140 MOURNING CEREMONY WITH ECSTATIC DANCE

Primarily
designed
for sus-
pension.

Here it is important to observe that the reversed ants that form the intaglio
design, represent a Cretan adaptation of the reversed lions on a class of
Egyptian 'button-seals' of Sixth to Eleventh Dynasty date, which as
already shown, had a well-defined re-
action on Cretan sphragistic types,
illustrated by the ' double sickle'
series.1 The triple moulding of the
original gold beads itself survives in
that which generally marks the hoops
of signet-rings of this class down to
the close of the Minoan Age. The
transition is supplied in Fig. 91 by
the ideal form shown in Fig. 90, c.

The evidence thus afforded of
the derivation of the most typical of
Minoan types of signet-ring from bead-seals made for suspension, further
obviates the necessity of supposing that these rings were specially designed
in usum mortuorum to be fitted on to the fingers of the skeleton.2

Fig. 91. Gold Signet-ring from Vapheio
Tomb with Religious Scene (f).

Mourn-
ing scenes
on signets
from My-
cenae and
Vapheio
tombs.

The

Vapheio

ring.

Religious Scenes on Signet-rings combining Mourning Ceremony with

Ecstatic Dance.

At times, we may discern, within the narrow bezel of the signet, the
touch of the true artist and of a fine composition, clearly taken over from
the painter's Art. Nowhere is this more perceptible than in the design on
a gold ring from a Mycenae tomb (Fig. 93, below), the subject of which
has already been referred to on account of its high importance in relation
to certain Syrian affinities in Minoan religion.

The subject here stands in a close relation to that of a gold signet
from the Vapheio tomb,3 Fig. 91, which itself follows on to the group already
referred to above, representing an armed divinity brought down by due
ritual from the realms above to join his consort or votaries. In more than

1 See my Table, P. of M., i, pp. 123-5, an(l
Fig. 92.

2 I had myself been led at first to this con-
clusion owing to the small diameter of the
hoops of signet-rings found in the Isopata
Cemetery [Tomb of the Double Axes {Arch.,
lxv), pp. 12, 13). The mean diameter of one
hoop was 13 mm. One from the Vapheio
Tomb is 13 mm., another from the Lower

Town of Mycenae is 12 mm. The ordinary
hoop ranges from about 17 mm. for a woman
to 19 or more for a man.

3 Tsountas, 'E<£. 'ApX., 1889, PI. X, 29 and
p. 170; Tsountas and Manatt, Mycenaean
Age, p. 225 ; Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art, crc, vi,
p 847, Fig. 431 ; Reichel, Homerische Wajfen,
p. 6, Fig. 4 ; Furtwangler, Ant. Gemmen, PI. II,
19; Fritze, Strena Helbigiana, p. 73, Fig. 7.