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 2,1): Fresh lights on origins and external relations (London, 1928)

SEALS AND CEILING PATTERNS

20I

E. M.
tradi-
tion of
S-andC-
scrolls
survives
at Myce-
nae.

cally arranged in ceiling decoration.1 At every turn we realize how these
small portable patterns reacted on the adornment of more monumental
works. As shown below, they enable us to reconstruct with approximate
accuracy certain examples of wall and ceiling decoration in the early Palaces,

______________________________________ the actual remains of which are

lost to us.

As in the case of the ' S-

scrolls',the interlocking or linked

' C-curves' in decorative groups,

such as already appear on Early

Minoan ivory seals, dating well

back into the second half of the

Third Millennium b. c, survive

to be a characteristic feature of

the embossed gold plates from

the Mycenae Shaft Graves and

are further taken over on to the

sepulchral stelae (Fig. 110 a, h,j,

n, and-Fig. 110 b, a, b). In this

connexion, indeed, the quadruple

schemes (Fig. 110 a, f, o, p) are

^ specially instructive. We find

Fig. 110 b. a, Seal Pattern (C-scrolls) on this pattern adapted to the oval

Stela VI, at Mycenae; b, Running Pattern on scarab shape in Fig. 110 A, f,

Same Stela. a common Twelfth Dynasty Minoan

type, the ra or 'sun'-symbol
being here inserted in the centre. In the Cretan examples, Fig. 110 a, o and
p, on the other hand, belonging respectively to the First and to the Third
Middle Minoan Period, we see the original round signet form preserved.
The later type, p, has a peculiar interest in its relation to Fig. 110 b, b, since
it is found on clay sealings both at Zakro in the extreme East of Crete and in
the harbour town of Knossos,2 and was clearly a signet type diffused by
commercial agency. The taking over of this scheme in a most literal manner
on the Vlth stela at Mycenae,3 Fig. 110 b, a, supplies a striking example of
the transference of sphragistic designs to monumental art.

Here, too, it may be remarked that a very slight development of an
inner and outer circle of C-scrolls gives rise to a maeander pattern con-

V

signet
type on
Mycenae
stela.

1 See Vol. iii.

2 See below, p. 254, Fig. 149 a, 3.

3 For the Mycenae stelae see, now, especially
W. A. Heurtley, B.S.A., xxv, pp. 126-46.