248 MINOAN SEAL PATTERNS ON MYCENAE STELAE

E

Minoan

seal-
types
taken
over on to
stelae.

Con-
nexion
with
Twelfth
Dynasty
scarab
types—
' Egypto-
Minoan'
patterns.

spirali-

Fig. 18G. Clay Seal-impres-
sion from Harbour Town,
Knossos. Cf. Fig. 187/, Zakro
and Fig. 18Sa.

of border patterns taken directly from the ornamental designs__sho

a great unevenness in their execution of figured reliefs. The

form motives here represented—apart from

those belonging in a more general way to the

Cretan and Aegean class in its wider sense—

specifically belong, as I have elsewhere demon-
strated in detail, to an ' Egypto-Minoan ' class.

Especially instructive in this connexion is the

pattern formed of eight C-scrolls linked within

a circle seen on Stela VI, which, as shown

below, is literally taken over from a Cretan

type, of M. M. Ill date, found on clay sealings

both at Zakro and in the Harbour Town of
Knossos (Fig. IS(i).

A table showing Twelfth and Thirteenth
Dynasty Egyptian examples as seen on scarabs

compared with others supplied by Minoan decorative patterns is here
reproduced,1 in Fig. 187, and is of particular value in its bearing on similar
designs that appear on the Mycenae stelae. An interesting point in these
comparisons is that, though taken over onto larger monumental art, and
reproduced both in painting and sculpture, these patterns belong in their
original stage essentially to the sphragistic field. In conformity with this,
the Egyptian quatrefoil motive, borrowed in the case of/ from a sealing'
on a Kahun papyrus, takes the oval outline adapted to the scarab shape.
On the Cretan specimens, o, p, on the other hand, we see round types
answering to the Minoan seals. The impression p, copied from a Zakro
sealing, which also reappears on the clay seal-impression found in the
Harbour Town of Knossos (Fig. 186), has in this connexion a special
interest. Except for the lozenge inserted in its centre it will be seen to
be identical with a sculptured pattern inserted in the border of Stela VI at
Mycenae (Fig. 1SS, a), the resemblance, indeed, being so striking" that we
must infer a direct dependence on a M.M. Ill seal-type. Fig. 1SS, l>, shows
a similar affinity to that seen in Fig. 187, /', illustrated by a fresco fragment
from Knossos, of earlier date.

Thus the patterns on the Stela No. 6, given in Fig. 187, tell then
own tale.

When tracing the origin of ornamental groups found on similar obje

1 See P. of M., ii, Pt. I, pp. 199-202, and
Figs. llOAand 110 ii, and Shaft Graves, csV.,

P- 51, Fig. 39 from which this part
text is repeated.

of the