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)

456 EWER-BEARING GENII ON BRONZE HYDRiA

Minoati Ewer-holding Genii on
Bronze' Hydrias' of RitualUsage
from Kurion, Cyprus.

Perhaps the best record of these

beneficent divine agents preserved

by Minoan Art is to be found in the

decorative reliefs of a pair of bronze

''hydrias' found at Kurion, Cyprus.

From the repetition, moreover, of the

characteristic ewer that they hold as

a separate feature round the rim of

one of these, it may be inferred that

these great bowls had been associated

with the libation ewers in ritual

ceremonies such as those above re-
ferred to. It is interesting, indeed,

to recall the fact, already noticed,1

that this bronze ' hydria ' form must
be regarded as the prototype of a
widely diffused class of Late Minoan
and Mycenaean painted clay 'kraters',
so frequently forthcoming in a se-
pulchral connexion. In the Temple-
Tomb at Knossos they clearly
formed part of a service devoted to
a memorial cult of the interred—the
last scion, it may well be, of the
House of Minos.

A description of the bronze ' hy-
drias' has been already given.2 The
more recently published of these:1

1 Seeabove, Pi. I, pp. 310, 311, and Figs.
2=15, 246.

- P. of M., ii., Pt. II, pp. 652-4, and
Figs. 417-19.

5 M.Markides./i.S./i, xviii, PI. VIII, and
pp. 94-7 (it is there, however, wrongly dated
to the XlVlh century B.C.). The fellow hy-
dria from the same site—which has not the
evidence of date supplied by the fine 'marine'



Fig. 381.

Handle of Bronze 'ByokU

from Kurion.
style relief—is well known. (See Perrot e
Chipiez, L'Art dans I'AntiquUi, iii, PP- 7?*
6; and cf. J. L. Myres, Cesnola C°W«<
47S-9, No. 4703.)