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)

MOCHLOS ALABASTRON COMPARED

271

Fig. 201. Clay Alabastron
from mochlos with chevrons
imitating Alabaster Veins.

Unfortunately, though finds of this class have been fairly numerous in Sedment
t^ .... . alabas-

isgypt, precise details as to the circumstances trm

of their finding are in most cases either wanting wlth .

& t & sacral

or, from the nature of the case, only conclusive 'adder
in a general manner. Among the earlier of
these is a somewhat high-shaped alabastron
(Fig. 200 a, b) with a chevron ornament imi-
tated—as is better shown by some earlier ex-
amples of the L. M. I a class!—from the wavy I
veins of the material. This specimen was found
in Grave 137 of the cemetery of Sedment
Herakleopolis).2 It will be seen that the
vessel is closely related in style—including the
lines of dots in the white zigzags—to a vase
from a L. M. I house at Mochlos (Fig. 201).3
An interesting feature in the Sedment example,
shown in Fig. '200, b, is the sacral 'adder mark'
depicted round the upper part of the rim, a feature repeated on other vessels
of the L. M. I b class and apparently indicative of dedication—as in the case
of goblets already described"1—to ritual uses.

Another relatively early find of Minoan vases of L. M: I b type in Saqqlra
Egypt is the small bowl with lily sprays and the 'alabastron' with the „rollD~
conventionalized palm-tree motive, already described as belonging to
a tomb-group at Saqqara that may be fairly ascribed to the earlier
part of Thothmes Ill's reign.5 To the lily type here we shall return.
The conventionalized palm-trees find their fuller form in the triple group
seen in the similar alabastron. in the Cairo Museum reproduced in

1 E. g. Gournia, PI. VII, 15. A good
specimen from Knossos is in the Oandia
Museum. For the alabaster prototype see the
example from Isopata, Preh. Tombs, p. 149,

Kg- 125-5- 3-

2 Petrie and Brunton, Sedment, ii. It is
there illustrated from a drawing of Sir Flinders
Petrie. The specimen is now in the Ash-
molean Museum, and a fuller illustration of it
is given here in Fig. 200. Some other parts
of the contents of the Grave were sent to the
Museum at Chicago. No account of the Grave
is supplied by the text, though we learn that
it was ' cleared '. The earliest chronological

evidence found in the Eighteenth Dynasty
part of the Cemetery relates, however, to
Thothmes III (Sedment, ii, p. 4).

3 R. B. Seager, Excavations at Mochlos
(Am. Journ. of Arch., xiii), p. 282, Fig. 5.

4 See above, p. 1S4, and Figs. 145 a and b.

5 See P. of M., ii, Pt. II, pp. 497, 49S,
and Fig. 304 f., and cf. Excavations, Teti
Pyramid Cemeteries, by C. M. Firth and
Battiscombe Crumm, PI. XLII, and pp. 69,
70. The late Dr. R. H. Hall included the
Egyptian objects found in this tomb in the
earlier Eighteenth Dynasty Class.