DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0228
BULL GRAPPLED WHILE DRINKING AT TANK 185
porticoes at Knossos, where we venture to see the great outstanding arche-
types of such compositions, had existed from an early date.
Evidences of Artistic Cycle, supplied by Gem-types.
Bull-grappling and bull-catching subjects, in which ' cow-boys'—both
male and female—took part in the wilds, seem to have formed a favourite
theme of wall-decoration from at least the
earlier phase of M. M. Ill onwards. The
closely related group, too, in which the set
acrobatic performances of the ' bull-ring '
are depicted was illustrated, as we shall see,
on the Palace walls of Knossos at least as
early as the First Late Minoan Period.
Many variations of these scenes of the
taurokathapsia were thus betimes taken
over from the greater art of painted stucco
reliefs or from fresco designs on the flat on
to works of the lesser Art, such as the
reliefs on vases or the intaglios on gems
and signet-rings.
Such a subject, of which we do not
possess the plastic original, is to be seen
in the exquisitely engraved design—here reproduced from an enlarged
photographic copy of the cast—in Fig. 129, on a ' flattened cylinder' of
onyx, not later, certainly, than M. M. Ill, and displaying the finest combina-
tion of powerful execution with minute detail to be found, perhaps, in the
whole range of the Minoan gem-engraver's Art. In this case a cow-boy
takes advantage of a huge bull drinking at a tank to spring down on him
and grapple his neck and forelegs.1 Such a feat would have involved
Fig. 128. Fragment of Dark Green
Steatite ' Rhyton '. (§)
1 A. E. Coll., once Tyskiewicz; see P. ofM.,
i, p. 377, Fig. 274, and cf. Furtwangler, Atitike
Gemmen, PI. VI, 9, and vol. ii, p. 26. The
remarkable parallel presented by the trellis-work
of the tank with the painted plaster panels on
two bays of the Central Court of the Phaestos
Palace has been pointed out by me in Vol. i
of this work (cf. p. 373, Fig. 271, and pp.
376, 377). But the trellis pattern, though of
woodwork origin, is in this case used as a
decoration of a solid field of masonry. There
is no warrant for Dr. H. R. Hall's suggestion
(The Civilization of Greece in the Bronze Age :
the Rhini Lectures, 1923, p. 187) that the
object in front of the bull is 'a hurdle of
withies'. My interpretation of a tank, at which
the bull is drinking, had occurred independently
to Furtwangler {A. G., ii, p. 26), 'Es ist viel-
leicht ein grosser Brunnentrog gemeint. Das
diirstende Thier wird, wahrend es 2u saufen
Evi-
dences of
artistic
cycle.
On vases
and gems.
porticoes at Knossos, where we venture to see the great outstanding arche-
types of such compositions, had existed from an early date.
Evidences of Artistic Cycle, supplied by Gem-types.
Bull-grappling and bull-catching subjects, in which ' cow-boys'—both
male and female—took part in the wilds, seem to have formed a favourite
theme of wall-decoration from at least the
earlier phase of M. M. Ill onwards. The
closely related group, too, in which the set
acrobatic performances of the ' bull-ring '
are depicted was illustrated, as we shall see,
on the Palace walls of Knossos at least as
early as the First Late Minoan Period.
Many variations of these scenes of the
taurokathapsia were thus betimes taken
over from the greater art of painted stucco
reliefs or from fresco designs on the flat on
to works of the lesser Art, such as the
reliefs on vases or the intaglios on gems
and signet-rings.
Such a subject, of which we do not
possess the plastic original, is to be seen
in the exquisitely engraved design—here reproduced from an enlarged
photographic copy of the cast—in Fig. 129, on a ' flattened cylinder' of
onyx, not later, certainly, than M. M. Ill, and displaying the finest combina-
tion of powerful execution with minute detail to be found, perhaps, in the
whole range of the Minoan gem-engraver's Art. In this case a cow-boy
takes advantage of a huge bull drinking at a tank to spring down on him
and grapple his neck and forelegs.1 Such a feat would have involved
Fig. 128. Fragment of Dark Green
Steatite ' Rhyton '. (§)
1 A. E. Coll., once Tyskiewicz; see P. ofM.,
i, p. 377, Fig. 274, and cf. Furtwangler, Atitike
Gemmen, PI. VI, 9, and vol. ii, p. 26. The
remarkable parallel presented by the trellis-work
of the tank with the painted plaster panels on
two bays of the Central Court of the Phaestos
Palace has been pointed out by me in Vol. i
of this work (cf. p. 373, Fig. 271, and pp.
376, 377). But the trellis pattern, though of
woodwork origin, is in this case used as a
decoration of a solid field of masonry. There
is no warrant for Dr. H. R. Hall's suggestion
(The Civilization of Greece in the Bronze Age :
the Rhini Lectures, 1923, p. 187) that the
object in front of the bull is 'a hurdle of
withies'. My interpretation of a tank, at which
the bull is drinking, had occurred independently
to Furtwangler {A. G., ii, p. 26), 'Es ist viel-
leicht ein grosser Brunnentrog gemeint. Das
diirstende Thier wird, wahrend es 2u saufen
Evi-
dences of
artistic
cycle.
On vases
and gems.