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)

EVOLUTION OF WHORL-SHELL MOTIVES

Fig. 25G. Embossed Plat

Tntons successive decorative out-growths of the whorl-shell type on pottery of the

ritual local fabric, find an interesting supplement among

Palatial0" l'le fragments of a late ' Palace Style ' amphora l

'am- exhibiting various objects of a religious nature,
phora ... - , &

but the original arrangement of which it has been
impossible to restore. While the other details are
given below in their special context,2 it is con-
venient here to reproduce in Fig. 257 the highly
ornamentalized version of what we may suppose in
this case stood for a conch-shell type. Its close
relationship to the cult is here attested by the ends

of the duplicated Double-Axe blade that here from Fifth Shaft Grave,

, -'i . Mycenae.

appear beside it.

This evolution of the whorl-
shell motive has a special interest
from the immediate relation in which
it stands to a widespread class of
'Mycenaean' ceramic types of this
class belonging to the succeeding"
epoch. The manner in which these
are often linked together also im-
plies a parallelism with the Knos-
sian examples shown in Fig. 254.
It is possible that the Mainland
type may have itself reacted on the
later Minoan ceramic types, such as
we see them, for instance, on a
'krater' from Milatos. But it looks
as if these ' corkscrew ' designs had

I

Fig. 257. Fragment of ' Amphora
with Ornamentalized Conch-shell reside
Points of Double-Axe Blade.

' Sacral Ivy' and ' Ogival Canopy ' on ' Palace Style' Vases.

The ' Sacral Ivy'and the closely allied decorative unit here termed
the ' Ogival Canopy', which occupy so prominent a place in the L. M. I 0
repertory, are in it not infrequently associated with marine objects such as
coralline sprays and ' brittle stars'. Both motives survive on vases of the

1 Found by the original South-West Corner of the Palace.
- See below, p. 346, and Fig. 289 d, c.