M. M. Ill : SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 675

reproduced in Fig. 494,4 though it only shows a pillar on either side, is so cut
by the engraver's wheel as to present a rounded contour. What certainly
seems to be intended for serpents appear on either side. It looks indeed as
if we had to do with a rustic shrine of the Snake Goddess.

Among the forms of intaglio represented at Sphungaras, in addition to intaglios
the lentoid and amygdaloid types, is that which has been described above as °enned Cy-
the 1 flattened cylinder ', which seems to have played a specially prominent lmders'
part in the Third Middle Minoan Period. A very fine example of this type,
showing a bull grappled by an acrobatic figure of a man, while drinking from
a high tank, has been already illustrated,1 and the correspondence between
the decorative pattern there shown and painted plaster designs of the
Phaestos Palace may be taken to bring its date at least within the lower

limits of the present Period.
Another secure chronologi-
cal basis is afforded by the
fact that impressions of this
rectangular type of intaglio
were found amongst the
hoard of seaiinofs from the
Temple Repositories, in-
cluding the design of the
male warrior beside a lion-
ess, illustrated above.2

A very interesting ex- Steatite

, r , . r , example

ample 01 this type 01 seal. piated
which in its subject and with gold,
the free style of its engrav-
ing recalls the ereaterworks
of M. M. III art to which the Dolphin Fresco belongs, is reproduced in
Fig. 495, a, b. It is of black steatite, but this material, in itself unattractive
and easily worn, had been coated with a thin gold plating carefully
impressed into the intaglio itself, which shows two dolphins swimming
towards a rocky marge. As will be seen from the Figure, most of the gold
plating has been preserved, and there are traces in the groove behind
and beneath the edges of the gold of some adhesive material of a pinkish
texture. The intaglio had evidently formed the bezel of a ring, the

1 A banded agate from East Crete. This use of seals of this type is also supplied by
and Fig. 493, are in my own collection.

2 See above, p. 377. Fig. 274.

3 See p. 505, Fig. 363, b. Evidence of the

Fig. 495. a, Steatite Bead-Seal of ' Flattened
Cylinder' Type coated with Gold Plate; b, seen

from above (f).

more or less contemporary impressions on
sealings from the hoards of Zakro and H.
Triada referred to below, pp. 678-9.

X X 2