THE MINOAN HELMETS

867

The skilful fabric of this truly royal weapon, down to its minutest details
as well as the spirited engravings supply one out of many proofs of the
high level still maintained in the minor Arts and Crafts
throughout the last Palatial epoch.

The Minoan Helmets,
It is to be noted that on the 'Armoury' tablets,
helmets—so.conspicuous, as executed in metal, amonost the
remains of later antiquity—are
not in evidence. The non-in- Yf-^Yf
elusion of these with metal I I

Fig. 852.
Part of Mid-rib
of ■'Cruciform'
Sword, showing
Remains of Linen
Tissue (f).

Fig.

Horned Hfad-

arms is natural, since the early

head-pieces of Cretan warriors
were of leather or of some padded stuff, with ™f^0N M' M' IUa Ta,!let>
horizontal ridges. We have seen that peaked-
helmets of this kind adorned with horns supplied the origin of a Cretan linear
sign which, in a semi-pictorial form, already appears on inscribed clay bars of

Fig. 854. Zaicro Sealing
Plumed HelmetbesideFan
tastic Human Figure.

Fig. 856; Sf.aling from
H. Triada : Helmet with
Curved Crest and Rows of
Boars' Tusks.

Fig. 855. Zakro Sealing :
Peaked Helmet with
Cheek-pieces and Shields,
beside Building.

Mallia,1 going back to the earliest phase of M. M. Ill, Fig. 853, a, b,c. These,
which are the lineal predecessors of the helmet seen on the porcelain relief
andVapheiogem (Figs. 858, 859), already show traces of the chin straps, and
the rows of boars' tusks have left their traces in the case of b. A conical head-
piece provided with what we may suppose to have been a horse-hair plume
is seen on a, Zakro sealing (Fig. 854) beside a fantastic'female bust with
a blurred, possibly bovine, head, which already shows between its horizontal
ridges, curved indications of similar tusks. The same type is seen, better

j See above, pp. 688, 6S9.
IV**