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)

;i2 WIDE DIFFUSION OF SHIELD TYPE ON POTTERY

Shields
on L. M.
lb

'aryballoi'
from

Gezer and
Phyla-
kopi.

Imported

vessels

with

shields

and L. M.

sword at

Gezer.

Frescoes', repeated in successive ' loggias' looking out on the ' Grand
Staircase'at Knossos, has left its record far beyond the limits of Crete itself.
In painted stucco, as we
have already seen, it found
its literal adaptation on a
smaller scale in the Palace
at Tiryns. In ceramic art
we mark the repetition of
the shield type on a series
of sherds from more than
one extraneous site be-
longing to the second half
of the First Late Minoan
Period. A good example
is supplied by a fragment
of an imported clay 'ary-
ballos', of the broad low
type usual at this epoch,
found at Phylakopi in Me-

los 1 (Fig. 201) showing a ' Sacral Ivy' pattern beside it. The spots here are
roughly shown, but the inner contours of the
lobes of the shield betray an attempt to
render its relief.

Of still greater interest is the appear-
ance of this shield type at Gezer in Palestine,
in association with remains belonging- to the
' Second Semite Period' there, on what
was certainly part of a similar imported
'aryballos' (Fig. 200).2 Other fragments of
Minoan painted vases belonging to the
L. M. I b style, of which a specimen is repro-
duced in Fig. 203,3 were found on the same site, together with a still more
suggestive object in the shape of the upper half of a bronze 'horned' sword of

Fig. 200. Fragment of Imported L. M. I b' Aryballos ',
Gezer, Palestine (§).

Fig. 201. Fragment of 'Arybal-
los', L. M. lb, Phylakopi.

1 Phylakopi, PI. XXXI, 5. This fragment
belongs to a fairly advanced stage of the
L. M. I b Class and the spray at the side, pro-
ceeding apparently from a spiral coil, is akin
to the ' Sacral Ivy' described in P. of M., ii,
Pt. II, p. 478 seqq.

2 From R. A. Stewart Macalister, The

Excavation of Gezer (1902-9), vol. ii, p. 155,
Fig. 318. The fragment is there attributed to
L. M. II.

3 Of. cit., vol. iii, PI. CLI, 12. Cf. Knos-
sos, P. of M, ii, Pt. II, p. 492, Fig. 297,a;
Kakovatos, ibid., p. 485, Fig. 291, b.