THE LATE MINOAN PERIOD

223

III, are more Cretans. Among their offerings are metal vases,
a bull's-head rhyton and the galloping figure of a bull. User-
Amen's nephew, Rekhmara, succeeded him in office and again
shows us pictures of Minoans, Keftians as he calls them, one of
whom bears a typical L.M.I& collared rhyton. An interesting
feature of one of these figures is the way in which the artist had
begun to draw a codpiece and flap of the old L.M.ia type but
had changed it to the new style of decorated kilt of L.M.16.1
Rekhmara's son Menkheperrasenb, High Priest of Amen at
the end of Thothmes Ill's long reign, kept up the family
tradition. His Keftians, however, were evidently drawn from
traditional copies, for the objects they bring are still of the same
type, though h.M.ib was by now well advanced.2

The only two vases of obviously Minoan as opposed to
Mainland fabric which have been found in Egypt both belong
to L.M.ib. One is the most beautiful vase ever made in Crete,
the Marseilles Oenochoe (PI. XL, 1). Unfortunately no details
of its discovery are known.3 The other is a tall alabastron from
Sedment decorated with a very stylized imitation of alabaster
veining (PI. XL, 2). The group in which it was found seems
to date from about the reign of Thothmes III.4 No L.M.11
pottery has appeared in Egypt with the exception of a single
sherd in a later deposit at Tell el-Amarna.5 Other vases have
been claimed as Minoan which on closer investigation appear
to be of Mainland origin. A squat alabastron was found in an
early XVIIIth-Dynasty grave at Gurob.6, The squat alabastron
seems, however, to be a purely Mainland shape. Only five
examples from Crete are known to me. The first is from a
chamber tomb at Knossos.7 This is decorated with the' ogival'
canopy which, as we have seen, is a Mainland pattern. A second
is from Tomb 5 in the Mavrospelio cemetery.8 A third is
from Tomb 5 at Isopata.9 A fourth is from the Little Palace.10

1 P. of M., II, Fig. 473a. In spite of Wainwright's extremely
valuable article in J.H.S., 1931, 1. I am still unable to dissociate
Keftiu from Crete. The finds at Ras Shamra and at Tell Atchana
(see below) confirm me in my opinion that Keftiu could be applied to
Crete, to its empire or to its sphere of influence. J.E.A., XVI.

2 The artist had, in fact, a number of Keftian types in his repertoire
which he would reproduce to order without ever looking at the
original.

3 P. of M., II, 509. 4 Sedment, II, grave 137. P. of M., IV, 271.
5 C. of A., II, no. G Gurob, PI. XIII, 4.

' P. of M, IV, 850.

a B.S.A., XXVIII, 258. 9 T.D.A., 25. 10 Ibid, 37.