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)

i92 DECORATIVE SURVIVALS OF SACRED 'ADDER MARK'

may have helped to carry the Minoan 'adder mark' to the homelands of

the Etruscans East of the Aegean.

Ceramic So far as existing evidence goes, this motive was only taken over into

lm":* Cretan ceramic Art at the distinctly later epoch corresponding with the

and ele- later phase, i, of L. M. I, when we find it—in significant connexion with

Palace the heads of the sacred snakes themselves—on a class of painted clay

t^tTii goblets of distinctly ritual destination. In the next Period, L. M. II, which

answers at Knossos to the last Age of the Palace, and with which we are

here specially concerned, it becomes a conspicuous feature in the adornment

of the stately jars and amphoras of the great ' Palace Style', by now fully

evolved. As will be shown in a succeeding Section, it there combines

with other motives of religious origin to infuse a certain hieratic character

into the style itself, that made it fittingly representative of what was a

Sanctuary as well as a Palace. From the painted jars it is taken over as

an incised ornament on the great pitkoi of the West Magazines.1 In a

degenerate form it survives to the latest Minoan times, and there are

reasons for concluding- that the Greek kymahon pattern may ultimately

represent the same tradition.2

1 See Pt. II, p. 643. (Geometric). Cf. p. 2 70, Fig. 32,2 (Geometric).

2 For a ' Geometrical' Greek link, cf. The triangular pattern may be a more direct
H. G. G. Payne, Early Greek Vases from reflection.

Knossos (B.S.A., xxix), p. 273, Fig. 33, 7

Second Layer of Megaron Hearth, Mycenae : ' Waves ' opposed, as on
Adder's Back, Dashes omitted in one row. See p. jSi.