6i6

SEALINGS OF ARMOURY CHESTS

Seal Impressions counterniarked with Graffito Signs of Script B.

Graffito Some of the clay seal impressions, both from the above-mentioned

sftotB Deposits as well as those found elsewhere in association with hoards

counter-
marks on
seal im-
pressions.

Fig. 603. Clay Sealings from Chests containing Arrows
or ' Armoury Deposit' roughly impressed with Lion Seal and

COUNTERMARKED WITH SIGNATURES AND 'ARROW ' SlGN.

of tablets, presented a further evidence of connexion in the shape of graffito
signs of the same Linear Class B as the tablets with which they were
associated. These signs had been incised into the reliefs of the designs on
the sealings when the clay was still wet, and had been used either as
countermarks or with a view to cancellation by the controlling officers.

In some cases—as exemplified by the inscribed disks referred to
above1—in place of the impression of a seal, the pinched clay nodules that
served for attachment were certified by means of graffito inscriptions, as
was so often the case among the three-sided sealings of the hieroglyphic
class.2 In certain sealings of the closing Palatial epoch at Knossos, again,
we see a survival of this practice on two of the sides, where graffito
inscriptions appear—presumably signatures or titles—while the principa
face is impressed with a signet design, itself countermarked. In b'otn

1 See above, p. 597.

■ See Scrip/a Minoa, i, p. 163 seqq., and PI. IV a, b.