426 'CYPRO-MINOAN' CYLINDER, KNOSSOS DISTRICT

seen on Ramesside chariot-horses, and it is taken over on the L. M. Ill
' amphoras ' of Rhodes and Cyprus.

The appearance in the other register of the cylinder of a second
chariot in which the horse is replaced by a Griffin brings us back to the

Fig. 331. Cylinder of Cypro-Minoan Style from Astrakous, East of Knossos.

same field of comparisons. Griffins at times take the place of horses on
the chariot types of Cypro-Minoan ' amphoras ', and the same alternation is
illustrated in Crete at a somewhat earlier date by the end panels of the
Hagia Triada Sarcophagus, a work that on many grounds it would Je
unsafe to bring- down later than the close of the Second Late Minoan Period.

The
naked
Goddess
on Cylin-
ders.

The Naked Goddess.
The religious interest of the composition centres in the figure 01 tlie
Goddess—nude except for her loin-clothing—between two lion guardians,
antithetically placed in upright positions with their forelegs lowered. 1«1S
figure is the slightly modified equivalent of the 'Naked Goddess'1 as seen
on cylinders of the First Babylonian Dynasty. On these, moreover, it ^
' On the ' Naked Goddess ', see J. Menant, lonieimes ; Hayes-Ward, Cylinder Seals

Giyptique Orientate (1SS3), i, p. 170 seqq.,
who compares Late Babylonian clay figurines ;
M. V. Nikolsky, Arch. Congress of Moscow,
1890; Rev. Arch., 1892, ii, p. 36 seqq., La
Deesse des Cylindres et des Statuettes baby-

Western Asia, 1910, p. 161 seqq.

and espe-

cially G. Contenau (1914), La Deesse ««'
habylonienne; cf., too, his Thesis, La Gift ^
que syro-hittite (1922). p. 40 seqq-, p'
&c.