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)

2,i2 GOLD PLATES FROM THOLOI AND SHAFT GRAVES

It is, moreover, a highly suggestive fact that remains of gold plates and
roundels, answering to those found in such abundance in the Shaft Graves
and with characteristic curvilinear decoration of a similar character, occurred
within the great tlwloi.

Fig. 182.

Gold Embossed Roundels with Simple Scrolls and Triquetras :
a, from ' Atreus ' Tomb ; />, c, ' Clytemnestra'. (J).

Em-
bossed
gold
plates
found in
tlwloi,
like those
in shaft
graves.

A small round plate of thin gold (Fig. 182, a)1 found by Stamatakis
within the ' Atreus' vault shows a triple S pattern in a simple form that
recalls the tradition of Early Minoan seal-stones.2 So, too, in a more
developed triquetral form, similar embossed patterns on the disks were also
found, in the ' Clytemnestra' Tomb (Fig. 182 6, c). It must, further, be re-
garded as a suggestive circumstance that they recur in a practically identical
shape on a series of embossed disks from the Fourth Shaft Grave (see
Fig. 1S3, a, b, c)? Later in its associations is a fragment of a small gold plate
brought out, with others, from the doorway of the ' Atreus' tomb, by the
Ephor Stamatakis.* and developed for me by Monsieur Gillieron, fils, m
Fig. 184. It formed part of a fine spiral and papyrus pattern of the same
class as that which decorated the ceiling of the Orchomenos chamber.
From a fragment in painted plaster relief found by the Queen's Megaron at
Knossos, it would appear that in its restored shape it was covered by
a stucco ceiling of similar design.

The fragment of gold plate and the ceilings of Knossos and Orcho-
menos show this spiral and papyrus design in its fine early form, a

the ivory disks from the tholos at Old 1) °
illustrated by K. Miiiler, Alh. Mtilh., xxi ,
p. 285, Figs. 7, 8.

1 Drawn by Monsieur Gillie'ron, fils, from
the original, enlarged 2 diameters. Cf. Wace,
op. at., p. 354, Fig- 74, g-

'- See above, cf. P.o/M., ii, Pt. I, pp. 196,
197, and Figs. 105-7. More developed forms
of these S patterns are engraved on some of

409.

* Wace, B. S. A

Schliemann, Mycenae, p.