DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0397
PARALLELISM OF SCRIPT AND VASE DECORATION 747
ceramic evidence that the Minoan cultural domain, after being split in two lateKnos-
by the rise of a great dynastic power at Knossos, shows a tendency to a onMafa-'
certain reunion in the succeeding epoch that marks the rise of the L. M. Ill land side,
phase—which eventually became a diffused ' Mycenaean' style.
Up to the date of the great Catastrophe, about the close of the Fifteenth
Century before our era, the brilliant though strictly conventionalized ' Palace
style'—a]so shared by Argos on the Mainland side—distinguishes the
direct domain of the Priest-kings from the rest of the Minoan area. To
a certain extent in Crete itself, and still more widely overseas, the L. M. I b
system—the most beautiful of all in decorative design—out of which the
more formal ' Palace style' of Knossos was itself developed, still, awhile,
held its own—finally becoming dead-alive in the shape above generically
described as 'L. M. I c'.
The contents of the tholos tombs show that at Mycenae, and many Appear-
other Peloponnesian sites, the later phase of L.M. 1^ marks the end thereof
of their true history apart from the relics of a later re-occupation. At J?'"'™-
Thebes—as we learn from a series of tomb-groups—this style was contem- ceramic
porary with the earlier House of Kadnios. But in the later residences alike pendent
at Mycenae, Tiryns, and the Boeotian Thebes, the degraded ' L. M. \c' °" LM-
tradition then existent is largely broken by the entry on 'the scene of a Knossos.
new and very conventionalized ceramic class which, though not actually
Knossian, stands in a close relation to its L. M. II style.
It is this ceramic class that characterizes the archaeological stratum to
which these inscribed stirrup vases belong, whether at Tiryns and Mycenae
or on the Boeotian side. Its special concomitant is a series of decorative
motives derived from the conventional papyrus designs which, like the
octopus, are a prominent feature on the 'Palace Style' vases of Knossos.
It is significant, indeed, that on a ' kylix' from Tomb 505 at Mycenael that
produced several samples of this ceramic group, a variety of this kind of
spray is seen (Fig. 729, a) associated with, a derivative form of the ' two Cs'
motive, the evolution of which from the ' three Cs', a geometrically arranged
design of the ' marine' class, has been traced in a preceding Section.2 With it
in Fig. 729, b, is shown another fragment from the same sepulchral deposit,
in which the ' loop' form of this motive has possibly affected the decorative
end of what was originally the papyrus stem. Designs of this group—
labelled thus by what we now know to be the Knossian symbol—are of
1 W :2.at,ChamkrTombs of' Mycenae(Archaeo- which Fig. 729a,* is taken if and,?).
bgia, lxxxii), p. 12 seqq., and patterns and = See above, pp. 314, 315land Fig. 250, k.
profiles of kylix fragments, p. 17, Fig. 8, from
ceramic evidence that the Minoan cultural domain, after being split in two lateKnos-
by the rise of a great dynastic power at Knossos, shows a tendency to a onMafa-'
certain reunion in the succeeding epoch that marks the rise of the L. M. Ill land side,
phase—which eventually became a diffused ' Mycenaean' style.
Up to the date of the great Catastrophe, about the close of the Fifteenth
Century before our era, the brilliant though strictly conventionalized ' Palace
style'—a]so shared by Argos on the Mainland side—distinguishes the
direct domain of the Priest-kings from the rest of the Minoan area. To
a certain extent in Crete itself, and still more widely overseas, the L. M. I b
system—the most beautiful of all in decorative design—out of which the
more formal ' Palace style' of Knossos was itself developed, still, awhile,
held its own—finally becoming dead-alive in the shape above generically
described as 'L. M. I c'.
The contents of the tholos tombs show that at Mycenae, and many Appear-
other Peloponnesian sites, the later phase of L.M. 1^ marks the end thereof
of their true history apart from the relics of a later re-occupation. At J?'"'™-
Thebes—as we learn from a series of tomb-groups—this style was contem- ceramic
porary with the earlier House of Kadnios. But in the later residences alike pendent
at Mycenae, Tiryns, and the Boeotian Thebes, the degraded ' L. M. \c' °" LM-
tradition then existent is largely broken by the entry on 'the scene of a Knossos.
new and very conventionalized ceramic class which, though not actually
Knossian, stands in a close relation to its L. M. II style.
It is this ceramic class that characterizes the archaeological stratum to
which these inscribed stirrup vases belong, whether at Tiryns and Mycenae
or on the Boeotian side. Its special concomitant is a series of decorative
motives derived from the conventional papyrus designs which, like the
octopus, are a prominent feature on the 'Palace Style' vases of Knossos.
It is significant, indeed, that on a ' kylix' from Tomb 505 at Mycenael that
produced several samples of this ceramic group, a variety of this kind of
spray is seen (Fig. 729, a) associated with, a derivative form of the ' two Cs'
motive, the evolution of which from the ' three Cs', a geometrically arranged
design of the ' marine' class, has been traced in a preceding Section.2 With it
in Fig. 729, b, is shown another fragment from the same sepulchral deposit,
in which the ' loop' form of this motive has possibly affected the decorative
end of what was originally the papyrus stem. Designs of this group—
labelled thus by what we now know to be the Knossian symbol—are of
1 W :2.at,ChamkrTombs of' Mycenae(Archaeo- which Fig. 729a,* is taken if and,?).
bgia, lxxxii), p. 12 seqq., and patterns and = See above, pp. 314, 315land Fig. 250, k.
profiles of kylix fragments, p. 17, Fig. 8, from