CLAY MATRIX OF OFFICIAL SIGNET

767

the bronze hinge of a small chest and clay nodules used in die preparation
of the impressed sealings. The clay impressions had been attached, as in
other similar cases, by threads or strings to documents in perishable materials
or to the envelopes of packages.

Clay Matrix taken from Official Signet.

The deposit of seal-impressions extended sporadically into the adjoining
space East, and here, in the upper earth, were also found fragments
of inscribed tablets of the Linear Class B. In this space, moreover, in the
stratum underlying that containing the tablets, there came to light a clay
matrix of great interest. Whether for legitimate facility in reproduction or
with a view to the actual
forgery of documents, it had
been moulded on an impression
of what seems to have been
a gold signet-ring of a known
religious class. Unlike the
sealings used for documents
and packages, the clay of this
showed no axial perforation
with remains of thread or
string. It seems probable
that the original signet from
which this matrix was taken
had belonged to some prominent Palace official. A series of the actual
seal-impressions from the original were in fact found in the Lower East-
West Corridor of the Domestic Quarter, and with the aid of these and the
clay matrix it is possible to obtain a good idea of the design (Fig. 498).

The Goddess, with her feet resting on a low platform, is seated upon
the wing of a pillar shrine which, if completed, would seem to have closely
resembled that repeated on the gold plates from the Third and Fifth Shaft
Graves of Mycenae.1 Here, too, we see a projection in the form of an altar
with an incurved base and the sacral horns above. The Goddess, who
wears the short skirts of the earliest phase of Late Minoan fashion, holds out
her hands to receive a two-handled conical goblet from the hands of a female
ministrant, similarly attired, who steps towards her. Immediately above the
vessel is a ring of mystic significance, probably to be interpreted as the
symbol of a celestial orb. Behind the first votary a second is seen turnino-
away as if on some divine behest, and there is also visible in the extreme left
1 Schuchliardt, ScM'emann's Excavations (ed. Sellers), p. 199, Fig. 183.

Clay mat-
rix from
signet.

%M

Fig. 498. Signet-type found on Clay Matrix
and Seal-impressions of Palace Deposits.

Mystic
Goblet
presented
to God-
dess

seated on
pillar
shrine.