5o IMPULSE FROM THE SOUTH : EARLY NILOTIC

Shield of
Neith.

Also
Minoan.

Neith and
Athena.

of this work, and an indigenous bow with an arrow of this kind appears as a
Minoan hieroglyph on a contemporary bead-seal from Malliax (Fig. 23 bis).
For the chase these broad-edged arrows were specially efficacious, since,
though they did not penetrate so well as the pointed type, they were better
adapted for cutting arteries and tendons and thus crippling the quarry.

The bow of this sign and that held by the Knossian archer, though of
somewhat abnormal shape, was yet of the 'plain'kind, and, like that of
Somaliland at the present day, may best be regarded
as a descendant of the early Nilotic type. It is not
till Late Minoan times, indeed, that we have clear
evidence of the use of the Asiatic composite bow in
the Island,2 though, as might be expected, that type
is already seen on the Phaestos Disk.

The oval shield with incurved sides with which
the crossed arrows of the chisel-edged kind are
coupled in the earlier dynastic representations of
the Neith symbol (Fig. 24, c, d)3 has still more defi-
nite relationships with Cretan forms. As Professor
Newberry has pointed out,4 it is essentially the same
as the Minoan 8-shaped body-shield. In the case of
the large signet-ring from the Mycenae Shaft Grave
(Fig. 25, c) and of the painted slab from the same
site depicting a scene of worship, we see figures of a
Minoan divinity, in the latter case white-limbed and therefore certainly female,5
bearing shields of this type. These Minoan versions have been regarded as
an anticipation of the later Palladium* and it may further be recalled
that the local cult of the Minoan Goddess, both at Mycenae and on the
Acropolis of Athens, was perpetuated in later days by a temple of

1 Found in a private house by the French 3 Fig. 24 c, from stela of King Mer-Neith
excavators in 1924 with M. M. \a pottery and (Petrie, R. Tombs of First Dynasty, vol. i,
reproduced by their kind permission. frontispiece), d. the shrine of Neith from

2 The Asiatic type—'Cupid's bow'—already Tablet of Aha {op. at., ii, PL X. 2). On later

Fig. 23bis. Triangular
Bead - seal of Brown
Steatite from Mallia.1
On third side Reversed
Scroll.

appears in the hands of the hunting Goddess
on gold-signet rings of the Late Minoan
Age (e. g. hunting Goddess and warriors,
Thisbe Treasure). The horns of the wild goat
seen on a series of inscribed tablets from
the ' Magazine of the Arsenal' at Knossos
(Knossos, Report, 1904, pp. 58, 59) were doubt-
less used in the manufacture of ' composite'
bows.

monuments the shield of Neith takes the
ordinary Egyptian shape.

* Proceedings of the Soc. of Bib!. Arch., 1906,

PP- 72. 73-

5 An improved copy of this design is given
by Rodenwaldt, Votivpinax, &*£, Mitth. d.
Arch. Inst, xxxvii, 1912, PL 8.

0 See E. Gardner, Palladia from Mycenae
{J.U.S., xiii, 1893, p. 21 seqq.).