482 'SACRAL IVY' ON MINOAN 'TREE OF WORLD'

interest, moreover, is the ornamental band of the same kind engraved along
the median rib of a blade of a short-horned sword from a Mycenae Shaft
Grave, and restored for me by Monsieur E. Gillieron, fils, in Fig. 288, b. In
this case the double row of excrescences running out from the central angle of

Fig. 289 'Ring of Nestor': from Beehive Tomb, Old Pylos (Kakovatos).
Scenes of After-life divided by Tree of World. i, Goddess and Companion,
Chrysalises and Butterflies and Young Couple restored to Life. 2, Lion Guardian,
etc., tended by Handmaidens of Goddess (see above, pp. 341, 342) and 'Sacral Ivy'
springing from Trunk. 3, 4, Initiation Scene, Enthroned Griffin and Goddess.
Drawn by E. Gillieron, fils. (c. f)

the rib, broader at the base and ending in a single foliation, decidedly suggests
the leaves running out from the stem of a plant. This, in fact, supplies the
immediate antecedent stage to the pictorial form of our fresco where the whole
is assimilated to a spray of ivy, with its characteristic blossom ; the leaves,
however, retaining a lively reminiscence of the original papyrus symbol. The
same motive recurs on a bronze basin from the palatial hoard described below.1
On the remarkable gold signet-ring, known from the place of its dis-
covery as the ' Ring of Nestor', the scenes of initiation into the after-life are
Fields'on divided by the trunk and branches of a Minoan ' Tree of the World'. Here
Nestor', there can be little doubt, even on the minute scale in which it is engraved,
that the plant, the shoots of which spring forth from the trunk to give shade

1 See below, p. 642, and Fig. 408.

Attribute
of' Ely-
sian