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 4,2): Camp-stool Fresco, long-robed priests and beneficent genii [...] (London, 1935)

Relation
to early
figurines
represent-

428 NUDE GODDESS OF IDOLS AND CYLINDERS

images going back at least to the Middle Neolithic epoch and considerably
anterior in date to the oldest known Oriental or Egyptian Dynasties
Flatter Sub-Neolithic forms are seen on Fig. 352, a-c, while the principal

I fl f2

Sparta. f 1-2 Cyda/ks. g, h Cylinder types. i lead: Troy. J day: Cyprus.

Fig. 352. Comparative Table illustrating Primitive Images of the Mother Goddess

and their Influence on the Nude Figures on Cylinders.

type thus evolved stands in relation to what may be regarded as the central
line of descent for the Cylinder class.1 (See Fig. 352 g, h.) Stone images
from Iflatun Bunar, in the heart of the Hittite country West of Konia [d 1,2)1

1 It must at the same time be recognized,
as pointed out by me in P. of M., i, p. 49,
that certain types of early female images
of this class have a very extensive Eastern
range at an early date. Thus the parallel
type with a rounded lower outline which
occurs amongst the Neolithic clay forms of
Knossos {op. cit), recurs in stone in the
Cyclades, the Troad, at Sykeon in Galatia and
the Caucasus, and reappears S.E. of the
Caspian, at Asterabad (with Sumerian spear-
head of the early part of the Third Millennium
B.C.). A variant of the same form, also of

similar image of clay was brought to light at
Kish(Excavs. of 1904 : Ashmolean Museum)
of the same epoch. Clay female figures of »
fairly advanced sensuous type were found at
Anau in Russian Turkestan, belonging to the
Second Period of Elam. Crude clay few*
the 'pre-flood

images also occurred in

stratum of Kish. Reference has already been

made, P. of M., i, p. 51 and note

, the

clay female images found together with tho
of a male personage at Nippur, and da
c 2500 B.C. (Hilprecht, Excavations to &
Lands, p. 342 and Plate). On the oil.

stone, was found in a contemporary deposit hand, the former theory that the nu
at Sarin on the Middle Euphrates, and a of the cylinders refer to Ishtar's ' descen