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)

FEMALE PERFORMERS

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beast,1 are no less on a superhuman scale. At the same time they can be
matched in this by the intaglio type given above,2 where the hero; armed as
he is with a dirk, grips the lion's neck with his left hand.

Fig. 146. Fragment or Fresco Panel showing Female Taureador seizing Bull's

Horn.

All old African hunters know that such personal contact with a lion
means nothing less than death.

The apparent action of throwing an arm over a bull's horn rather than
actually gripping it is illustrated by another spirited fragment of this group
of frescoes of which a restored drawing by Monsieur Gillieron is reproduced in
Fig. 146. The right hand of the female acrobat does not here seize the horn;
though thrown over it, but is tightly clenched, as the result of extreme
physical tension. An interesting analogy to this is supplied by the fragment
of a high relief, where the hand is seen over the tip of a bull's horn similarly
clenched.

It is clear that this painted relief fragment, found in the Deposit of High
Reliefs described below,3 represents part of an acrobatic figure, in this case, as

1 Compare, for instance, Figs. 162-164, p. 231 below.

2 p. 125, Figs. 78, 79. 3 See below, p. 497 seqq.