2 20

SENSATIONAL FEATS WITH BULLS

showing in front of the bull a ' Sacral Knot', which brings the perform-
ance into a religious and ceremonial relation, but as indicating beneath the
animal, here depicted at a flying gallop, a stepped base with isodomic
masonry. This feature, according to the conclusion drawn from other

Fig. 154. Gold Signet-ring from Arkhanes. (f)

similar cases, points to a painted stucco original, perhaps in relief, on
the walls of some building.1

But the most remarkable illustration of such feats has now been sup-
plied by the bronze group from Crete in the Collection of Captain E. G.
Spencer-Churchill.2 It has been already referred to above in relation to the
silver figurine of a galloping bull borne by a tributary from Keftiu in the
wall-painting of the Tomb of User-Amon at Thebes.3 This, like another
representation of a standing figurine of a bull shown among these tributary
gifts, attests the high esteem in which the contemporary works of Minoan
toreutic Art were held by the Egyptians.

The bronze group is here shown in the restored drawing, Fig. 155,

1 On the graduated bases seen on Minoan
intaglios and their significance, see P. of M.,
i, pp. 687, 688.

"- With Captain Spencer-Churchill's kind
permission this figurine was published by me

in /. H. S., xli (1921), p. 247 seqq. Nothing
more is known as to its provenance than that
it was brought from Crete.

s See P. of M., ii, Pt. II, p. 648 seqq., and
Figs. 413 a, and 416.