EARLY MINOAN II

83

may be seen perhaps in the coequal worship of Set and Horus in this reign;
the simultaneous offering of libation to both Gods could be secured by this
double spout'.

Is it conceivable that such a system—in the case of a parallel class
of vessels—originated independently in Crete and Egypt? In Egypt we see
that the idea seems to attach itself to the still earlier use of double spouts,
common in the Prehistoric Age.

In view of such correspondences it is difficult not to admit the influence of
these spouted ewers of proto-dynastic
Egypt on Minoan vessels. The addition
of a handle is itself, moreover, a concession
to insular custom which finds a parallel in
other cases where Egyptian utensils were
copied. We see the same addition made
to a form of long-spouted libation ves-
sels, otherwise closely akin to the usual
Egyptian type, reproduced in the Cretan
hieroglyphic signary.1

Many other small objects associated with the remains of this Period
point to early connexions with Egypt and the further shores of the Libyan
Sea. Ivory seals such as one from a M. M. II tomb at Mochlos present the
device of two cynocephali2 (Fig. 51). The use of ivory itself is a strong
indication of trade relations with Egypt.3 A silver cylinder with a very
wide perforation found at Mochlos answers in type to an Early Dynastic
Egyptian class. In the primitive tholos ossuaries such as that of Hagia
Triada, moreover, were found indigenous ' idols' or human figures4
belonging to this or the ensuing Period which curiously recall the pre-
historic types from Naqada and other cemeteries, and reproduce the
'domed head and pointed chin' of the early inhabitants of the Nile Valley.

Perhaps
to Set
and
Horus.

Fig. 51. Ivory Signet Seal from
Mochlos (§c).

Ivory
Seal with
Cyno-
cephali.

'Idols '
of Proto-
Egyptian
Type.

1 Scripta Minoa, i, p. 197, No. 40, and see
below, Fig. 212, b.

2 Seager, op. cit., p. 24, ii. 42 (Fig. 11),
from Tomb II, containing the richest deposit
of gold jewels. Only one object from this tomb
(op. cit., Clay Jug, p. 24, II. b) could be brought
down as late as the beginning of the E. M. Ill
Period. Another ivory seal with a similar
device occurred, however, in an E. M. Ill
stratum of the Town site at Mochlos. The
types, therefore, probably belong to the borders

G

of the two Periods.

3 There is no kind of evidence ot any direct
relations with Cyprus or the Syrian coasts till the
Middle Minoan Age, and if, as Dr. von Bissing
supposes, the ivory came from that quarter it
must have reached Crete via Egypt.

4 F. Halbherr, Memorie del R. Istituto Lom-
bardo, xxi (1905), p. 251, and PI. XI, Fig. 27.
Similar types occurred in the tholos of
Kumasa: cf. H. R. Hall, Aegean Archaeology,
PI. XIV, 4.