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 3): The great transitional age in the northern and eastern sections of the Palace (London, 1930)

LIONS SEIZING PREY: FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE 12;

from a score of hands. Taking the tearing claws on their shields the
nearest blacks crouched low. Others rose to their full height and added
their shafts to those already buried deep in the flesh of the quivering torso.'
More than once the lion mauled a spearman, striking down his shield.

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Fig. 72. Lion seizing Gazelle.

Fig. 73. Lion seizing Stag : Gold
Signet-ring, Thisbe.

Lion

bringing
down

Of the remarkable parallelism between this scene and that above
described there can be no doubt. Details such as the relative position of
the tails in the last of the flying troop and the beast at bay agree in the two
cases. On the dagger, however, we have to do entirely with 'white' men,
and the armature is purely Minoan.

A first-hand knowledge of the great beast is also shown by the inlaid
design on the other side of the blade presenting the hunting scene.1 A lion
here springs on a gazelle—in the instinctive manner of the beast of prey,
fastening on the cervical vertebrae, so as at once to paralyse his quarry sazelie
(Fig. 72).2 A ThisM signet depicts a lion gripping a stag in a like manner
(Fig. 73). The same action is seen in the case of a lion seizing a bull on
a fine intaglio from the Vapheio Tomb (Fig. 74),3 and another from Thisbe
(Fig. 75). On the dagger two pairs of gazelles escape beyond at a flying
gallop, the two groups being separated by a distinct interval, so that the whole
design—like those on the Vapheio Cups—is divided into three. The
cruciform rendering of the dapples on the flanks of the gazelles is itself an
Egyptian feature—being taken over from the stellar crosses on the Cow of
Hathor, like those of bovine types on Minoan 'rhytons'.4 In the stag-hunt
of the Late Minoan fresco at Tiryns5 the deer are spotted in the same

1 A coloured reproduction of this is given On a sardonyx.

in Perrot and Chipiez (vi), PI. XVIII. l P. ofM., i, pp. 513, 514, and Fig. 370.

2 See, too, P. of M., i, p. 716, Fig. 539, e. s Rodemvaldt, Tiryns, ii, p. 143, Fig. 60 and
s 'E<£. 'ApX-, 1899, PI. X, 18, and p. 166. PI. XV.