ARCHITECTONIC FEATURES OF SCENE

a high back, curving up behind. She wears a long robe, that could be
opened down the front and showing- a descending double band—a quite
different fashion from those of the seated votaries of the ' Camp-Stool
Frescoes'.

Above, as on the gold signet-ring from Mycenae, is a reserved compart-
ment representing the sky, and with the orb and crescent of the sun and
moon. Whether or not the minute dots or small dashes engraved in the
field that encloses them, represent the starry firmament must remain a moot
point, but the sprays of vegetation set against the background may fairly
suggest a comparison with those that characterize the talismanic class of
seal-stones above described.

Behind the throne is visible the corner of an altar, or some other
sanctuary structure, above which a bird descends with lowered wings. It is

another version of the Minoan religious
incident, so often repeated, in which the
celestial Spirit in bird-form is depicted
flying down or actually alighted on the
object of divine possession, whether
animate or inanimate.1 The curved
decoration visible on the structure is
more fully explained by the architectonic
frieze that underlies the whole group,
displaying a succession of the half-rosette
and ' triglyph' motives of Minoan
friezes.2

On the platform above this frieze
four lion-headed Genii—in accordance
with the processional artistic fashions
then in vogue—approach the Goddess, each in the same attitude, holding
between their paws high-beaked ewers of the usual type, to fill the chalice-
shaped goblet already described, which the Goddess holds up for that purpose.
As a pendant to the above may be here given the design (Fig. :!S6)
on a lentoid from a tomb of the lower Town of Mycenae, where a Genius
appears between the two lion-guardians of the Goddess, each seated on
an architectural base. It is in fact the same -scheme as that found on
a series of lentoid bead-seals in which the Goddess, in these cases bearing
a ' snake-frame ', stands between her attendant monsters—sometimes lions,
sometimes griffins—set, as here, on cornices raised above the level on which
' See especially, P. of M., i, pp. 223, 224. s Ibid., ii, Pt. II, p. 605 seqq.

Design
on

Tiryns
signet.

Pro-
cessional
scheme.

Fig. 386. Genius between Lion

Guardians of Divinity seated on

Architectural Eases.

Genius
between