DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0293
266 ORIENTAL FORM OF CLAY TABLET COPIED
Cretan central transit route abuts on the Mesara Plain. Another similar discovery
Baby- has a special interest from its direct connexion with the trade-line along the
loman Northern Coast of the Island, which must have played the chief part in
ders: these Oriental relations.
Specimen The haematite cylinder, reproduced in Fig. 158, was found on the
littoral of Western outskirts of Candia.1 It is of the same style and of about
Knossos. ^g same datg as that 0f Platanos, and must be referred like it to
the First Babylonian dynasty.2 In the centre is seen Gilgamesh, naked,
holding the ' spouting vase' in both hands. To the right a votary offers
a kid to Shamas, the Sun-God, who wears a peaked head-piece with many
horns, and holds a notched knife, above which appears the emblem of the
sun and moon. To the left stands a bearded figure, identified with the
mace-bearing deity Ramman Martu, the national God of the Amurru,
the founders of the First Babylonian dynasty, while, opposite him, a Goddess,3
in a horned mitra and the flounced KavvdKrjs, intercedes for the owner of the
seal. This divine pair reappears on the Platanos cylinder.
The inscription gives the name of the owner as ' Apillim, son of
Marduk-mu-salim, servant -of Nabus '.4
Not only did actual specimens of Babylonian cylinder seals thus find
their way to Crete at this epoch, but the Oriental use of the clay tablet for
documentary records can be shown to go back to the same early date.
The evidence supplied by the Hieroglyphic Deposit at Knossos has now been
supplemented by the discovery of a similar hoard of tablets and clay sealings
in the Palace of Mallia, the circumstances of which fix the date of the earliest
class, to the first half of the First Middle Minoan Period (M. M. I a).
1 On the Stamatakis property. The cylinder Goddess with Aja, wife of Shamas. In the
is now in the Candia Museum. account of the Platanos seal the alternative
. 2 Professor L. Legrain, who supplied a note view is put forward with regard to a similar
on this cylinder to the Director of the Candia interceding Goddess that she was Ishtar as
Museum, agrees with this opinion. In the the equivalent of the Sumerian Goddess
above account I am indebted to his description Innini.
of the design. * Professor Legrain reads it : A-pi-il-lim
3 Professor Legrain would identify the Marie Mardukmu Salim Waradie Nabium,
Cretan central transit route abuts on the Mesara Plain. Another similar discovery
Baby- has a special interest from its direct connexion with the trade-line along the
loman Northern Coast of the Island, which must have played the chief part in
ders: these Oriental relations.
Specimen The haematite cylinder, reproduced in Fig. 158, was found on the
littoral of Western outskirts of Candia.1 It is of the same style and of about
Knossos. ^g same datg as that 0f Platanos, and must be referred like it to
the First Babylonian dynasty.2 In the centre is seen Gilgamesh, naked,
holding the ' spouting vase' in both hands. To the right a votary offers
a kid to Shamas, the Sun-God, who wears a peaked head-piece with many
horns, and holds a notched knife, above which appears the emblem of the
sun and moon. To the left stands a bearded figure, identified with the
mace-bearing deity Ramman Martu, the national God of the Amurru,
the founders of the First Babylonian dynasty, while, opposite him, a Goddess,3
in a horned mitra and the flounced KavvdKrjs, intercedes for the owner of the
seal. This divine pair reappears on the Platanos cylinder.
The inscription gives the name of the owner as ' Apillim, son of
Marduk-mu-salim, servant -of Nabus '.4
Not only did actual specimens of Babylonian cylinder seals thus find
their way to Crete at this epoch, but the Oriental use of the clay tablet for
documentary records can be shown to go back to the same early date.
The evidence supplied by the Hieroglyphic Deposit at Knossos has now been
supplemented by the discovery of a similar hoard of tablets and clay sealings
in the Palace of Mallia, the circumstances of which fix the date of the earliest
class, to the first half of the First Middle Minoan Period (M. M. I a).
1 On the Stamatakis property. The cylinder Goddess with Aja, wife of Shamas. In the
is now in the Candia Museum. account of the Platanos seal the alternative
. 2 Professor L. Legrain, who supplied a note view is put forward with regard to a similar
on this cylinder to the Director of the Candia interceding Goddess that she was Ishtar as
Museum, agrees with this opinion. In the the equivalent of the Sumerian Goddess
above account I am indebted to his description Innini.
of the design. * Professor Legrain reads it : A-pi-il-lim
3 Professor Legrain would identify the Marie Mardukmu Salim Waradie Nabium,