yo6

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

part based on the common 'peacock' butterfly, though at times it suggests
an ' eyed hawk' moth.1 In Fig. 529, b, wings of this class are combined with
a boar's-mask. In c, however, they are gracefully associated with a type
of sphinx, and perhaps convey a symbolic meaning. On a sealing from the
Little Palace at Knossos (d) four butterflies' wings with eyes perhaps
suggested by the Eye of Horus - are combined into a decorative figure. It
is clear, however, from the representations of eyed lepidoptera on the gold
plates from the Third Shaft Grave at Mycenae—where they occurred in
company with mature L. M. I vases—that these ' butterfly' types con-
siderably overlap the early part of the Late Minoan Age. It has seemed
preferable therefore to reserve the fuller consideration of this interesting
motive, as well as of the ' Sacred Eye', to the Second Volume of this work.

winged In Fig. 530 is shown a remarkable deeora-

oiVm.°M. tive motive taken from a four-sided bead-seal

II Prism recentlv discovered in Crete 3 and which stands in

Seal. J

an obvious connexion with those given in Fig. 529,
though it is here turned the other way up. The

seal itself bears hieroglyphic groups of the ad- Fig. 530. Winged Motive

i r>i -d i , .i r ,i on M. M. II Hieroglyphic

vanced Class, B, and represents the acme oi the Pr(ncriT

_L>JlAL)-S-EAL.

M.M. II engraver's art. In the expanding object

which forms its central feature must be recognized the upper part of the waz
or papyrus wand more fully shown in Fig. 528, a and b, but here placed upside
down. On each side of it wre already see the twin stars of the butterfly
tradition as illustrated by Fig. 528, c, and Fig. 529, b. Of special interest
moreover are the two lateral appendages which spring on either side from the
central stem and give the appearance of recurved wings of an upward flying
bird, for which indeed the expanding stem below might supply the tail.4
This example is of great importance as showing that the decorative ante-
cedents of what in this case might be taken for birds' wings go back in Crete
to the great days of the M. M. II Palace.
Wings of More than half of the wings of these fantastic creations are, in fact,

] j 1 rcl s

those of birds. Their formation has nothing to do with the sacral scarab
form of Egypt.5 At times they show an upward curve at their tips, but
they are the natural wings of birds with long terminal quills.

1 See Vol. II.

2 Compare, too, the ' divine eye' on a
Minoan signet ring. See Vol. II, and The
Tomb of the Double Axes {Archaeologia, Vol.
lxv), p. io, Fig. 16.

3 See above, p. 277, Fig. 207, c.

4 Compare Fig. 531, d.

5 Cf. Hogarth, Zakro Sealings, J. H. S., xxii,
pp. 92, 93.