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 2,2): Town houses in Knossos of the new era and restored West Palace Section (London, 1928)

CONICAL 'RHYTONS' USED FOR DRINKING

769

miliar
sealing

of Zakro, in the extreme East of the Island, which certainly do not come

down later than the earliest L. M. I phase. The design on these, indeed, Sir

so closely reproduces the Knossos signet-type in all its details that it requires f^

close examination to distinguish it from Zakro-

the other.1 On a small sealing from

a contemporary deposit at Hagia Triada

(Fig. 500)2 we meet with a somewhat

variant version of a similar scene. The

Goddess, who is here seated on a rocky

knoll, grasps in her right hand the

lower end of an elongated conical vessel

offered her by a small short-skirted

handmaiden, standing on a rocky incline

opposite to her.

No handle is here shown to the Conical

vessel ; it is clear, however, that in all tons'used

cases we have to do with forms of the as 8ot"

lets.
conical type of the well-known Minoan

vessels known as ' rh) tons'.3 The known
examples of these are perforated at
their lower extremity, and might be
used either for libations, as fillers, or for
drinking—as in some classical represen-
tations—by imbibing a jet of liquor
from the outlet below. But there can be no doubt that in the scenes pre-
sented on these seal-impressions the outlet was provided with a stopper, and
it seems probable that the Goddess was supposed to drink from it as from
an ordinary chalice. A fragment of one of the Tiryns frescoes belonging to
the frieze of deer (Fig. 501)4 shows in fact an animal, of which only the
1 Hogarth,The Zakro Sealings {/.U.S., xxii, a further proof of Custom-house connexions
1902) p. 77, No. 3, Fig. 2, and PI. VI. In the with East Crete, see above, pp. 254, 255.
figure and on the phototype reproduction of 2 F. Halbherr, Eesli, &"c, Scoperti a Hagia

PI. VI no trace of the 'rhyton itself is visible. Triada (A/on. Ant., xiii, 1903), p. 43, Fig. 38.
A part of the curve of the outer handle is per- Halbherr rightly recognized the type of the
ceptible, however, on a cast of the sealing in dea seduta, and though speaking of the
my possession (see Fig. 499). The Goddess's vessel as ' un oggetto non ben determinato'
arm is somewhat lower in the Zakro version) compared the vase of the Cup-bearer,
and a pillar of the lower part of the lateral shrine 3 See Suppl. PI. XXVII.

is clearly seen. The sealings may well have * Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, ii, PI. XVI, 4, and

belonged to packages or documents sent from p. 157.
Knossos. Two specimens were found. For

II- 3 E

Fig. 501. Fresco Fragment from
Later Palace, Tiryns, showing Mouth
ok Animal drinking out of Conical
' Rhyton '.