EGYPTIANIZING TYPES

505

Fig. 44S, with a few supplementary touches, the Table prepared on the basis

of my earlier researches. It will be seen that, amongst the running figures,

the horned type from the Karnak prism (Fig. 447 above) may well supply the

original suggestion of a version of the fully developed Minotaur, recurrent

on Late Minoan lentoid seals, and which was itself revived with human arms

in the Greek conception of the monster as seen on the coins of Knossos.1

The acrobatic figure from the 'Nilotic' cylinder,

Fi°\ 446, not only supplies the prototype of the 'tumblers'

on our Knossian intaglio, but may also have influenced

the parallel pose of the Minotaur, such as is seen on a

black lentoid from Knossos,2 above a star (Fig. 449), and

on another from Sybrita on the Western side of Ida

(see Comparative Table, Fig. 448). The context shows,

} , , , , 111 , »t-i • . Fig. 449. Minotaur

indeed, that the rude horned personage on the Nilotic AND Star on Black

cylinder connects up with much earlier man-bull types Steatite Lentoid :

of Sumerian cylinders, which later took shape in the

Babylonian Ea-bani.

The cylinders with these primitive figures are themselves of the more
elongated, old Chaldaean form, contrasting with the stumpy appearance of
the usual early dynastic Egyptian types. The 'buttons', which fit on to
the 'Nilotic' cylinder group, and form indeed its principal ingredient, recur
at Bismiya,3 and elsewhere, in central Babylonia. Their first appearance in
the Nile Valley dates from about the time of the Syro-Egyptian Vllth and
VIIIth Dynasties.4 On the other hand, the two-headed animals, bulls or
goats, that appear on this group, recall similar forms on the pre-dynastic
slate palettes of the indigenous ' proto-Libyan' element,5 itselt in turn
already influenced by Sumerian Art. The winged monster of Fig. 446 is
surely a version of the ' Old dragon', Tiamat.

It must at the same time be recognized that the cylinder type on which
this monster occurs, and which further supplies the acrobatic figure, presents
several dynastic Egyptian features, notably the dad sign between two beasts

coins of Knossos. In iis simplest shape the
'maze' connects itself with Egyptian 'house-
plan ' or ' Palace' sign.

s Specimens in the University College Col-
lection, London.

' See Petrie, Bullous ami Design Scarabs,
p. 2 seqq., and cf. Plates.

See A. E., Further Discoveries of Cretan,

Motives

from

early

Nilotic

cylinders

and prism

compared

with

Minoan.

. 200,

1 See, too, P. of M., i, p. 359 and Fi
d,e,f

" SeeP.ofM., i, pp. 35S, 350,and Fig. 200, d
(facing p. 358). The derivation of Early
Cretan 'maze' or 'labyrinth' pattern from
a parallel Nilotic source is also there illustrated,
but the ' maze ' and ' Minotaur ' types are not
placed in connexion with one another in
Mmoan Art, as they are on the Fifth-Century &~c, Serif/, p. 367.