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)

THE MINOAN CITHARA 835

of Cycladic fabric, holding a kind of triangular four-stringed harp or trigoiion}
In the developed form of the Cretan lyre the number of the strings was
doubled, since we find eight or seven. The seven-stringed lyre—which
Terpander had the credit of having substituted for the tetrachord—is indeed
the true double of that with four strings, since, among the Greeks, tetrachords
succeeding one another had a tone in common.2

The careful design, here reproduced in Fig. 551, is taken from a clay
impression of a ' signet seal' from the Palace hoard,' where it occurs,
apparently in company with another stringed instrument, within a border,
the decoration of which seems to be derived from a repetition of the lion's
mask sign. It shows eight strings, as in the earliest known Semitic cit/iara* £ar]y
and this number is repeated (Fief. 550, b) on a more recently discovered four- \yPes""

... . . hierogly-

sided bead-seal of green steatite from the Candia district, one face of which is phic seals.
occupied by four facing lion's heads—once more, a significant association.5
The horned projection of the upper framework in this specimen recurs in the
graffito sign, Fig. 550, c, and it is noteworthy that the bar to which the strings
are attached is distinctly separated from the base of the instrument.

This feature characterizes certain later Egyptian representations of lyres Fresco
in a more pronounced degree, and a trace of a curving cross-line—farther 2KL.
up above the base of the instrument but analogous to the seal-tvpe—is ro*iosa.\.
visible in the design on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, Fig. 552, a. This
particularity is also restored in Fig. 552, b. It will be seen, indeed, that,
though the ultimate origin of the citliara in Crete must be sought elsewhere,
these designs were taken over from a more or less contemporary Egyptian
source such as is supplied by the Theban example, Fig. 553.° This Egyptian

' U. Koehler, Praeliistorisches von den no trace of strings.

griechischen Inseln (A/h. MittA., \x, \t. 156 seqq. ' See below, Fig. 551,

and PI. VI) One was from Keros near Amor- * The ' lyre' sign is here followed by the

gos, the other from Thera. 'ox-head' (No. 61, op. at., p. 206) and the

' Gevaert, Hist, et theorie de la musique dans ' mallet' (No. 24). On the following side are

FAntiquite, i, p. 87. See, too, L. Paribeni, two groups, the ' trowel'(No. 18) and ' human

Mon. Ant., xix, p. 38. eye'(No. 5), and the 'trowel' and 'arrow'

3 See P. of M., i, p. 276, Fig. 205. The two- (No. 13). On the two other faces are (1) a

horned sign below the 'lyre' on this impres- dove and crouched wild goat; (2) the four

sion may also represent an instrument, since lions' heads. This bead-seal was obtained by

the six cord-like lines here seen recur on me by exchange from Mr. Richard Seager. One

another signet (Scripta Minna, i, p. 192, No. side of it showing the lyre has been acciden-

30 /. P. 30, d). With its ' stand ' below it tally inserted among those of another seal in P.

recalls a Late Mycenaean type of' lyre ' found of J/., i, p. 277, Fig. 20", where it appears as c$.

at Menidi, and since restored in the Athens 6 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians (ed. Birch),

Museum. The sign as a rule, however, shows i. p. 477. Fig. 243.

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