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)

COMPOSITE PLANT MOTIVES AND SOURCES

fantasy that these display may be seen in the relief fresco of the Southern 'Priest-
Entrance passage, where the Priest-king with his plumed crown and lily collar Fresco',
walks in an Elysian field leading, it would seem, a sacred Griffin.1 Here
the ornamentalized flowers, like glorified Irises, amidst which he moves, have
much in common with the sprays that decorate the finest 'amphoras' of
the ' Palace Style '.

But it is the exotic papyrus, with its long sacral association in the Com-

Nile Valley, that now becomes the p]ant

principal underlying plant motive motlves:
f * J & t papyrus

in the decoration of the ' Palace types.
Style' vases. The starting-point
of this ornamentalized version is
itself to be found, as already
noted, in the painted stucco panels
of the ' House of the Frescoes',
in which, appropriately enough,
Blue Monkeys are seen peering
between the stalks. The papyrus
sprays, thus transplanted into
Cretan soil, are depicted under a
floral aspect of a brilliant blue
with a dotted white and orange
margin (see Comparative Table,2
. Fig. 264, «, b\ and beside them,
the Minoan artist has introduced
clumps of native reeds, with a circular flower on either side of the central
shoot, but otherwise rounded off in the same papyriform tufts (Fig. 264, c).
The dotted upper margin of all these types—as finally reduced to a
halo of dashes—has a long later history. It is itself due to the reaction of
similar motives in goldsmiths' work. There it is a special characteristic of
the type of ornament where the papyrus symbol is combined with the lily.
Such dots occur, still in an original metallic connexion, above the projec-
ting ornaments of this class on the lily crown of the ' Priest-king' relief
and on the bead pendants attached to the network worn by the 'Cupbearer'
and his fellows of the ' Procession Fresco', examples of which are here
repeated in Fig. 265.3

P. of M., ii, Pt. II, p. 774 seqq. and
Frontispiece (PI. XIV).

! Reproduced from P. of jlf., ii, Pt. II,

Fig. 263. Stylized Iris Flower : ' Priest-
King' Relief.

p. 477, Fig. 285.
3 See P. of M., ii, Pt. II, p. 726, Fig. 453.