DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0081
CONNEXIONS: LIBYAN AND EGYPTIAN FACTORS 57
that immediately precedes the construction of the Palace as we know it is
afforded by the occurrence there of imitative forms in the finest polychrome
ware.1 As. already noted, moreover, the bowl of lapis Lacedaemonius found
in the Royal Tomb at Isopata that had been twice altered to suit Cretan
fashions was itself a derivative type dating from a time when Mainland
connexions had made that material accessible to the Minoans.
It may be confidently asserted that the fragment of the liparite bowl
which so accurately reproduces the Egyptian diorite models cannot be
separated from them by any long interval of date. At the same time the
technical perfection required in order to attack such a very refractory material
makes it hard to believe that the craftsmen who wrought such work had
not served a long apprenticeship to Egyptian masters. Or were Egyptian
lapidaries actually employed by the early priest-kings at Knossos itself?
A singular addition to the series of early Egyptian vessels from this Egyptian
site was noted by me during the investigations of 1922, while examining tacne
some remains from an unstratified deposit West of the Palace. This is ™npJsf™m
a fragment of a large diorite cup, with an ear-like projection turned inwards.
The fragment at once recalled an almost perfect specimen of a cup of this
type in alabaster, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, from a Fourth
Dynasty tomb at El Kab, which is placed beside a restoration of the
Knossian specimen in Fig. 27. The soapy texture presented by the
diorite material recurs in the case of a Fifth Dynasty ointment pot in
the Ashmolean collection. In faience the type survived in connexion with
the worship of Hathor to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, as is
shown by the occurrence of part of the rim of a cup of this form in that
material in the temple of Deir-el-Bahari,2 where it formed one of a series of
fragments of vessels made of similar fine blue faience, depicting Hathoric
plants and emblems. It seems probable that the form originated in copper-
work, the ear-shaped projections of the rim being folded inwards, and the
object of these may well have been convenience in drinking some beverage
containing floating objects. Our 'moustache cups' of a former generation
present an obvious analogy, but the ancient Egyptians did not wear
moustaches. It is possible, as the Deir-el-Bahari evidence suggests, that
such vessels were designed for some special religious ceremony. In any
case they are so rare in Egypt itself that the type has remained practically
1 E. g. P. of M., i, p. 178, Fig. 127,/ Others Group I, but the shape is unrecognizable in the
are known. figure. Dr. H. R. Hall, however, called my
2 The Eleventh Dynasty Temple of Deir-el- attention to the object, which is in the British
Bahari, Pt. Ill, PI. XXVI contained in Museum.
that immediately precedes the construction of the Palace as we know it is
afforded by the occurrence there of imitative forms in the finest polychrome
ware.1 As. already noted, moreover, the bowl of lapis Lacedaemonius found
in the Royal Tomb at Isopata that had been twice altered to suit Cretan
fashions was itself a derivative type dating from a time when Mainland
connexions had made that material accessible to the Minoans.
It may be confidently asserted that the fragment of the liparite bowl
which so accurately reproduces the Egyptian diorite models cannot be
separated from them by any long interval of date. At the same time the
technical perfection required in order to attack such a very refractory material
makes it hard to believe that the craftsmen who wrought such work had
not served a long apprenticeship to Egyptian masters. Or were Egyptian
lapidaries actually employed by the early priest-kings at Knossos itself?
A singular addition to the series of early Egyptian vessels from this Egyptian
site was noted by me during the investigations of 1922, while examining tacne
some remains from an unstratified deposit West of the Palace. This is ™npJsf™m
a fragment of a large diorite cup, with an ear-like projection turned inwards.
The fragment at once recalled an almost perfect specimen of a cup of this
type in alabaster, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, from a Fourth
Dynasty tomb at El Kab, which is placed beside a restoration of the
Knossian specimen in Fig. 27. The soapy texture presented by the
diorite material recurs in the case of a Fifth Dynasty ointment pot in
the Ashmolean collection. In faience the type survived in connexion with
the worship of Hathor to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, as is
shown by the occurrence of part of the rim of a cup of this form in that
material in the temple of Deir-el-Bahari,2 where it formed one of a series of
fragments of vessels made of similar fine blue faience, depicting Hathoric
plants and emblems. It seems probable that the form originated in copper-
work, the ear-shaped projections of the rim being folded inwards, and the
object of these may well have been convenience in drinking some beverage
containing floating objects. Our 'moustache cups' of a former generation
present an obvious analogy, but the ancient Egyptians did not wear
moustaches. It is possible, as the Deir-el-Bahari evidence suggests, that
such vessels were designed for some special religious ceremony. In any
case they are so rare in Egypt itself that the type has remained practically
1 E. g. P. of M., i, p. 178, Fig. 127,/ Others Group I, but the shape is unrecognizable in the
are known. figure. Dr. H. R. Hall, however, called my
2 The Eleventh Dynasty Temple of Deir-el- attention to the object, which is in the British
Bahari, Pt. Ill, PI. XXVI contained in Museum.