146

THE 'RING OF NESTOR'

is conveniently described as the ' Ring of Nestor' (Fig. 95). It is of solid
gold, weighing 31-5 grammes, and the shape and the narrow diameter of
the hoopJ—too small for the finger—place it among the early class of
Minoan signets that were really meant for suspension and directly derived,
as shown above (Fig. 90), from a type of Early Minoan bead-seal.

Chrono-
logical
indica-
tions :
L. M. I a.

Arrange-
ment in
compart -
ments

Fig. 94. The ' Ring of Nestor

For the chronological place of the ' Ring of Nestor' certain clues are
supplied both by its association and by features in the design. The parallelism
observable with the style of the Miniature Frescoes, including the lively
gestures, points to an approximation in date. So, too, the short skirts
of the female figures reflect a fashion general in M. M. Ill and the tran-
sitional epoch that marks its close. The bulk of the painted pottery found
in the tomb itself was of- L. M. I b class, and it included some of the finest
existing specimens. But one or two vases, notably a characteristic ' pithos',
go back to the L. M. I a phase, and seem to mark the date of the original
interment. There is, indeed, every probability that the ring belonged to
that epoch, and may therefore date from the second half of the Sixteenth
Century B.C.

The field of the design is divided into zones and compartments,
—suggestive of those that characterize many of the frescoes—by the trunk
and horizontally spreading boughs of a great tree, about which something
has already been said in connexion with the leafy shoot that springs from it
above to the right, clearly recognizable as the ' sacral ivy '2 (Fig. 95).

But the tree before us itself is old, gnarled, and leafless. It stands

with spreading roots on the top of a mound or hillock with its trunk rising

1 Though of greater breadth—17 mm.—it is massive signet-ring was in any case not in-

only 12 mm. from its arch to the back of the
bezel. The lowness of the arch is not due to
any distortion, but the mean diameter (i4'5
mm.) would itself be too small either for a
woman or a man since these may be said to re-
quire hoops ranging from 17 to 19 mm. This

tended for a child.

2 P. of M., ii, Pt. II, pp. 482, 483. The
cordiform shape of the leaves and the ter-
minal spray are unmistakable, small as is the
scale on which they appear in the intaglio.