DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0130
486 EARLY NILOTIC AND PROTO-DYNASTIC MODELS
Nilotic Sculptural Influences on Early Minoan Crete.
Early The presence of abundant deposits of green and partly tran=l„„
Nilotic f „ ■ _ _ .., ' , .. j . ' * "<LI1siucent
sculptural soapstone in East Crete greatly promoted the development of this miniatur
c°sUe°" sclllptor's Art for this and like purposes. The ivory, also ready to hand
seems to have been due to the continued relations preserved throughout
the Early Minoan Age with a kindred element beyond the Libyan Sea
To these works of the primitive lapidaries, rendered possible by the abun-
dance of such materials, but also to the innate artistic genius of the race we
must'trace the beginnings of the great plastic school of Middle Minoan Crete.
Nor can it be doubted that, together with the supply of the ivory
material, sculptural models in the round had themselves found their way
into the 'Mid-sea Land'. We may here, indeed, find the explanation of
an interesting phenomenon. The Early Minoan craftsmen show distinctly
greater advance in relief carving as compared with engraving, and the upper
parts of their signets, rendered in relief, are superior to the intaglios below.
Proto-^ The ivory lions on a flat base, inherited by the earliest dynastic Art of
Qvritistic
ivories Egypt1 from the late prehistoric and used as pieces in games (Fig. IOC),
imitated. SUpp];£g(j tne model for the Early Minoan seal in the same material already
illustrated (Fig. 407, a, b).1 In this, indeed, we see the new element of the
recumbent body of a man below, but the correspondence in details, such as
the form of the base and the tail of the lion curling up the flank, affords
absolute proof of the affiliation of proto-dynastic Egyptian models.
A similar origin may be claimed for the ivory seal types in the form 01
apes (Fig. 411), while certain pre-dynastic hawk amulets in glazed stone
(Fig. 408), with a lateral perforation,3 suggest the similarly bored dove from
' Ko'umasa, that shelters its fledglings beneath its wings (Fig. 409). The
lion form of seal—as is shown by the amethyst specimen, bored in the same
way through its side, Fig. 416 *—itself survived to the beginning of the
'hard-stoneperiod' of the Minoan lapidaries (M. M. II). A remarkablelin
with this is supplied by the scaraboid-like lion-seal of steatite, with the sarn
side perforation, Fig. 415, a-d, found at Knossos 1932. This presents be o\
a finely engraved squatting figure in a markedly Egyptianizing style, no 1 g
a globular vase and coupled with a loop pattern of Early Minoan afifini )'•
' E.g., Petrie, £. Tombs of Abydos, Pt. ii, a side and front perforation. ^
- pi. VI, 23-8 and pi. VIa (1st Dyn). " B.M. Cat. Engraved Gems, c5«, P-^
■■ See P. of M.,u, Ft. I, p. 55, Fig. 26. No. 103, with side view. The ^.^g,.
The oval, square-cut base is also reproduced, for the first time published. Bouglb'e froin
here engraved as for a seal. from an Athens denier. Said to
1 Of rst Dyn. date, from the Abydos Temple ' Mycenae ', but certainly of Cretan or s
(Petrie, Abydos, Pt. ii, PI. VII, 8 r, 82). It has
Nilotic Sculptural Influences on Early Minoan Crete.
Early The presence of abundant deposits of green and partly tran=l„„
Nilotic f „ ■ _ _ .., ' , .. j . ' * "<LI1siucent
sculptural soapstone in East Crete greatly promoted the development of this miniatur
c°sUe°" sclllptor's Art for this and like purposes. The ivory, also ready to hand
seems to have been due to the continued relations preserved throughout
the Early Minoan Age with a kindred element beyond the Libyan Sea
To these works of the primitive lapidaries, rendered possible by the abun-
dance of such materials, but also to the innate artistic genius of the race we
must'trace the beginnings of the great plastic school of Middle Minoan Crete.
Nor can it be doubted that, together with the supply of the ivory
material, sculptural models in the round had themselves found their way
into the 'Mid-sea Land'. We may here, indeed, find the explanation of
an interesting phenomenon. The Early Minoan craftsmen show distinctly
greater advance in relief carving as compared with engraving, and the upper
parts of their signets, rendered in relief, are superior to the intaglios below.
Proto-^ The ivory lions on a flat base, inherited by the earliest dynastic Art of
Qvritistic
ivories Egypt1 from the late prehistoric and used as pieces in games (Fig. IOC),
imitated. SUpp];£g(j tne model for the Early Minoan seal in the same material already
illustrated (Fig. 407, a, b).1 In this, indeed, we see the new element of the
recumbent body of a man below, but the correspondence in details, such as
the form of the base and the tail of the lion curling up the flank, affords
absolute proof of the affiliation of proto-dynastic Egyptian models.
A similar origin may be claimed for the ivory seal types in the form 01
apes (Fig. 411), while certain pre-dynastic hawk amulets in glazed stone
(Fig. 408), with a lateral perforation,3 suggest the similarly bored dove from
' Ko'umasa, that shelters its fledglings beneath its wings (Fig. 409). The
lion form of seal—as is shown by the amethyst specimen, bored in the same
way through its side, Fig. 416 *—itself survived to the beginning of the
'hard-stoneperiod' of the Minoan lapidaries (M. M. II). A remarkablelin
with this is supplied by the scaraboid-like lion-seal of steatite, with the sarn
side perforation, Fig. 415, a-d, found at Knossos 1932. This presents be o\
a finely engraved squatting figure in a markedly Egyptianizing style, no 1 g
a globular vase and coupled with a loop pattern of Early Minoan afifini )'•
' E.g., Petrie, £. Tombs of Abydos, Pt. ii, a side and front perforation. ^
- pi. VI, 23-8 and pi. VIa (1st Dyn). " B.M. Cat. Engraved Gems, c5«, P-^
■■ See P. of M.,u, Ft. I, p. 55, Fig. 26. No. 103, with side view. The ^.^g,.
The oval, square-cut base is also reproduced, for the first time published. Bouglb'e froin
here engraved as for a seal. from an Athens denier. Said to
1 Of rst Dyn. date, from the Abydos Temple ' Mycenae ', but certainly of Cretan or s
(Petrie, Abydos, Pt. ii, PI. VII, 8 r, 82). It has