120

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Impressions of ivory cylinders of this class from the larger tholos at Platanos
are illustrated in Fig-. 87, 4, 5, 6.1

Proces-
sional
figures of
animals.

Ships on
Signets.

« (i9o) b

Fig. 88. Ivory Seals: a, End of Cylinder from Platanos; b, Fragment from

Tholos, Hagia Triada.

It will be seen that, among the motives of this series of seals, successive
figures of the same animal are frequent, such as the lions and spiders on
Fig. 87, 4. Such processional subjects are themselves reminiscent of a simi-
lar decorative feature in proto-dynastic Egyptian Art. On Fig. 87,6, which
shows a lion in pursuit of another animal, there appears a rude human
figure. In Fig. 88, a may be detected the adorant cynocephalus, and the

palmette of the border which
recurs in 87, 9 certainly
approaches the Egyptian tree-
symbol. Scorpions—also a
feature of the early dynastic
cylinders—are of frequent
occurrence, and the linked
pair on another ivory seal
from Platanos, Fig. 87, 10, fits
on to the Vlth-XIth Dynasty
scheme illustrated below in
Fig. 92. The walking figures of dogs on a fragment of an ivory seal from
the early tholos of Hagia Triada, Fig. 88, d, are very naturally rendered.2

The ship on the three-sided ivory seal, Fig. 87, 7, coupled with fish
and a t-like sign, throws an interesting light on the maritime enterprise of
the Period, to which the ivory material of so many of these seals and the foreign
connexions of some of their forms bear further witness. Another contem-

3 A specimen from the early tholos at Hagia 2 Halbherr, Memorie del r. 1st. Lomb:> xxi
Triada is given in Scripta J/inoa, i, p. 120, (1905), PI. XI, Fig. 25.
Fig. 53

a b c

Fig. 89. Three-sided Bead-Seal of Steatite,
East Central Crete (^).