DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0106
90 BURIALS TRANSFERRED TO SHAFT GRAVES
nestra' Tomb, however, like the inlaid pot and bull's-head ' rhyton' from the
'Atreus' dromos, as well as the comparisons suggested by the decorative sculp-
tures of its facade, take us back to the earlier phase, a, of M.M. Ill, to which
the most ancient Minoan elements found in the Shaft Graves also belong—in
other words, well back into the seventeenth century b. c. Thus the two groups,
so far from representing successive chronological stages, were contemporary
with one another, and the theory of a ' Tholos Tomb' dynasty succeeding
one represented by the Shaft Graves falls to the ground. The alternative
supposition of two great dynasties coexisting at Mycenae and burying their
dead according to different systems—almost within a stone's throw of one
another—is too absurd to need serious discussion.
Over and above this, moreover, when we examine the evidence supplied
by the Bee-hive Tombs of Mycenae, as illustrated by their finest examples
as well as by the form and contents of the Shaft Graves, we are confronted
by a recurring phenomenon of the highest interest. This is the cumulative
proot of an enduring and, in man}' respects, an exclusive connexion with the
great Cretan centre.
Evidences of Enduring Connexion between Knossos and Mycenae.
A brief retrospective glance at the points of contact noted in the pre-
ceding pages sufficiently establishes this fact. It has been shown that the
two fragmentary slabs found in front of the ' Atreus ' facade are not only of
the gypsum material, for the export of which Knossos was the natural
centre, and had been fixed in a manner analogous with that of the orthostats
of the Palace walls, but that they reflect great parallel friezes illustrating bull-
catching scenes, of which the painted stucco reliefs of the Northern entrance
porticoes supply us with the natural prototypes.
In the same way it is the Palace of Knossos in its Third Middle
Minoan stage that has alone and abundantly supplied, as we have seen, the
models of the decorative reliefs in stonework, the rosettes and half-rosettes
and triglyphs, the delicate cavetto borders and spirals of the 'Atreus ' facade
itself. No fragment of such has come to light at Phaestos or on any other
Cretan site. In the case, moreover, of the gypsum fragment apparently
belonging to one of the engaged columns of the ' Clytemnestra ' Tomb,
spirals of this class are combined with a plait-work pattern derived from
basketry or leather-work, which again is a recurring feature of Knossian
lapidary work, unknown elsewhere. The same decoration, moreover, coupled
with borings for inlays, recurred on a stone vase from the same tomb, and
this again is supplemented by the occurrence in the dromos of the ' Atreus '
nestra' Tomb, however, like the inlaid pot and bull's-head ' rhyton' from the
'Atreus' dromos, as well as the comparisons suggested by the decorative sculp-
tures of its facade, take us back to the earlier phase, a, of M.M. Ill, to which
the most ancient Minoan elements found in the Shaft Graves also belong—in
other words, well back into the seventeenth century b. c. Thus the two groups,
so far from representing successive chronological stages, were contemporary
with one another, and the theory of a ' Tholos Tomb' dynasty succeeding
one represented by the Shaft Graves falls to the ground. The alternative
supposition of two great dynasties coexisting at Mycenae and burying their
dead according to different systems—almost within a stone's throw of one
another—is too absurd to need serious discussion.
Over and above this, moreover, when we examine the evidence supplied
by the Bee-hive Tombs of Mycenae, as illustrated by their finest examples
as well as by the form and contents of the Shaft Graves, we are confronted
by a recurring phenomenon of the highest interest. This is the cumulative
proot of an enduring and, in man}' respects, an exclusive connexion with the
great Cretan centre.
Evidences of Enduring Connexion between Knossos and Mycenae.
A brief retrospective glance at the points of contact noted in the pre-
ceding pages sufficiently establishes this fact. It has been shown that the
two fragmentary slabs found in front of the ' Atreus ' facade are not only of
the gypsum material, for the export of which Knossos was the natural
centre, and had been fixed in a manner analogous with that of the orthostats
of the Palace walls, but that they reflect great parallel friezes illustrating bull-
catching scenes, of which the painted stucco reliefs of the Northern entrance
porticoes supply us with the natural prototypes.
In the same way it is the Palace of Knossos in its Third Middle
Minoan stage that has alone and abundantly supplied, as we have seen, the
models of the decorative reliefs in stonework, the rosettes and half-rosettes
and triglyphs, the delicate cavetto borders and spirals of the 'Atreus ' facade
itself. No fragment of such has come to light at Phaestos or on any other
Cretan site. In the case, moreover, of the gypsum fragment apparently
belonging to one of the engaged columns of the ' Clytemnestra ' Tomb,
spirals of this class are combined with a plait-work pattern derived from
basketry or leather-work, which again is a recurring feature of Knossian
lapidary work, unknown elsewhere. The same decoration, moreover, coupled
with borings for inlays, recurred on a stone vase from the same tomb, and
this again is supplemented by the occurrence in the dromos of the ' Atreus '