59S FRAGMENT OF SYRO-HITTITE SEALING

of the inscribed clay disks. Two sealings, here found presenting a sym-
metrical group of barley-corns (Fig. 613, p. 626 below) were impressed below
in a rib-like manner suggestive of having been applied to some kind of
basket work.

Another considerable group of sealings, forming an integral part
of the same Deposit, had, at the same time, been precipitated into the
small lobby below the South-West corner of the 'Archives' Room, which,
from the occurrence of numerous specimens depicting a Minoan Genius>
was known at the time as the ' Room of the Daemon Seals'. This lobby
seems to represent a short section of what had originally been a corridor.
the continuation of which in a westerly direction was cut short by the re-
construction of this part of the building at the beginning of M. M. III.8

The fragmentary impression from this Deposit, Fig. 593, clearly be-
longs to a Syro-Hittite cylinder. Part of a
long-robed personage stands on the left, holding
a kid, while half of a probably composite male
figure is seen in front, whose left leg is in the coils
of an uncertain object. Beyond is another long-
robed figure. The source of the cylinder can
be approximately located. The triple beading-
running up the long robe of the personage to
the left recurs in the case of a worshipper on
a Syro-Hittite cylinder s who also holds an animal. The worshipper is
there coupled with a winged figure with a human body, showing a long
flounced skirt, but terminating above in two horned animals' heads.4
Chrono- The approximate date of the actual deposit of this series and the

conclu- other analogous more or less scattered hoards of clay seal impressions is
in all cases the same, being supplied by that of the final catastrophe of the
Palace to which their precipitation was due. On the whole, therefore, they
represent the signet-types in use at the close of L. M. II or round about
1400 B.C. It seems reasonable to infer that the majority of the sealings
belonged to the epoch immediately preceding that historic landmark. On
the other hand, if we consider the medium in which they were discovered
and the space of time during which the ' Room of the Archives' fulfilled

1 See above, p. 441. Colonnades' as then arranged.

2 The course of the built stone drain that 3 Schlumberger Collection ; Ward, Seal
here runs about half a metre beneath the Cylinders of Eastern Asia, p. 304,110.953-
existing pavement was cut short at the same '' Compare the two-headed forms shown ni
point by the Southern wall of the ' Hall of the Part i, above pp. 374, 375.

sions.