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)

IMPRINTING OF MINOAN DECORATIVE DESIGNS 363

figures,1 printed, apparently, by means of a half section of reed. The repe-
tition of stamped designs is also frequent on the fine 'egg-shell' bowls with

Fig. 239. Imprints of Modern Sponge.

metallic lustre imitative of silver originals, while in some cases the cachet of
the potter is repeated with a stamp bearing hieroglyphic characters.2

At a later date—about the close of M. M. Ill b—we have seen a very
close parallel in mechanical wall-decoration presented by the geometrical
arrangement of crocus-clumps on a large painted stucco fragment from the
' House of the Frescoes',3 where, however, the separate sprays, though
almost identical with one another, seem to have been subsequently touched
up by the painter's brush.

It is at the same ble that the unit of decorative multipli-

cation made use of ' 1 that of the sponges—as in the wall-

paper designs cite. xison—was itself selected as an object of

natural beauty. The choice of a sponge for mechanical reproduction,
though doubtless of exceptional convenience for the purpose, must, in fact,
be also taken in connexion with the Minoan artistic appreciation of marine
forms. The beginnings of what may be called the ' marine style' are
already very well marked in the vase-painting of the first Middle Minoan

Printed

sponges

stage

towards

later

' marine

style'.

P. of M., i, p. 245, Fig. 185

Ibid., i, p. 242, Fig. 182, c.

Ibid.,n, Pt. II, p. 459, Fig. 271.