DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0187
THE MINOAN TYPE ON GREEK GEMS AND COINS 539
small ivory reliefs. No representation of this group in works of the true
Geometrical class has as yet come to light, and its first vogue in Hellas
can be reasonably brought into connexion with its survival in Cypriote Art,
on which the masterpieces of the Assyrian Empire were now reacting, while,
later, its propagation West may have been largely clue to scarabs of the
' Ionian' class. To Ionian influences, too, was doubtless due the appear-
ance of variants of this design where the lion seizes a bull by the neck, as on
a tomb at Xanthos,1 and it is noteworthy that the Assyrian influence in that
School of Art is attested in the lion relief of another Xanthian tomb 2 by the
characteristic whiskers, of remote Sumerian descent. It also survived on
parallel Phoenician works, and the version showing two lions occurs on the
centre of a silver bowl from the Regulini Galassi Tomb.3 We see it
already in a design, helplessly enough drawn, of a lion seizing a dappled deer
from behind, on the neck-band of an early Attic amphora4 of early Seventh
Century date.
The lion and bull types of early Greek Art were connected thus by a real
catena with the Minoan prototypes, but there remains a great probability that
there had been, in certain cases, an actual resuscitation of the design through
the copying" of Minoan seal-types, of which we have undoubted evidence.5
Some of the Hellenic reproductions of that version of the group in which Later
the lion leaps on a stag, of which Minoan version
examples have been given, may be thought
specially suggestive in this connexion. The
exquisite scarab-type (Fig. 490)G—though
found at Tharros, certainly by a Greek hand—
in which we see the scheme adapted to an
oval field, here with a cable border, and
the fine later rendering- on a didrachm of
the old Phocaean Colony of Velia (Fig. 492),
curiously recall certain Minoan seal-types.
For the lion and bull class the designs on the
Akanthos stater (Fig. 494) and the Gela scarab (Fig. 493)—already referred
to—are equally significant. These suggestive parallels are here placed
side by side with the intaglio on the large gold signet-ring from Thisbe
(fig. 491), where the spots of the fallow deer are also reproduced.
Fig. 490. Lion and Bull on
Tharros Scarab.
lb
V- 393. L
Ib-< P- 39i, 1'
P. ct C
27S (B.M.).
276.
ii, p. 769, Fig. 544, &c,
G- M. A. Richter, A New Early Attic
Vase; J.U.S., xxii (1912), p. 37° seqq., and
PI. XI (Metropolitan Mus., N.Y.).
'• See P. o/M.,iu, pp. 125, 126, Figs. 79, SO.
" C.W. \\Ang,Anlit]tieGemsa?idRiiigs,\.i2$.
small ivory reliefs. No representation of this group in works of the true
Geometrical class has as yet come to light, and its first vogue in Hellas
can be reasonably brought into connexion with its survival in Cypriote Art,
on which the masterpieces of the Assyrian Empire were now reacting, while,
later, its propagation West may have been largely clue to scarabs of the
' Ionian' class. To Ionian influences, too, was doubtless due the appear-
ance of variants of this design where the lion seizes a bull by the neck, as on
a tomb at Xanthos,1 and it is noteworthy that the Assyrian influence in that
School of Art is attested in the lion relief of another Xanthian tomb 2 by the
characteristic whiskers, of remote Sumerian descent. It also survived on
parallel Phoenician works, and the version showing two lions occurs on the
centre of a silver bowl from the Regulini Galassi Tomb.3 We see it
already in a design, helplessly enough drawn, of a lion seizing a dappled deer
from behind, on the neck-band of an early Attic amphora4 of early Seventh
Century date.
The lion and bull types of early Greek Art were connected thus by a real
catena with the Minoan prototypes, but there remains a great probability that
there had been, in certain cases, an actual resuscitation of the design through
the copying" of Minoan seal-types, of which we have undoubted evidence.5
Some of the Hellenic reproductions of that version of the group in which Later
the lion leaps on a stag, of which Minoan version
examples have been given, may be thought
specially suggestive in this connexion. The
exquisite scarab-type (Fig. 490)G—though
found at Tharros, certainly by a Greek hand—
in which we see the scheme adapted to an
oval field, here with a cable border, and
the fine later rendering- on a didrachm of
the old Phocaean Colony of Velia (Fig. 492),
curiously recall certain Minoan seal-types.
For the lion and bull class the designs on the
Akanthos stater (Fig. 494) and the Gela scarab (Fig. 493)—already referred
to—are equally significant. These suggestive parallels are here placed
side by side with the intaglio on the large gold signet-ring from Thisbe
(fig. 491), where the spots of the fallow deer are also reproduced.
Fig. 490. Lion and Bull on
Tharros Scarab.
lb
V- 393. L
Ib-< P- 39i, 1'
P. ct C
27S (B.M.).
276.
ii, p. 769, Fig. 544, &c,
G- M. A. Richter, A New Early Attic
Vase; J.U.S., xxii (1912), p. 37° seqq., and
PI. XI (Metropolitan Mus., N.Y.).
'• See P. o/M.,iu, pp. 125, 126, Figs. 79, SO.
" C.W. \\Ang,Anlit]tieGemsa?idRiiigs,\.i2$.