THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Crested
Eagle-
headed
Types.

type appears on a gold plate1 and on a sword 2 and dagger-blade 3 from
Mycenae, and the latter example which must be regarded as more or less
contemporary with the Melian vase motive, Fig. 535, is here set beside it.
It seems probable that in the original design the Melian potter had before
him a Griffin with a curlier tail. The spots on the body show, moreover,
that the Minoan prototype in its reproduction of the foreign monster had
combined something of the leopard with its leonine elements. A pard-like
monster appears, as we have seen (Fig. 533, d), in the Egyptian series.

Seated Griffins of the same kind, in opposed positions, occur on one of
the sealings from Hagia Triada.4 These, however, show traces of crests,
and in the Zakro type, Fig. 536, a, we see this feature, which characterizes all
later forms of the monster, already fully developed. It seems to have been

a be
Fig. 536. Opposed Griffins on Clay Seal-impressions (a, b, Zakro; c, Knossos).

suggested by some form of crested eagle and at the same time the appear-
ance of the head and beak as thus portrayed in Minoan art is that of an
eagle rather than a hawk. This aspect of the Griffin, it will be observed,
as well as the crest, recurs with other Minoan characteristics—the decorative
coils and the notched plumes of the wings—on the axe found in Queen
Aah-hotep's coffin, bearing the name of her son King Aahmes, the first King
of the Eighteenth Dynasty.5 On the other hand the Griffin depicted in gold
inlay on the two-handed sword 6 of his predecessor, King Karnes, here for
the first time illustrated in detail (Fig. 533, c), is of the severe hawk-lion
type. The monster, impersonating Mentu, wears the White Crown, or
Atef, of Osiris and Upper Egypt, with horns as well as plumes, and, as

1 Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 182, Fig. 292.

2 Athens Museum, No. 748. Cf. Furt-
wangler, art. 'Gryps', Roscher's Lex ikon, p. 1745.
The griffins are in relief.

3 Kumanudis, 'AOrjvaiov 10, p. 316 and
Plate.

4 Mon. Ant., xiii, PI. V, No. 9.

5 See above, p. 551, Fig. 402.

6 Described as a ' spear-head' in Archaeo-
logia, vol. liii. 1892, p. 1 seqq., and see PI. I,
Fig. 3 For its true character see P. E. New-
berry in Burlington Fine Arts Club Cat., 1921,
p. 99 (q. 29). The original (from my Father's
collection) is in my possession.