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)

BELT LET OUT FOR OLDER MEN

449

been renewed or re-riveted is probable enough, and it looks as if in some
eases padding had been introduced. But the main fact with which we have

to deal is that this
constricting belt, or
another of approxi-
mately the same
dimensions, con-
tinued to be worn
in years of maturity.

It does seem, Looser
' belts

however, that, as a worn by
concession to the ^rly
broadness and obes-
ity often inherent
in later years, the
wearer might even-
tually be relieved,
and a less tightly
fitting belt, prob-
ably of leather, be
substituted. Such
we recognize, for
instance, as worn
by the old sistrum-
player of the ' Har-
vesters 'rout on the
steatite ' rhyton'
from HagiaTriada,1
and in the case of
a bronze figure of

Fig. 313.

Bronze Votive Figure of Elderly Man from
Tylissos.

betray in their outline the essentials of their
structure. He gives a diagram showing the
concave profile of the belt ' which from its
colour and thin edges seems to have been
a smooth plate of metal. Its out-turned edges
prevent it from chafing the body of the wearer,
and this end is further secured by the torus
mouldings which seem from their form to
represent a padded cushion-like belt of some
elastic material.' He suggests the possibility

III. G

of there having been a metal belt with smooth
ends which would slide over one another as
pressure was applied by means of 'a tightly
drawn lace or thong '. It seems, however, to
be more probable that the metal part of the
belt formed a solid ring riveted so as to form
one piece.

1 See the excerpt from it given in P. of M.,
ii, Pt. I, p. 47, Fig. 22, b.

g