arthur evans - the_palace_of_minos

M. M. Ill: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 681
signet from Mycenae illustrated below (Fig. 513), and is seen in its complete
outline on the dagger-blade from Grave IV depicting the lion-hunt. A
1
similar shield is also seen in the hands of a spearman with a crested helm on
a cornelian lentoid from East Crete, of rude execution, but further attesting the
diffusion of this form in Minoan Crete. It
may
type of one of the H. Triada sealings is
also be noted that the sole
a crested helmet with cheek-pieces,*
like that worn by the protagonist on the Mycenae signet.
The double flounce of the loin-cloth in f is interesting as it represents Male
a- process of development parallel with that which produced
the flounced
skirts of the women. In g and li, on the other hand, a kind of flowing apron
apron,
is added to the loin-cloth. This type, the essential features of which as seen
on the seal-impressions,
is here summarized in g and //, recurs in a series of
religious subjects,
in several cases associated with the Sacred Double
Axe. 3 It may therefore be regarded as a ritual garb which, as we see from
one of the Zakro sealings,
was used in ceremonial processions. This flowing
apron, as is clearly shown by the Zakro seal-impression from which k is
taken, was worn in front while behind him hangs a shorter piece of drapery not
dissimilar from that of an ordinary loin-cloth. The best illustration of this Parallel
costume, however, is
supplied by a bronze votive figure obtained by me by "bronze
from the same sacrificial stratum of the Psychro Cave that contained the ure
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inscribed Libation Table, and which may therefore be regarded as a contem- Votive
porary relic of the cult. It is here for the first time reproduced in pj^c'hJo'.
Fig. 501. The figure is that of a youth with two curling locks of hair
falling clown behind and stands on a base provided with a nail-like projection
below to fix it to some sanctuary slab.
The personage from a Hagia Triada seal-impression, Fig. 500, i, shows The
a flowing apron of this kind appearing beneath the ritual ' cuirass' like that
worn by the rustic leader of the harvesters on the Hagia Triada rhyton,
enabling us indeed to complete that figure.
In this, and in other cases noted
below, we see a very close correspondence between seal-types of this group
1
Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations, there placed upside down.
p. 229, Fig. 227. Similar shields, also fully * See above, p. 435, Fig. 312, b. Each of
represented,
are seen in the hands of two the two male attendants of this class seen on
spearmen on another gold signet ring from either side of what seems to be a dancing
Mycenae, in the Ashmolean Museum. This figure of the Goddess on a seal -impression
type of shield with its two angular shoulders from Hagia Triada (Man. Ant., xiii, p. 39,
must be distinguished from the Egyptian class Fig. 33) holds aloft a double axe. (The blades
with a fully rounded top.
of these have since been recognized on one of
3
Man. Ant., xiii, p. 35, Fig. 27 and PI. V. the impressions, but are not shown in the
The object not having been recognized
it is Figure.)