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 4,1): Emergence of outer western enceinte, with new illustrations, artistic and religious, of the Middle Minoan Phase (London, 1935)

94

CRUCIFORM PATTERN ON JUG

Coloured Plate—which belongs, however, to M. M. I b—clearly shows that
it was intended to represent a crocus. The floral designs on this bowl—white
red, and orange on the dark background—are of exceptional decorative merit

Cross and
Circle on
early
Poly-
chrome
jug-

Earliest

known
Poly-
chrome
vessels:
£'. M. Mill.

Painted Jug with Cross or Wheel-pattern and Circle.

Among the early polychrome vessels from House B the most strikino-
was the jug (Fig. 53, 9), presenting on

its ruddy brown ground a broad circle
in Indian red with white dotted
borders inside.and out, and within it
a cruciform design in the same creamy
white (Fig. 61).

It is not fanciful to suppose that
the cross here seen within the clotted
circle may have a symbolic and re-
ligious significance. Of the cross itself
as a widely diffused astral sign among
primitive peoples—which at times be-
comes a general symbol of divinity—
something has already been said in
connexion with the marble cross inlay
from the Temple Repository and the
cruciform signs on seal-impressions there found.1 Within a dotted circle, in
that case surrounded by rays (Fig. 61), it is seen on the Siteia mould,3
accompanied by sacral horns and double axes, in one case in the hands of
the Minoan Goddess. The rayed circumference of the disk on the mould
here clearly indicates a solar emblem.

The Indian red colouringWith a milky white border here seen corre-
sponds with the technique of the earliest known example of Minoan
ceramic polychromy, namely a bowl-like jug, with spout and handle, obtained
by me, before the days of the Excavation, from the South-West of what
afterwards proved to be the Palace site.3 Its ' tea-pot' shape exactly corre-

The form already occurs in E. M. II (Xanthu-
dides, Vaulted Tombs of Mesarh (trans. Droop),
PI. XXVI, 4ro7: Koumasa). For early
M. M. I a examples see op. fit. (Poiti), PI- XU,
Nos. 4962, 4964. The jug is in the Ash-
molean Museum.

Fig. 61.

Cross and Circle on M. M. la

Jug : House B.

1 P. o/M., i, p. 513 seqq.

! 'E<£. 'kpx-> 1900, Plates 1 and 2.

3 P.cfM., i, p. no, Fig. 78: the pattern
appears on a blackish ground with signs of
glaze. A similar vessel from the Kamares
Cave with a typical E. M. Ill pattern, white
on adark ground, is illustrated toe. at.. Fig. 77.