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)

HEADS OF IVORY FIGURES

43i

the ivory itself have been tinted ? No trace of this is at present discernible,
but the bone arrow-plumes described above ' from the Temple Repositories
werepicked outwith deep red, and the taste for varied hues is such an universal

a b

Fig. 297. a, b, Head of Youth : Ivory Deposit (f).

characteristic of Minoan art that we may well believe that the male figures
at least were originally stained a ruddy hue. The practice of staining
ivory, attributed by Homer to the Carian and Maeonian women,2 may well
have been a Minoan inheritance.

The face of the youth given in Fig. 296 had a good deal suffered, and Heads
a better idea of the average amount of success attained in portraying human faces_
features can be gained from the specimen shown in Fig. 297, a, b (enlarged if).
It will be seen that, as usual, it falls behind the treatment of the limbs. A
much greater power of expression is shown in the ivory figures of the
Goddess and boy God to be described below.

A characteristic feature of these youthful performers as seen on wall-

1 P. of M., i, pp. 548, 549, and Fig. 399, a,

2 Iliad iv, 141 :

' <us 8' ore Tt's r i\e<f>avTa ywrj <j>oiviia fiirjvr)
M^oi'ts ye Kactpa, Traprjiov efifievou Tinrtjjv.'