DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0139
LATER HISTORY OF LENTOID TYPES
493
conventional style of these sprays is suggestive of L. M. 11—111 vase decora-
tion and is well dated by examples from the last palatial deposits of clay
seal impressions at Knossos.1
Later History of the Lentoid Class.
A good example of the fully developed lentoid type with a section and Typical
side view is given in Fig. 428. This gem, a banded agate, was found in the bra'd-seal.
Mirabello district East of Candia, and the subject2 may be compared with
that of the elongated bead-seal, Fig. 559 below, a more or less contemporary
work. Here a huntsman, rushing forward at a gigantic and truculent-looking
agrinn, stabs it to the heart while warding off the horns with his other arm.
In the field between his legs is a bull's head, often used as a fill-up object
in Minoan intaglio designs.
So far as the existing evidence goes it would appear that the use Predomi-
of the lentoid form of bead-seal was by no means general before the \laxll
mature L. M. I a stage. By the close of L. M. I i, however, it was already type from
• - 111 1 1-V71-, • A C'0Se °f
becoming predominant, as is well shown by the Vapheio deposit.3 As L.M.\b.
noted below,4 it now engenders a special lentoid type of design. In the
days of the latest degeneration of Minoan Art, when the lapidaries had
ceased to attack any materials but the soft steatite, the lentoid form
became practically the only type. It was revived some five centuries later,
together with the ' almond-shaped' form, in a choicer translucent green
variety of the same material, by the gem-engravers of the ' Melian' School,
of which contemporary Crete formed a somewhat subsidiary branch.
The Almond-shaped or Amygdaloid Type.
Another class of bead-seal makes its appearance about the same time Almond-
as the fine lentoid gems, which for some time runs parallel with them. These 'amygda-
almond-shaped or 'amygdaloid' type—otherwise known as 'glandular'—■ b°e'a(
cannot be traced to any Minoan origin. As applied to beads, however,
the form occurs on a larger scale among Sumerian relics of a date approach-
ing 3,000 B.C., and is also known in Egypt from late Prehistoric times to
the Xllth Dynasty, though there the outline was less elongated.
1 See below, pp. 608, 609 (Fig. 597 a, n). a traditional M. M. Ill i-L. M. I a amygda-
"- See, too, Fig. 55S, p. 577. loid of the 'talismanic class', and the others
Out of 37 seal-stones from the Vapheio represent either the 'elongated' bead-shaped
Tomb illustrated by Tsountas, 'E<j>. 'Apx< '889, type that now comes into vogue or the amygda-
Pl. X, 24 are of the lentoid type. Of the loids with rather narrow field.
remainder, one (Figs. 5, 6) represents a survival 4 P. 6r5 seqq.
of a M: M. Ill three-sided form, another is
bead-
seals.
493
conventional style of these sprays is suggestive of L. M. 11—111 vase decora-
tion and is well dated by examples from the last palatial deposits of clay
seal impressions at Knossos.1
Later History of the Lentoid Class.
A good example of the fully developed lentoid type with a section and Typical
side view is given in Fig. 428. This gem, a banded agate, was found in the bra'd-seal.
Mirabello district East of Candia, and the subject2 may be compared with
that of the elongated bead-seal, Fig. 559 below, a more or less contemporary
work. Here a huntsman, rushing forward at a gigantic and truculent-looking
agrinn, stabs it to the heart while warding off the horns with his other arm.
In the field between his legs is a bull's head, often used as a fill-up object
in Minoan intaglio designs.
So far as the existing evidence goes it would appear that the use Predomi-
of the lentoid form of bead-seal was by no means general before the \laxll
mature L. M. I a stage. By the close of L. M. I i, however, it was already type from
• - 111 1 1-V71-, • A C'0Se °f
becoming predominant, as is well shown by the Vapheio deposit.3 As L.M.\b.
noted below,4 it now engenders a special lentoid type of design. In the
days of the latest degeneration of Minoan Art, when the lapidaries had
ceased to attack any materials but the soft steatite, the lentoid form
became practically the only type. It was revived some five centuries later,
together with the ' almond-shaped' form, in a choicer translucent green
variety of the same material, by the gem-engravers of the ' Melian' School,
of which contemporary Crete formed a somewhat subsidiary branch.
The Almond-shaped or Amygdaloid Type.
Another class of bead-seal makes its appearance about the same time Almond-
as the fine lentoid gems, which for some time runs parallel with them. These 'amygda-
almond-shaped or 'amygdaloid' type—otherwise known as 'glandular'—■ b°e'a(
cannot be traced to any Minoan origin. As applied to beads, however,
the form occurs on a larger scale among Sumerian relics of a date approach-
ing 3,000 B.C., and is also known in Egypt from late Prehistoric times to
the Xllth Dynasty, though there the outline was less elongated.
1 See below, pp. 608, 609 (Fig. 597 a, n). a traditional M. M. Ill i-L. M. I a amygda-
"- See, too, Fig. 55S, p. 577. loid of the 'talismanic class', and the others
Out of 37 seal-stones from the Vapheio represent either the 'elongated' bead-shaped
Tomb illustrated by Tsountas, 'E<j>. 'Apx< '889, type that now comes into vogue or the amygda-
Pl. X, 24 are of the lentoid type. Of the loids with rather narrow field.
remainder, one (Figs. 5, 6) represents a survival 4 P. 6r5 seqq.
of a M: M. Ill three-sided form, another is
bead-
seals.