DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0130
MARINE RELIEFS IN METAL-WORK: MIDEA BOWL 505
The surface of the marine reliefs is not very well preserved, but the
original design was evidently very naturally executed, and the date of the
work cannot be very distinct from the lower borders of the Third Middle
Minoan Period, to which the
great masterpieces of this style
in soft stone and plastic
materials belong. In other
words, it can hardly be brought
down later than the First Late
Minoan Period.1 This bronze
vessel, as will be seen, supplies
very interesting evidence of
a commercial relation between
Crete and Cyprus in the days
of the intensive enterprise over-
seas, which brought fine marine
types of this ceramic class not
only to Mainland Greece but to
Egypt. It is referred to below
in connexion with works of
the men of Keftiu, as seen on
Egyptian monuments.2
A more imposing specimen
of a marine design in repousse
metal-work is now before us in
the magnificent golden bowl
discovered by Professor Axel
Persson and the Swedish Mission, above a skeleton, apparently of a royal
personage, in a beehive tomb at Midea in the Argolid.3 Beautiful, how-
ever, as are the reliefs on this bowl, they clearly belong to a distinctly-
later phase of the style than those of the Knossian ' rhyton' (Fig. 307),
Keftiu
work.
Golden
bowl from
Midea.
Fig. 309. Handle of Bronze Amphora from Cyprus
with ' Marine ' Relief and Minoan Genii.
1 Parts of a similar bronze amphora, proba-
bly from the same site, are in the Cesnola Col-
lection in the Metropolitan Museum at New
York. Perrot et Chipiez, iii, pp. 794, 795,
and Figs. 555, 556 j cf. Myres, Cesnola Col-
lection of Antiquities from Cyprus, pp. 478,
479> no. 4753- Besides similar figures of
ewer-holding genii, it shows bull's heads facing
and, on the rim, lions hunting bulls, but there
is no decoration in the ' marine style '.
2 See below, p. 652 seqq.
3 A preliminary account with a large
illustration of the underside of a bowl was
given by Mr. A. J. B. Wace in the Illustrated
London News, Sept. 18. 1926, from materials
supplied by Professor Persson. See, too,
Monsieur C. Picard, C. R.de FAcad., i, Sept. 17,
1926, 225-6.
The surface of the marine reliefs is not very well preserved, but the
original design was evidently very naturally executed, and the date of the
work cannot be very distinct from the lower borders of the Third Middle
Minoan Period, to which the
great masterpieces of this style
in soft stone and plastic
materials belong. In other
words, it can hardly be brought
down later than the First Late
Minoan Period.1 This bronze
vessel, as will be seen, supplies
very interesting evidence of
a commercial relation between
Crete and Cyprus in the days
of the intensive enterprise over-
seas, which brought fine marine
types of this ceramic class not
only to Mainland Greece but to
Egypt. It is referred to below
in connexion with works of
the men of Keftiu, as seen on
Egyptian monuments.2
A more imposing specimen
of a marine design in repousse
metal-work is now before us in
the magnificent golden bowl
discovered by Professor Axel
Persson and the Swedish Mission, above a skeleton, apparently of a royal
personage, in a beehive tomb at Midea in the Argolid.3 Beautiful, how-
ever, as are the reliefs on this bowl, they clearly belong to a distinctly-
later phase of the style than those of the Knossian ' rhyton' (Fig. 307),
Keftiu
work.
Golden
bowl from
Midea.
Fig. 309. Handle of Bronze Amphora from Cyprus
with ' Marine ' Relief and Minoan Genii.
1 Parts of a similar bronze amphora, proba-
bly from the same site, are in the Cesnola Col-
lection in the Metropolitan Museum at New
York. Perrot et Chipiez, iii, pp. 794, 795,
and Figs. 555, 556 j cf. Myres, Cesnola Col-
lection of Antiquities from Cyprus, pp. 478,
479> no. 4753- Besides similar figures of
ewer-holding genii, it shows bull's heads facing
and, on the rim, lions hunting bulls, but there
is no decoration in the ' marine style '.
2 See below, p. 652 seqq.
3 A preliminary account with a large
illustration of the underside of a bowl was
given by Mr. A. J. B. Wace in the Illustrated
London News, Sept. 18. 1926, from materials
supplied by Professor Persson. See, too,
Monsieur C. Picard, C. R.de FAcad., i, Sept. 17,
1926, 225-6.