624

BIFID CEREAL SIGN: PROBABLY MILLET

The

'Granary'
sign.

Bifid

vegetable
sign con-
nected
with
'Granary'

Appear-
ance on
lentoid
signet.

abed
Fig. 610. ' Bifid ' Cereal Sign.

the covering takes a rounded form (Fig. 608, e,fyg). Often there is
a horizontal line or lines across the body of the structure, as of a
strengthening girth and, in relation to this, a C-like loop at the side
resembling a handle (Fig. 60S,f,g). Taking the various features together it
looks as if these objects were of circular
shape, and perhaps of no very great size, to
be compared with the wicker-work structures,
thatched above, so commonly used for maize
or other stores throughout Eastern Europe.

The tablets refer to considerable groups
of these, in two cases apparently 35, though
lesser numbers 13, 7 and 2 also followthissign.

That the structures here figured were used for the storage of cereals is
conclusively shown by the discovery in the upper part of the earth deposit,1
in the Ninth Magazine, a little North
of the first group of Tablets belonging
to this class, of remains of another
hoard in which the same object appears
with what must certainly be regarded
as a vegetable sign, rising from its sum-
mit (Fig. 608, c, d). This sign appears,
indeed, as an independent element on
several tablets (Fig. 610 a-d).

In connexion with this bifid vege-
table symbol it was my good fortune to
acquire, somewhat later at Athens, a
large lentoid gem of green jasper, in a
contemporary style (Fig. (ill), in which
the same sign is seen. It there rises
behind a figure of a bull with its
head turned to the near hind-leg, as
animal being seized on above by two heraldically opposed Griffins.
Between these this vegetable symbol shoots up above the bull's back.
The bead-seal was said by its possessor to have been found in Crete, and
there is every reason for concluding that we have here the signet of a
Palace official charged with the superintendence of a granary depart-
ment.

The sign here presented is followed on tablets by numerals ranging

1 One was found above the top of the adjoining West wall of the Palace.

Fig. 611. GreenJasper Signet : Bull
attacked by two griffins with cereal
Sign between them.

in schemes referred to above, the