DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0723
M.M.III: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 677
In Eig. 497 is reproduced a specimen of an intaglio of this Class found
to the North of the Palace Site at Knossos, which from its somewhat
naively natural style must also with great probability be included within the
limits of M. M. III. It is executed in a beautiful mottled chalcedony and its Fisher-
subject corroborates the evidence supplied above by the fish-bones in the ™|°r^
cooking-pot,1 as to the part played by fish in the Minoan dietary. We see here °£
a fisherman, draped about the loins, raising a cuttlefish with one hand and in
Fig. 497. Mottled
Chalcedony Intaglio,
Knossos. (f)
Fig. 498. Cornelian
Amygdaloid showing
Skaros Fish, (f)
Fig. 499. Cornelian Amygda-
loid: Flying Fish, (f)
the other holding what appears to be the much prized Skaros fish 2 of Crete.
Its characteristic features are more fully illustrated by a cornelian intaglio
of the amygdaloid type3 executed in a bold though somewhat summary
manner and giving a curious perspective rendering of the fish swimming
(Fig. 498). The Scarus Cretensis is a kind of parrot wrasse for which the
Cretan waters were specially famous, and, under its ancient name is still
considered by the Greeks to-day, as it was in Pliny's time, to be the first ot
fishes.4 Its species is well marked by the sharp beak and it is surrounded
by the sea-weeds 5 that supplied its food and the mastication of which gave
the idea that it was a ruminant.6 An exquisite miniature reproduction of
1 See p. 555. 4 Pliny, H. N. ix. 29 'Nunc scaro datur
2 Compare the fisherman holding a fish, principalis'.
5 Projecting ends of these are here confused
with the posterior end of the fish.
G Dr. Gunther quoted in R. Lydekker,
F.R.S., R. Nat. Hist., v, p. 421. Pliny's words
{H. N. loc. cit.) are ' Scarus . . . solus piscium
dicitur ruminare herbisque vesci'.
perhaps of the same species, on an elongated
' amygdaloid ' of haematite (probably Cretan),
B. M. Cat., No. 80.
3 Acquired by me from near Lappa in
1895. Both this and the original of Fig. 497
are in my own collection.
In Eig. 497 is reproduced a specimen of an intaglio of this Class found
to the North of the Palace Site at Knossos, which from its somewhat
naively natural style must also with great probability be included within the
limits of M. M. III. It is executed in a beautiful mottled chalcedony and its Fisher-
subject corroborates the evidence supplied above by the fish-bones in the ™|°r^
cooking-pot,1 as to the part played by fish in the Minoan dietary. We see here °£
a fisherman, draped about the loins, raising a cuttlefish with one hand and in
Fig. 497. Mottled
Chalcedony Intaglio,
Knossos. (f)
Fig. 498. Cornelian
Amygdaloid showing
Skaros Fish, (f)
Fig. 499. Cornelian Amygda-
loid: Flying Fish, (f)
the other holding what appears to be the much prized Skaros fish 2 of Crete.
Its characteristic features are more fully illustrated by a cornelian intaglio
of the amygdaloid type3 executed in a bold though somewhat summary
manner and giving a curious perspective rendering of the fish swimming
(Fig. 498). The Scarus Cretensis is a kind of parrot wrasse for which the
Cretan waters were specially famous, and, under its ancient name is still
considered by the Greeks to-day, as it was in Pliny's time, to be the first ot
fishes.4 Its species is well marked by the sharp beak and it is surrounded
by the sea-weeds 5 that supplied its food and the mastication of which gave
the idea that it was a ruminant.6 An exquisite miniature reproduction of
1 See p. 555. 4 Pliny, H. N. ix. 29 'Nunc scaro datur
2 Compare the fisherman holding a fish, principalis'.
5 Projecting ends of these are here confused
with the posterior end of the fish.
G Dr. Gunther quoted in R. Lydekker,
F.R.S., R. Nat. Hist., v, p. 421. Pliny's words
{H. N. loc. cit.) are ' Scarus . . . solus piscium
dicitur ruminare herbisque vesci'.
perhaps of the same species, on an elongated
' amygdaloid ' of haematite (probably Cretan),
B. M. Cat., No. 80.
3 Acquired by me from near Lappa in
1895. Both this and the original of Fig. 497
are in my own collection.