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)

WILD-GOATS PURSUED BY DOGS 523

Fin". 468, is here repeated, on which a Minoan Genius bears two lions on
a pole as trophies of the chase.

Fig. 469. Base of Ivory Half Cylinder
showing Hunting Scene (M. M. I (7).

The Hunting of Cretan Wild-goats.
Goats or other animals of the chase occur on seal-stones of the primi-
tive class—sometimes running1—but it is not till the early part of the first

Middle Minoan Period that a regu-
lar hunting-scene makes its ap-
pearance. On the ivory 'half
cylinder' from Knossos, Fig. 469,
huntsman and hound are seen
pursuing the wild-goat,2 behind
which is a tree, symbolical of the
wooded hillside.

An interesting pendant to this
is supplied by the somewhat later intaglio illustrated above,3 from Rethym-
nos, and executed in a more lively style. Upon this stone, which repre-
sents an early example of the 'flat cylinder' class, a similar tree appears
behind, but there was not room in the field for huntsman and hound, and
the idea of pursuit is in this case artistically conveyed by the turning back
of the head of the galloping animal. A comparison of the designs cannot
but suggest the near relation of these two presentments of the scene.

But at the epoch, M. M. II, to which the latter belongs, a version of the
design begins to appear which brings out, in a condensed form suitable for
a round or oval field, the crowning episode of the chase, the actual seizure
of the quarry by the pursuing hound or beast of prey. An illustration of
this—like the early 'flat cylinder', Fig. 439, to be placed within the limits
of the M. M. II Period—is supplied by the crystal bead-seal, Fig. 470,
found at Sfaka in Siteia, where a collared hunting-dog is seen actually
leaping on the coursing wild-goat and bearing him to the ground.'1 On the
reverse side of the gem is a boar.

Hunting
of wild-
goats.

Hound
leaping
on the
goat.

E.g. A. E., Cretan Pictography, 6-Y., p. 71
(J.H.S., p. 340), Fig. 60. Dark-grey steatite
Prism; Central Crete.

" P. o/M., i, p. 197, Fig. M5.

8 See above, p. 500, Fig. -139, where it is
ascribed to M. M. II.

* See P. o/M., i, p. 275, Fig. 204, <: On
PP' 564, 565, and Figs. 410, 411, illustrations

are given of the type (frequent on such seals)
presenting the facade of a building, and of
impressions of a broken specimen of the kind
on the zone of a ' Medallion pilhos' from the
Royal Magazines at Ivnossos of M. M. Ill b
date. Specimens of these ' flat-edged' lentoids
in my collection show the transition to the
ordinary lentoid form.