M. M. Ill: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 699

the shallows is visible part of the coast-line of a point of terra firma with
indications on it of a tree. For comparison another fragment, Fig. 521 b, is
here shown, with victims of the disaster in deep waters.

The whole context of the fragments from the silver rhyton, more fully
illustrated in a later Section of this work suo-crest an
incident from some Epic Cycle of Minoan antiquity.
The scene on the Knossian seal-impression of the
beginning, at latest, of the Sixteenth Century B.C. is,
itself fundamentally the same as that of which the
Odyssey has preserved a more elaborate tradition.1
The myth, it appears, from the scene on the rhyton,
already followed Minoan mariners beyond the coasts of
their native island and was perhaps already localized
in the Straits by this time. The Greek conception of
Skylla would in that case go back to the days of far
earlier, Minoan ventures into Tyrrhene waters.

The compound types, so common at Zakro, find Com-
analogies among the Knossian seal-impressions of this jype".
time. A specimen of the curious grouping together of
elements often heterogeneous is seen in the Repository
specimen Fig. 522, a, where beneath a barred arching
band we see a pair of antlers, an enigmatic object with
four projections, and a kind of cap or ' pileus' such as
frequently enters into the composition of the Zakro
designs. Another remarkable illustration of this ten-
dency, in this case clearly of religious significance, is
supplied by a clay seal-impression from the M. M. Ill b
stratum of the Court of the Stone Spout, Fig. 522, b,
where by linking the horns of a bull's head with cross
lines the outline of a double axe is obtained in the
simplest manner. It will be seen that the style of the engraving here seen
exactly corresponds with that of facing bulls' heads coupled with other
adjuncts which recur among the Zakro sealings, such as Fig. 525, d, below.

The parallelism observable between these and other types of the Com-
Repository seal-impressions with those of the great Zakro hoard may wtth "S

Zakro

1 See my remarks, Knossos, Report, 1903, p. 287 seqq. The analogies there suggested ^ea^
p. 58, note, and on the pre-Homeric illustra- are admitted by Pfister, Skylla (Roscner's
tions of Homer in Minoan and Mycenaean Lexikon, p. 1035).
Elements in Hellenic Lift\J. H. S, xxxiii, T912,

b

Fig. 522. a, b. Com-
pound Types on
Seal-impressions from
Knossos (f).