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)

L. M. I b ARGONAUT TYPES

279

tradition of the ' Marine School' of decoration on the Palace walls—the
mechanical multiplication of the many-coloured sponge pattern by dabbing
an actual sponge of small dimensions, dipped in orange paint, at intervals on

the wet plaster.'
Thecoloured.and Due

. to o]d

more or less geo- tradition
metrical decora- "'Nature-

printing

tion of the whole and

r . Nature-

surtace thus pro- moulding.

duced supplies Repe-

i L tition of

the first known Knossian

unit—

Argonaut

instance of Na-

Fig. 214. Spouted Bowl from Chamber-Tomb, Knossos (Spout
restored). Found in 1931.

hire-printing. Of lin<Jer

1 G . rock

the reproduction canopy,
of shell forms by
Nature-moulding
we have, in fact,
a still earlier ex-
ample in the
cockle-shell illus-
M. I a potters.

trated above, as well as the ' barnacle work of the .

This particular Minoan unit of the Argonaut with its rock canopy leads
us, moreover, a step farther in tracing the diffusion of the L. M. I b marine
ceramic style illustrated by the ' Marseilles Ewer'. Amono- the splendid
'amphoras' with this class of decoration discovered by the German exca-
vators of the two great tholos tombs at Kakovatos,2 the ' Old Pylos' of
Dr. Dorpfeld, was the specimen reproduced in Fig. 213—of the ' pithoid
class ' with rows of triple handles characteristic of this epoch. This stately
vessel, it may be added, has the further interest of having been found in the
dromos of Grave A, from the grave-pit of which, at a somewhat earlier
date, a neighbouring peasant had extracted the gold signet-ring called from
its place of finding, the ' Ring of Nestor',3 affording- a unique revelation
of the Minoan ideas regarding- resurgence after death, and the Under-
world with its Seat of Judgement. On this 'amphora' we see, in a some-
what more flowing style, an almost exact reproduction of the marine
elements of the designs on the 'Marseilles ewer', each single detail of Knossian

fabric.
1 P. o/M., iii,pp. 361'seqq. and Figs. 238-9. '' See A. E., The Ping of Nestor, &c.

" Kurt Miiller, All-Pyhs, Ath. Mitth., (Macmillans, 1925), p. 43 seqq., and Plates
xxxi\-, 1909, pp 269-32S, Plates XII-XXIV. IV, 2 and V, and P. o/M., iii. p. 145 seqq.

; Mar-
seilles
Ewer'