SEALS AND CEILING PATTERNS

199

Among the main formative features of Early Minoan tradition are also C-curves
the interlocking C-curves which, triply or quadruply grouped, form a persistent
unit in Minoan Art. A good example of the threefold arrangement on an
ivory 'cylinder' seal from Platanos is given in Fig. 109, with which a certain
parallelism is shown by the ivory cone from H. Triada (Fig. 110 a, m)} It
will be seen that this pattern is substantially identical with one that occurs
on one of the Mycenae tomb-stones (Fig. 110 a, n) except that the ends of
the inner and outer curves have coalesced—a natural development for which
there are other parallels. In this way, too, a quadruple grouping of this scroll
supplies the prototype of theMiddle Minoan seal-types shown in Fig.110 A,o,p.

Cumulative evidence of the stages by which the
patterns of the S and C classes grew upon Cretan soil
is thus supplied by seal-stones going well back into the
Early Minoan Age. It will be seen from the Com-
parative Table (Fig. 110 a) that these decorative forms
riot only permeated the Art of Mycenae, but had
already reacted on Egyptian patterns by the early
days of the Middle Kingdom.

Amongst these reactions the C-scrolls play
a specially important part, and an interesting develop-
ment of this pattern has already been given in Fig. 96, p. 183, above.

Various combinations of these, Minoan and Egyptian, are shown in the Re-
Comparative Table Figure 110a. As taken over into Egyptian art, this scroll e0''0,^
often supplies a canopy for the waz or sacred papyrus wand (Fig. 110 a, a), decora-
and it will be seen that this Nilotic conjunction has in turn reacted on the tems.
Cretan seal-type, g.3 The Egyptian variant of the triple combination of
these curves (Fig. 110 a, e), with the amuletic ne/er sign inserted within,
recurs as a type of seal impressions on Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasty
papyri at Kahun, where Cretan contact was evidenced by the occurrence
of many specimens of polychrome M. M. II pottery. Good parallel examples
of such scrolls set at right angles to one another are shown in d, k, I. One of
these, k, is taken from an archaic fresco fragment from the early Palace
of Knossos,3 and a similar scheme reappears as an Egyptian ceiling pattern.
Another good specimen is supplied by the upper zone of a steatite pot illus-
trated at the end of this Section (Fig. 117, b), probably belonging to the early

1 Xanthudides, op. cit, PI. XII, No. 1029 Fig. 150.

and p. 114. In which tholos it was found 3 P. of M., 1, Coloured Plate I, k, p. 231,

is not stated. and cf. p. 201. It shows an imitation of

2 See, too, P. of M., i, pp. 200, 201 and 'barbotine' ware.

Fig. 109. Interlock-
ing C-curves on Ivory
Cylinder, Platanos.

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