694

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Episodes
of Bull-
ring taken
over from
frescoes
or reliefs.

Fig. 514. Acrobatic Scene of
Bull-ring from Clay Sealing of
Temple Repository (f).

We may infer from the above seal-types and the parallel representations
on the rhytons, that by the closing epoch at least of M. M. Ill the representa-
tions of pugilistic and perhaps of armed gladiatorial contests were already
executed in larger works ot art parallel with those concerned with the
hunting and grappling of wild or half-wild bulls. Another sealing from the

Repository indeed, Fig. 514, anticipates
a thrilling episode of what should rather
be regarded as a kind of ' Circus ' scene
of the latter class more fully illustrated
by one of the ' Taureador' Frescoes,
which themselves are not earlier than
the later phase of L. M. I. A youth is
here seen, as on the wall-painting, turning
a back somersault from behind the bull's
neck to be caught behind by another
figure, perhaps, as there, of the female
sex.

That we have here the imitation of
a slightly earlier example of one of these
scenes such as were executed in the flat
fresco technique seems highly probable.
The influence of certain architectonic
features connected with such panels is in-
deed unmistakable on some of the intaglio
types of the ensuing Period. A good
example of this is supplied by the gem-
impressions visible on a series of clay
nodules found in the Royal Tomb at
Knossos,1 where a bull appears above
a trieze consisting of pairs of horizontal
lines, which serve as the borders of
a band presenting a succession of linked
spirals (Fig. 515). This answers in fact
to the typical L. M. I decoration of the
Later Palace as seen in the Domestic
Quarter, where a similar frieze containing
linked spirals and rosettes runs above

Fig. 515. Seal-impression from
Royal Tomb, Knossos, with Spiral
Dado below (f).

Fig. 516. Clay Seal-impression,
Palace, Knossos, with Dado (f-).

1 Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos, pp. 154, t 55, Fig. 138.