THE YOUNG MINOTAUR'

7<il

1 Young

Amongst these, two specimens are of an enigmatic type of which a revised
delineation is given in Fig. 491.' It presents what might be described as The
a ' young Minotaur', seated on a kind of camp-stool such as is in other cases Mino-
associated both with votaries and with the Minoan Goddess herself. He <■»'.
has human legs and a girdle round the waist, but his fore-feet and head—as
usual in the Minoan type—are bovine, though in this case there is no trace

of horns. Immediately in front of him is
some kind of tree, and at his feet is visible
the front part of a couchant ram. Behind,
appears the upper part of a human figure,
clad in what may be described as a sleeved
cuirass, bending towards the monster, and
pointing downwards at the ram's head—
much as we see in pictorial versions of
the scene where the Angel points out to
Abraham the substituted ram.2

Little can be said about this enigmatic
design except that in the attitude of the
seated monster with his fore-legs raised in
the act of adoration we may venture to
trace the influence of Egyptian figures of influence
the Cynocephalus ape, the companion of ant Cyno-
the lunar god Thoth, as represented wor- cePhalus-
shipping the rising sun. There is clear
evidence that the dog-faced ape of the
Soudan, who was credited by the Egyptians with wisdom beyond that
of mankind, had been early impressed into the service of Minoan
religious imagery. Pairs of such in their characteristic adorant pose already
appear on ivory seals of E. M. I and E. M. II date.3 A seal-impression
from Zakro * and another from Hagia Triada,5 here shown for comparison,
Fig. 492, a, b, belonging to the transitional M. M. III-L. M. la epoch, un-
doubtedly exhibit versions of this Egyptian type. The engraved besil of a

Fig. 401. 'The Young Minotaur
on Clay Seal-impression.

1 From a drawing executed under my super-
intendence by Mr. Piet de Jong in 1922. (For
the original reproduction A. E., Knossos,Report,
1901, p. 18, Fig. 7, a, B. S. A., vii.)

2 Genesis xxii. 13.

* See P. of M., i, p. 83, Fig. 51, and note.
4 D. G. Hogarth, Zakro Sailings (/. H. S.,

xxii, 1902), p. 7S, Fig. 4, who observes: 'Cer-
tainly the monster is nearly related to the
adoring dog-apes of Egypt.'

1 F. Halbherr, Mon. Ant., xiii (1903), p. 39,
Fig. 32, who notes the comparisons with the
seal-impressions from H. Triada and Zikro.