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)

432

ATTACHED WIRE TRESSES

Curled
flying
locks:
bronze,
gold-
plated.

Fig. 298.

a, b, Ivory Head showing Wire Tresses partly

ATTACHED (■§).

paintings and intaglios is the locks of hair that fly out behind the head
as an indication of rapid descending motion. In the case of the ivory figures
these locks took
the form of
spirally twisted
wires of gold-
plated bronze.
The socket holes
for these are seen
in Fig. 297, a, b,
showingthe head
of a leaping
youth as well
as in Fig. 299
giving the top of
the same head,

enlarged to two diameters. In some cases
the bronze wires1 showed remains of a
coating of thin gold plate. In the some-
what fragmentary head given in Fig.
298, a, b, one curling lock and remains
of others—a good deal contorted—are
seen still attached. Rows of holes above
the forehead are noticeable in all cases
for the attachment of a kind of fringe of
curls (Fig. 299), according to a fashion
prevalent with both sexes. This fringe
as a female ornament is well illustrated
by some remarkable specimens to be de-
scribed below.2

A specimen, otherwise much defaced,
sketched by Mr. Theodore Fyfe in
Fig. 300, a-c, shows a mortise hole in
the back of the neck indicating the
manner in which it was attached to the trunk. So far as the evidence
goes the figures to which these fragments belonged were all engaged in
acrobatic action of a similar kind. At full stretch, as shown in Fig. 296,

1 The locks were formed of two separate having its separate socket,
wires twisted round each other, each wire 2 See below, p. 519 seqq., and Fig. 364.

Fig. 299. Upper View of Ivory
Head, showing Holes for Attachment
of Wire Tresses (§).