DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0077
CONNEXIONS: LIBYAN AND EGYPTIAN FACTORS 53
There are, moreover, indications among the religious scenes on Minoan
signet-rings that, like the sky-fallen Ancile of Rome, the shield was itself
a material impersonation of the divinity and possessed of baetylic powers.1
The Minoan figure-of-eight shield retains the tradition of its origin
from a spotted oxhide disk with the middle of its circumference pulled in on
either side, and the spots even survive on the curved bosses of the Ancilia
seen in Fig. 25, g. The typical Hittite 'targe' as used in the. Battle of
Kadesh (c. 1350 B.C.), with curves cut sharply out of its circle, has at most Hittite
only a secondary connexion with the hide type, and specimens such as ^j:t0
Fig. 25, i, point rather to a wooden frame with a facing of plait-work. It was Dipyion,
this form that was taken over by the Greeks of the ' Geometrical' Period
and, as the 'Dipyion' type2 (Fig. 25, /), and Boeotian shield (Fig. 25, k),
survived into Classical times. The ring-besil from the Aegina Treasure (/)
shows a variant of this. Yet the existence on the Sendjirli sculptures3
of a late Hittite shield of the true figure-of-eight shape, if it be not due to
Mycenaean influence, may still point to some prototype on the Anatolian
side allied to the Cretan and primitive Nilotic. In that case we should have
an East Mediterranean grouping parallel to that illustrated above by the
occurrence of the double axe symbol in pre-dynastic and proto-dynastic Egypt.
Regarding the material indebtedness of Cretan arts and crafts to the
primitive civilization of the Nile Valley it is often difficult to say how far it
was directly due to the old Delta people, or at second hand to the Egyptians
of the early dynasties. If in the tkolos-huild&rs of Mesara we may trace the
actual settlement of afragment of the original Nilotic population in that region,
we are entitled to conclude that their Cretan neighbours learned from them Direct
certain secrets of their crafts. Was it possible, indeed, for Cretan workmen f^shlp'of
to have copied the imported Nilotic vases and evolved such skilful lapidary Minoan
types of their own from native rocks without some such apprenticeship ? We men.
have seen that the Tehenu of the Western Delta and its borders have an
1 See Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, and brought them into a Mycenaean (or
p. 82 (y. H. S., xxi, p. 180), and cf. p. 78 (176), Minoan) connexion. It seems more probable
Fig. 52 (177), Fig. 53. that these latter are off-shoots of the 'Geo-
2 The Anatolian origin of this was pointed metrical' Greek form, which itself must be
out by me in/". H. S., xiii (1892), p. 216. In recognized to be of Anatolian origin,
discussing the ring with shield-shaped besil 3 On the orthostats of the Citadel Gate,
from the Aegina Treasure (Fig. 25, /) there F. von Luschan in Ausgrabungen van Send-
described, I wrongly (as I now recognize) dis- schirli, iii (1902), p. 213, Fig 103, and PI. XL;
sociated it, as well as the closely related shield p. 222, Fig. 122, p. 229, Fig. 135. These
of Ajax seen on the coins of Salamis, and the sculptures do not seem to be earlier than
allied Boeotian class, from the 'Dipyion' type 700 B.C.
There are, moreover, indications among the religious scenes on Minoan
signet-rings that, like the sky-fallen Ancile of Rome, the shield was itself
a material impersonation of the divinity and possessed of baetylic powers.1
The Minoan figure-of-eight shield retains the tradition of its origin
from a spotted oxhide disk with the middle of its circumference pulled in on
either side, and the spots even survive on the curved bosses of the Ancilia
seen in Fig. 25, g. The typical Hittite 'targe' as used in the. Battle of
Kadesh (c. 1350 B.C.), with curves cut sharply out of its circle, has at most Hittite
only a secondary connexion with the hide type, and specimens such as ^j:t0
Fig. 25, i, point rather to a wooden frame with a facing of plait-work. It was Dipyion,
this form that was taken over by the Greeks of the ' Geometrical' Period
and, as the 'Dipyion' type2 (Fig. 25, /), and Boeotian shield (Fig. 25, k),
survived into Classical times. The ring-besil from the Aegina Treasure (/)
shows a variant of this. Yet the existence on the Sendjirli sculptures3
of a late Hittite shield of the true figure-of-eight shape, if it be not due to
Mycenaean influence, may still point to some prototype on the Anatolian
side allied to the Cretan and primitive Nilotic. In that case we should have
an East Mediterranean grouping parallel to that illustrated above by the
occurrence of the double axe symbol in pre-dynastic and proto-dynastic Egypt.
Regarding the material indebtedness of Cretan arts and crafts to the
primitive civilization of the Nile Valley it is often difficult to say how far it
was directly due to the old Delta people, or at second hand to the Egyptians
of the early dynasties. If in the tkolos-huild&rs of Mesara we may trace the
actual settlement of afragment of the original Nilotic population in that region,
we are entitled to conclude that their Cretan neighbours learned from them Direct
certain secrets of their crafts. Was it possible, indeed, for Cretan workmen f^shlp'of
to have copied the imported Nilotic vases and evolved such skilful lapidary Minoan
types of their own from native rocks without some such apprenticeship ? We men.
have seen that the Tehenu of the Western Delta and its borders have an
1 See Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, and brought them into a Mycenaean (or
p. 82 (y. H. S., xxi, p. 180), and cf. p. 78 (176), Minoan) connexion. It seems more probable
Fig. 52 (177), Fig. 53. that these latter are off-shoots of the 'Geo-
2 The Anatolian origin of this was pointed metrical' Greek form, which itself must be
out by me in/". H. S., xiii (1892), p. 216. In recognized to be of Anatolian origin,
discussing the ring with shield-shaped besil 3 On the orthostats of the Citadel Gate,
from the Aegina Treasure (Fig. 25, /) there F. von Luschan in Ausgrabungen van Send-
described, I wrongly (as I now recognize) dis- schirli, iii (1902), p. 213, Fig 103, and PI. XL;
sociated it, as well as the closely related shield p. 222, Fig. 122, p. 229, Fig. 135. These
of Ajax seen on the coins of Salamis, and the sculptures do not seem to be earlier than
allied Boeotian class, from the 'Dipyion' type 700 B.C.