M. M. II: HIEROGLYPHIC DEPOSIT : SEALINGS & SEALS 281

advance in the Art of Writing. But these influences were at most of a forma-
tive kind. As a whole, the Minoan hieroglyphic signary is independent of the
Egyptian, and a good deal of the parallelism it shows is the result of conditions
that underlie all systems of developed picture-writing. The selection for this
purpose of certain categories of objects such as of parts of the human body,
simple implements and weapons, domestic utensils, plants and animals, or the
celestial luminaries, is itself of universal usage.

Here and there, however, the influence of the Egyptian hieroglyphic system
resulted in isolated borrowings of a direct kind. The imitation of the men or
'draught-board' sign, described above, is a conspicuous instance. Further
examples are given in Fig. 212,1 including the ankh or life sign, the libation
ewer—with a handle added—and, what is specially suggestive, the bee of the

royal title, and the ' Palace
sign ' in a simplified form.

The characters of the
hieroglyphic signary, many
of which retained an ideo-
graphic value, are them-
selves an epitome of Cretan
culture as it existed in
the culminating epoch of
the Middle Minoan Age.
A full conspectus of this
Signary is given in Fig. 214. We see the tools used by masons, carpenters,
and decorators of the great Palaces, the libation vases, sacral horns, and
Double Axes of ritual usage ; we mark the progress in musical invention
evidenced by the eight-stringed lyre. Among the domestic animals we note
both the cat and the Molossian hound, swine, a horned sheep and the appear-
ance of the long-horned Urns breed of oxen side by side with the native short-
horns. Agriculture is illustrated by figs and olives, and by various kinds of
cereals. Repeated representations of the saffron-flower sign (Fig. 215, a)
suggest the important part played by the dye produced from it, and the recur-
rence of the bee (Fig. 215, b) points to the bee-keeping industry, so widespread
still in the island. Bees, according to the Cretan legend, fed the infant Zeus.

The frequency of a branch or spray, which in its better delineations
it seems possible to identify with that of an olive-tree, has a special signifi-
cance (Fig. 215, c).2 There can be no reasonable doubt that the capacious
jars with which the Palace Magazines were at this time stocked were devoted
1 Scripta Minoa, i, p. 240, Table XVI. 2 Op. cit., i, p. 219, No. 101.

Facili-
tated by
Egyptian
Sugges-
tion.

Some
Direct
Borrow-
ings.

Fig 213. Clay Sealing showing to l. Impression
of Signet with ' Ship ' and ' Olive Spray '
Signs, (f)

Hiero-
glyphs an
Epitome
of Cretan
Culture.

Olive

Spray

Sign.

Minoan

Wealth

in Oil :

Probable

Export

to Egypt.