
2 Sir Gardner Wilkinson, The Ancient
Egyptians, vol. hi, p. 312 (187S ed.) Cf., too,
vol. i, p. 93, Fig. 358. 5.
3 Tompkins, cited by Cheyne, Encyclopaedia
Biblica, s. v. Seraphim.