The Sea-Kings of Crete Part 4

Neither does the shape of the area appear to be particularly well adapted to the purpose suggested; and, on the whole, if it were really designed for a theatre, we must admit that the Minoan architects were less happily inspired in its erection than in most of their other works. At the same time, however, the obstinate fact remains that we can suggest no other conceivable purpose which the place can have served; and so, until some more likely use can be suggested, we are scarcely ent.i.tled to demur to Dr. Evans's theory.

Admitting, then, for want of any better explanation, that it may have been a Theatral Area, what were the games or shows which were here presented to the Minoan Court and its dependents? Certainly not the bull-fight. For that there is manifestly no s.p.a.ce, as the flat area is not larger than a good-sized room; while the undefended position of the spectators would as certainly have resulted in tragedies to them as to the toreadors. But from the great rhyton found at Hagia Triada, from a steat.i.te relief found at Knossos in Igor, and from various seal-impressions, we know that boxing was one of the favourite sports of the Minoans, as it was of the Homeric and the cla.s.sical Greeks; and the Theatral Area may have served well enough for such exhibitions as those in which Epeus knocked out Euryalus, and Odysseus smashed the jaw of Irus. Or perhaps it may have been the scene of less brutal entertainments in the shape of dances, such as those which delighted the eyes of Odysseus at the Palace of Alcinous. To this day the Cretans are fond of dancing, and in ancient times the dance had often a religious significance, and was part of the ceremonial of wors.h.i.+p. So that it is not impossible that we have here a spot whose a.s.sociations with the House of Minos are both religious and literary--'the Choros (or dancing-ground) which Daedalus wrought in broad Knossos for fair-haired Ariadne' (Iliad XVIII., 590).

If the Theatral Area be really the scene of the palace sports, it has for us a romantic as well as an historical interest; for Plutarch tells us that it was at the games that Ariadne first met Theseus, and fell in love with him on witnessing his grace and prowess in the wrestling ring. It may be permissible to indulge the imagination with the thought that we can still behold the very place where, while the grim King and his gaily-bedecked courtiers looked on at the sports which were meant only as a prelude to a dreadful tragedy, the actors in one of the great romances of the world found love waiting for them before the gates of death. In any case, the spot may well have been a most fitting one for the birth of an immortal tale of love. For it is not improbable that, in its religious aspect, it had a connection with a greater, a Divine namesake of the human Ariadne. The great G.o.ddess of Knossos, in one aspect of her nature, was the same whom the Greeks knew later as Aphrodite, the foam-born G.o.ddess of Love. To this G.o.ddess there was attached in Crete the native dialect epithet of 'The Exceeding Holy One,' 'Ariadne,' and the Theatral Area may well have been the place where ceremonial dances were performed in her honour.

Within the palace walls abundant remains of fine polychrome ware of the Middle Minoan period were found as the season's work went on.

The dungeons of the preceding year's excavations were supplemented by the discovery of four more, making six in all, and it was shown that these pits must have belonged to a very early period in the history of the buildings, for they have no structural connection with the walls of the Later Palace, which, indeed, cross them in some places. But the great discovery within the area was that of the Temple Repositories. As the eastern side of the palace gave evidence of having been the domestic quarter, so the west-central part showed traces of having had a special religious significance in the palace life. Religion, indeed, seems to have bulked very largely in the economy of the House of Minos, which is what might have been expected when one remembers the closeness of the relations between Zeus and Minos as depicted in the legends, and realizes that very probably the Kings of Knossos were Priest-Kings, and perhaps even incarnations of the Bull-G.o.d.

Near the west-central part of the palace the Double Axe sign occurred very frequently, and other evidences seemed to suggest that somewhere in this vicinity there must have been a sanctuary of some sort.

This season's explorations confirmed the suggestion, for, near the Pillar Room at the west side of the Central Court, there were discovered two large cists, which had been used for the storage of objects connected with the palace cult. The cist which was first opened was closely packed, to a depth of 1.10 metres, with vases; and below these there was a deposit of fragments and complete examples of faence, including the figures of a Snake G.o.ddess and her votaresses, votive robes and girdles, cups and vases with painted designs, and reliefs of cows and calves, wild goats and kids. In fact, this Repository was a perfect treasure-house of objects in faence; but in the second cist such objects were wanting, with the exception that a missing portion of the Snake G.o.ddess was found, the place of the faence being taken by gold-foil and crystal plaques.

Some of the small faence reliefs are of particularly exquisite design and execution, particularly one of a Cretan wild-goat and her young, the subject being executed in pale green, with dark sepia markings, and characterized by great directness and naturalism of treatment. Most interesting, however, were the figures of the Snake G.o.ddess and her votaresses. The G.o.ddess is 13-1/2 inches in height. She wears a high tiara of purplish-brown, with a white border, and her dress consists of a richly embroidered jacket, with laced bodice, and a skirt with a short double _panier_ or ap.r.o.n. Her hair is dressed in a fringe above her forehead, and falls behind on her neck and shoulders; the eyes and eyebrows are black, and the ears are of extraordinary size; the bust is almost entirely bare. But the curious feature of the little figure is that around her are coiled three snakes. One, which is grasped in the right hand, pa.s.ses up the arm, descends behind the shoulders and down the left arm to the hand, which holds the tail. Two other snakes are interlaced around her hips, and a fourth coils itself around the high tiara. The figure of the votaress is somewhat similar; but her skirt is flounced all the way down in the regular Minoan style, and she holds a snake in her right hand. The characteristic feature of both figures is the modernness of their lines, which are as different as possible from those of the statues of cla.s.sic Greece. The waist is exceedingly slender, and altogether 'the lines adopted are those considered ideal by the modern corset-maker rather than those of the sculptor.'

There can be little doubt that these tiny figures point to the wors.h.i.+p of an earth G.o.ddess, whose emblem is the snake--the other aspect of the heavenly divinity whose symbols are the doves. It may be noted that at Gournia Miss Boyd (Mrs. Hawes) found a primitive figure of a G.o.ddess, twined with snakes and accompanied by doves, together with a low, three-legged altar, and the familiar horns of consecration. Strangely enough, along with the Snake G.o.ddess of Knossos there was found in the Temple Repositories a cross of veined marble, with limbs of equal length, which Dr. Evans believes to have actually been the central object of wors.h.i.+p in the cult, and which he has placed in this position in his reconstruction of the little shrine. This discovery, 'pointing to the fact that a cross of orthodox Greek shape was not only a religious symbol of the Minoan cult, but an actual object of wors.h.i.+p, cannot but have a profound interest in its relation to the later cult of the same emblem which still holds the Christian world.' The fact of the equal-limbed cross having at so early a date been the object of wors.h.i.+p also suggests the reason why the Eastern Church has always preferred the Greek form of cross to the unequal-limbed form of the Western Church.

Outside the area of the palace proper discoveries of almost equal importance were made. About 130 yards to the east of the Northern Entrance there came to light the walls of a building which Dr. Evans has designated the Royal Villa. It proved to be by far the finest example yet discovered of Minoan domestic architecture on a moderate scale, and contained a finely preserved double staircase; while among the relics found within its walls were some very beautiful examples of the ceramic art, including a fine 'stirrup' or 'false-necked'

vase of the Later Palace style, decorated in l.u.s.trous orange-brown on a paler l.u.s.tred ground. Still more beautiful was a tall painted jar, nearly 4 feet in height, bearing an exquisite papyrus design in relief (Plate XXIII.).

[Ill.u.s.tration XIV: CLAY TABLET WITH LINEAR SCRIPT, KNOSSOS (_pp_.

80 & 241)

From 'The Palace of Minos,' by Arthur J. Evans, in _The Monthly Review_]

The main feature of the Villa was a long pillared hall, measuring about 37 by 15 feet. At the one end of it was a raised das, separated by a bal.u.s.trade from the rest of the hall, and approached by an opening in the bal.u.s.trade with three steps. Immediately in face of the opening a square niche breaks the wall behind the das, and here stand the broken fragments of a gypsum throne. A fine stone lamp of lilac gypsum stands on the second step of the das (Plate XXIV.). The two rows of pillars which run down the hall divide it into a nave and side aisles, and the hall presents all the elements of a primitive basilica, with its throne for the presiding Bishop or Priest-King. It is possible that we have here the first suggestion of that style of architecture which, pa.s.sing through the stage where the King-Archon of Athens sat in the 'Stoa Basilike'

to try cases of impiety, found its full development at last in the Roman Basilica, the earliest type of Christian church. 'Is the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave his decisions,' says Professor Burrows, 'a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop, seated in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood below in Nave and Aisles?'[*]

[Footnote *: 'The Discoveries in Crete,' pp. 10, 11.]

So far in the explorations at Knossos metal-work had been conspicuous by its absence. That the Minoans were skilled metal-workers was obvious, for many of their ceramic triumphs presented manifest indications of having been adaptations of metal forms; and the gold cups of Vaphio, which, there can be little doubt, came originally from Crete, bore witness to a skill which would not have disgraced the best Renaissance goldsmiths. But the men, whoever they may have been, who plundered the palace at the time of its great catastrophe, had done their work thoroughly, and left behind them little trace either of the precious metals or of bronze. It turned out, however, that in a block of building which stands between the West Court and the paved area to the north-west of the palace, a strange chance had preserved enough to testify to the art of the bronze-workers of Knossos. One of the floors of this building had sunk in the conflagration before the plunderers had had time to explore the room beneath, and under its debris were found five magnificent bronze vessels--four large basins and a single-handled ewer. The largest basin, 39 centimetres in diameter, is exquisitely wrought with a foliated margin and handle, while another has a lovely design of conventionalized lilies on its border.

Mention has already been made of the paved causeway which bisects the Theatral Area of the palace. This was found, in 1904, to have a continuation in the shape of a well-made road leading in a north-westerly direction towards the hillside (Plate XII. 1). It was overlaid by a Roman roadway, and an interesting comparison was thus made possible between the Minoan work and that of the great road-makers of later days. The Roman road came out rather badly from the comparison, the earlier construction being superior in every respect. The central part of the Minoan road consisted of a well-paved causeway, rather more than 4-1/2 feet wide, while on either side of this there extended to a breadth of more than 3-1/2 feet a strip of pebbles, clay, and pounded potsherds rammed hard, making the whole breadth of the road almost 12 feet. Close by this first European example of scientific road-making ran the remains of water conduits, which may have led from a spring on Mount Juktas, and near the road also were found magazines of clay tablets, giving details of numbers of chariots, bows, and arrows, while in the immediate neighbourhood of these were two actual deposits of bronze-headed shafts.

As the Minoan road was followed up in 1905, it led the explorers towards an important building in the face of the hill to the north-west.

Its exploration was rendered extremely difficult by the fact that its masonry ran right back into the side of the hill, which was covered by an olive wood, beneath whose roots lay a stratum made up of the remains of Graeco-Roman houses. But the building, when explored, proved to be well worth the labour, for the Little Palace, as it is called, was an important structure with a frontage of over 114 feet, and its pillared hall was worthy of comparison even with the fine rooms of its great neighbour. In Late Minoan times part of this fine hall had been used as a shrine, and in it were found, along with the usual 'horns of consecration,' three fetish idols, grotesque natural concretions of quasi-human type. Of these, the largest had some resemblance to a woman of ample contours, while a smaller nodule suggested the figure of an infant, and near it was a rude representation of a Cretan wild-goat. The third nodule was of apelike aspect. In view of all the religious a.s.sociations of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images, 'not made with hands,' represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and the goat Amaltheia. The cult of stones, meteorites and concretions such as these of the Little Palace, has been widespread in all ages; one has only to remember the black stone which forms the most sacred treasure of Mecca, the black stone which stood in the Temple of the Great Mother at Rome, and the image of the great G.o.ddess Diana at Ephesus, 'which fell down from Jupiter.' Hesiod's story of how Kronos or Saturn devoured a stone under the belief that he was swallowing the infant Zeus evidently belongs to the recollections of a wors.h.i.+p in which such natural idols as these were adored.

Hitherto Knossos had yielded only one small and inadequate representation of that seafaring enterprise upon which the Minoan power rested, though even this had, in its own way, a certain suggestiveness of the romance and terror of the sea. It was a seal-impression, found in 1903, in the Temple Repositories, on which a great sea-monster, with dog's head and open jaws, is seen rising from the waves and attacking a fisherman, who stands up in his light skiff endeavouring to defend himself. The Little Palace yielded a somewhat more adequate representation of the Minoan marine in the shape of another seal-impression, which showed part of a vessel carrying one square sail, and propelled also by a single bank of oars, whose rowers sit under an awning. Imposed upon the figure of the vessel is that of a gigantic horse, and the impression has been construed as a record of the first importation of the thoroughbred horse into Crete, probably from Libya, an interpretation which seems to demand a certain amount of faith and imagination, for Mosso's criticism, that 'the perspective is faulty,' is extremely mild. But at least the representation of the vessel itself gives us some idea of the galleys which maintained the Minoan peace in the aegean.

[Ill.u.s.tration XV: (1) PALACE WALL, WEST SIDE. MOUNT JUKTAS IN BACKGROUND (_p_. 84)

(2) BATHROOM, KNOSSOS]

Among other treasures yielded by the Little Palace was a vessel of black steat.i.te in the shape of a bull's head. The idea was already familiar from other examples, but the execution of this specimen was beyond comparison fine. 'The modelling of the head and curly hair,' says Dr. Evans, 'is beautifully executed, and some of the technical details are unique. The nostrils are inlaid with a kind of sh.e.l.l like that out of which cameos are made, and the one eye which was perfectly preserved presented a still more remarkable feature. The eye within the socket was cut out of a piece of rock-crystal, the pupil and iris being indicated by means of colours applied to the lower face of the crystal which had been hollowed out, and had a certain magnifying power.'[*] Students of Early Egyptian art will be reminded of the details of the eyes in the statues of Rahotep and Nefert, and in the bronze statue of Pepy.

'Even after the Cnossian ivories, faience figurines, and faience and plaster reliefs,' writes Mr. Hogarth, 'after the Cnossian and Haghia Triadha frescoes, after the finest "Kamares" pottery, and the finest intaglios, the Vaphio goblets and the Mycencae dagger blades, one was still not prepared for the bull's head _rhyton_ ... with its painted transparencies for eyes, and its admirable modelling, and the striking contrast between the black polished steat.i.te of the ma.s.s and the creamy cameo sh.e.l.l of the inlay work.[**]

[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]

[Footnote **: _Fortnightly Review_, October, 1908, pp. 600, 601.]

Within the palace proper, the work of 1907 witnessed the discovery of a huge beehive chamber excavated in the rock underlying the Southern Portico. It had been filled in with later debris and sherds of the Middle Minoan period, and evidently belonged to a period antedating that of the construction of even the earliest palace.

Its floor was only reached in 1908 by a small shaft at the depth of 52 feet from the summit of its cupola; and as yet the floor remains largely unexplored, and may be expected to furnish valuable information as to the Early Minoan culture. Professor Murray has suggested that this huge underground vault may be the actual Labyrinth of the legend, the underground Temple of the Bull-G.o.d, and the scene of the dark tragedies which belong to the story of the Minotaur; but for the confirmation or negation of this suggestion we must wait until the great vault itself has been thoroughly explored.

Such, then, have been the outstanding results of the excavation of the ancient palace of the Cretan Sea-Kings, so far as it has yet proceeded. Of the wealth of material which has been brought to light much, of course, still waits, and, perhaps, may long wait, for interpretation. The facts are there, but the significance of them is not always easily discerned. But, at least, the importance of the supreme fact cannot be questioned; the emergence of this magnificent relic of a civilization, so great and so advanced as to fill the mind with wonder, so curiously corroborating the ancient legends as to the greatness and power of the House of Minos, and yet so absolutely lost as to have left no trace of itself, save in romantic story, until the patience and skill of present-day explorers restored its relics to the light of day to tell, though as yet only imperfectly, their own tale of splendour and disaster.

The interpretation and co-ordination of the immense body of material gathered by Dr. Evans must for long be the work of scholars. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that when the Minoan script has at length yielded up its secrets we shall be able to comprehend clearly those historical outlines of the rise and magnificence and fall of a great monarchy and culture, which at present have to be cautiously and sometimes precariously inferred from the indications afforded by sc.r.a.ps of potsherd and fragments of stone or metal. And then the actual story of the House of Minos will appeal to all. To-day, perhaps, the main impression left on the ordinary student by this resurrection is one of sadness. Here was a kingdom so great and so imposing, a civilization so highly advanced and so full of the joy of living. And it has all pa.s.sed away and been forgotten, with its vivid life, and its hopes and fears; and we can only wonder how life looked to the men and women who peopled the courts of the vast palace, and what part was played by them in the fragments of old legend that have come down to us.

The pathos of this aspect of his discoveries has not been missed by the explorer. Writing of the restoration of the Queen's apartment of the palace, a restoration rendered necessary by the decomposing action of wind and rain on the long-buried materials, Dr. Evans says: 'From the open court to the east, and the narrower area that flanks the inner section of the hall, the light pours in between the piers and columns just as it did of old. In cooler tones it steals into the little bathroom behind. It dimly illumines the painted spiral frieze above its white gypsum dado, and falls below on the small terra-cotta bath-tub, standing much as it was left some three and a half millenniums back. The little bath bears a painted design of a character that marks the close of the great "Palace Style." By whom was it last used? By a Queen, perhaps, and mother, for some "Hope of Minos"--a hope that failed.'[*]

[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]

The little bath-tub in the Queen's Megaron at Knossos takes its place with the children's toys of the Twelfth Dynasty town at Kahun in bringing home to us the actual humanity of the people who used to be paragraphs in Lempriere's 'Cla.s.sical Dictionary' or Rollin's 'Ancient History.'

CHAPTER VI

PHaeSTOS, HAGIA TRIADA, AND EASTERN CRETE

We have followed the fortunes of the excavations at Knossos in considerable detail, not only as being the most important, but as ill.u.s.trating also in the fullest manner the legendary and religious history of Crete. But they are very far from being the only important investigations which have been carried on in the island, and it may even be said that, had Knossos never been excavated, it would still have been possible, from the results of the excavations made at other sites, to deduce the conclusion which has been arrived at as to the supreme position of Crete in the early aegean civilization.

Both in the Iliad and the Odyssey Phaestos is mentioned along with Knossos as one of the chief towns of Crete; and it is at and near Phaestos that the most extensive and important remains of Minoan culture have been discovered, apart from the work at Knossos. The splendid valley of the Messara, on the southern side of the island, is dominated towards its seaward end by three hills, rising in steps one above the other, and on the lowest of the three, overlooking the plain, stood the Palace of Phaestos, the second great seat of the Minoan lords of Crete. As in the case of Knossos, a few blocks of hewn stone, standing among the furrows of the cornfield which occupied the site, were the only indications of the great structure which had once crowned the hill, and it was the existence of these which induced the Italian Archaeological Mission to attempt the excavation. In April, 1900, the first reconnaissance of the ground was made, with no very encouraging results. By September of the same year the great palace had been discovered, though, of course, the full revelation of its features was a matter of much longer time. The work has been carried on by Professor Halbherr, Signor Pernier, and others, concurrently with the excavations of Dr. Evans; and the result has been the revelation of a palace, similar in many respects to the House of Minos at Knossos, though on a somewhat smaller scale, and characterized, like the Labyrinth, by distinct periods of building. At Phaestos, indeed, the remains of the earlier palace, consisting of the Theatral Area and West Court, with the one-columned portico at its south end, are of earlier date than the existing important architectural features at Knossos, belonging to the period known as Middle Minoan II., the time when the beautiful polychrome Kamares ware was in its glory, while the main scheme of the palace at Knossos, as at present existing, must be placed somewhere in the following period, Middle Minoan III.

This first palace of Phaestos had been destroyed, like the early palace at Knossos, but not at the same time, for it apparently lasted till the beginning of the Late Minoan period, while at Knossos the catastrophe of the first palace took place at the end of Middle Minoan II. From this fact it has been suggested that the first destruction of Knossos was the result of civil war, in which the lords of Phaestos overthrew their northern brethren of the greater palace, but the evidence seems somewhat scanty to bear such an inference.

After the catastrophe at Phaestos, a thick layer of lime mixed with clay and pebbles was thrown over the remains of the ruined structure as a preparation for the rebuilding of the palace, and thus the relics of the earlier building, which are now unveiled in close connection with the later work, though on a rather lower level, were completely covered up before the second palace rose upon the site. The Theatral Area at Phaestos to some extent resembles that of Knossos, but is simpler, lacking the tier of steps at right angles to the main tier, and lacking also the Bastion, or Royal Box, which at Knossos occupies the angle of the junction of the two tiers. It consists of a paved court, ending, on the west side, in a flight of ten steps, more than 60 feet in length, behind which stands a wall of large limestone blocks. As at Knossos, a flagged pathway ran across the area, obliquely, however, in this case.

Beneath the structure of the second palace were discovered some of the chambers of the earlier building, with a number of very fine Kamares vases (Plate XXVI.).

But the chief glory of the palace at Phaestos is the great flight of steps, 45 feet in width, which formed its state entrance, the broadest and most splendid staircase that ever a royal palace had (Plate XXVI.). 'No architect,' says Mosso, 'has ever made such a flight of steps out of Crete.' At the head of the entrance staircase stood a columned portico, behind which was the great reception-hall of the palace. The halls and courts of Phaestos are comparable for s.p.a.ciousness even with the finest of those at Knossos, and, indeed, the Megaron, so called (wrongly), of Phaestos is a more s.p.a.cious apartment than the Hall of the Double Axes at the sister palace, the area of the Phaestos chamber being over 3,000 square feet, as against the 2,000 odd square feet of the Hall of the Double Axes.

The Central Court, 150 feet long by 70 broad, is a fine paved quadrangle, but has not the impressiveness of the Central Court at Knossos, with its area of about 20,000 square feet.

On the whole, the two palaces wonderfully resemble each other in the general ideas that determine their structure, though, of course, there are many variations in detail. But, as contrasted with the sister palace, the stately building at Phaestos has exhibited a most extraordinary dearth of the objects of art which formed so great a part of the treasures of Knossos. Apart from the Kamares vases and one graceful flower fresco, little of importance has been found. The comparative absence of metal-work at Knossos can be explained by the greed of the plunderers who sacked the palace; but Phaestos is almost barren, not of metal-work alone. All the more interesting, therefore, was the discovery, made in 1908, of the largest inscribed clay tablet which has yet been found on any Minoan site. This was a disc of terra-cotta, 6.67 inches in diameter, and covered on both sides with an inscription which coils round from the centre outwards. 'It is by far the largest hieroglyphic inscription yet discovered in Crete. It contains some 241 signs and 61 sign groups, and it exhibits the remarkable peculiarity that every sign has been separately impressed on the clay while in a soft state by a stamp or punch. It is, in fact, a printed inscription.'[*] One of the hieroglyphs, frequently repeated, is the representation of the head of a warrior wearing a feathered headdress which remarkably resembles the crested helmets of the Pulosathu, or Philistines, on the reliefs of Ramses III. at Medinet Habu. From his a.n.a.lysis of the various signs Dr. Evans has concluded that the inscription is not Cretan, but may represent a script, perhaps Lycian, in use in the coast-lands of Asia Minor. No interpretation of the writing can yet be given, but Dr. Evans has pointed out evidences of a metrical arrangement among the signs, and has suggested that the inscription may conceivably be a hymn in honour of the Anatolian Great Mother, a G.o.ddess who corresponded to the Nature G.o.ddess wors.h.i.+pped in Minoan Crete, whose traditions have survived under the t.i.tles of Rhea, Britomartis, Aphrodite Ariadne, and Artemis Dictynna. The pottery in connection with which it was found dates it to at least 1600, perhaps to 1800, B.C.[**]

[Footnote *: A. J. Evans, 'Scripta Minoa,' p. 24.]

[Footnote **: See Appendix, p. 264.]

The hill of Hagia Triada, about two miles to the north-west of Phaestos, proved sufficiently fruitful to compensate the Italian explorers for the incomprehensible barrenness of Phaestos. Here stand the ruins of the Venetian church of St. George, itself built of stone which was hewn originally by Minoan masons. The retaining wall of the raised ground in front of the church had given way, exposing a section of archaeological relics, Minoan potsherds, and fragments of alabaster, to a depth of more than six feet; and this accidental exposure led to the discovery of the Royal Villa, which the lords of Phaestos had erected as a dependency of the great palace, or as a country seat. Hagia Triada proved to be as rich in objects of artistic interest as Phaestos had been poor. Some of the fresco work discovered, in particular a scene with a cat hunting a red pheasant, reminiscent of the hunting-cat scene on the Mycenae dagger-blade, is of extraordinary merit. The cat scene is judged by Professor Burrows to be superior in vivacity to the famous Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-picture of the marsh-fowler with the trained cat, though to those familiar with the wonderful dash of the Egyptian work in question this will seem a hard saying.

There can be nothing but admiration, however, for the three astonis.h.i.+ng vases of black soapstone which were discovered at the villa. They remain a most convincing evidence of the maturity of Minoan art, and the mastery to which it had attained over the expression of the human form in low relief. It has been already noticed that the fine Minoan pottery is largely an imitation of earlier work in metal, and this is true also of these stone vases. What the Minoan craftsman was capable of when he was allowed to deal with the precious metals we can see from the few specimens which have survived to the present time. The Vaphio gold cups, with their bull-trapping scenes, are generally admitted now to be of Cretan workmans.h.i.+p, though found in the Peloponnese, and Benvenuto Cellini himself need not have been ashamed to turn out such work, admirable alike in design and execution. Little of such gold-work has survived, for obvious reasons. The metal was too precious to escape the plunderer in the evil days which fell upon the Minoan Empire; and the artistic value of the vases and bowls would seem trifling to the conquerors in comparison with the worth of the metal.

But the artists of the time worked not only in the precious metals, but also in stone, trying to reproduce there the forms with which they had decorated the vessels wrought in the costlier medium.

Probably, when the steat.i.te was worked to its finished shape, it was covered with a thin coating of gold-leaf, at least this suggestion, originally made by Evans, has been confirmed in one instance, where part of the gold-leaf was found still adhering to a vase discovered at Palaikastro by Mr. Currelly. In the case of the Hagia Triada vases the gold-coated steat.i.te had no charms for the plunderer, who merely stripped off the gold-leaf and left its foundation to testify to us of the skill of these ancient craftsmen. The largest of the three stands 18 inches in height. It is divided by horizontal bands into four zones. Three of these show boxers in all att.i.tudes of the prize-ring--striking, guarding, falling; while the second zone from the top exhibits one of the bull-grappling scenes so common in Minoan art, with two charging bulls, one of them tossing on his horns a gymnast who appears to have missed his leap and paid the penalty. The figures are admirably modelled and true to nature, save for the convention of the exaggeratedly slender Minoan waist, which seems to create an impression of unusual height and length of limb. The second vase (Plate XXVII.) is much smaller, and represents a procession which has been variously interpreted as a band of soldiers or marines returning in triumph from a victory, or as a body of harvesters marching in some sort of harvest thanksgiving festival. This interpretation seems, on the whole, the more probable of the two. In the middle of the procession is a figure, interesting from the fact that he is so different from his companions. He has not the usual pinched-in waist of the Cretans, but is quite normally developed, and he bears in his hand the _sistrum_, or metal rattle, which was one of the regular sacred musical instruments of the Egyptians. In all probability he is meant to represent an Egyptian priest, though what he is doing in a Cretan festival it is hard to tell. The three figures, possibly of women, who are following him, have their mouths wide open, and are evidently singing l.u.s.tily.

One of the figures, that of an elderly man, who appears to be the chief of the party, is clad in a curious, copelike garment, which may be either a ceremonial robe or a wadded cuira.s.s. Apart from all questions of what kind of incident the artist meant to represent, the artistic value of his work is unquestionable. It has been said of this little vase that 'not until the fifth century B. C. should we find a sculptor capable of representing, with such absolute truth, a party of men in motion.'

The smallest of the three vases, only 4 inches in height, bears the representation of a body of soldiers with heads and feet showing above and below their great s.h.i.+elds, which are locked together into a wall. The s.h.i.+elds are evidently covered with hide, as the bulls' tails still show upon them. But the interest centres in two figures which stand apart from the others. One seems to be a chieftain or general; he has long, flowing hair, a golden collar round his neck, and bracelets on his arms, while in his outstretched right hand he holds a long staff, which may be the shaft of a lance, or, more probably, an emblem of authority, like the staves carried by Egyptian n.o.bles and officials. His legs are covered halfway up to the knee by a genuine pair of puttees, five turns of the bandage being clearly marked. He appears to be giving orders to the other figure, perhaps that of a captain or under-officer, who stands before him in an att.i.tude of respectful attention. The captain is slightly lower in stature than his chief, though this may be due to the fact that room has had to be found for the tall curving plume of the low helmet which he wears. His neck is adorned with a single torque, and he carries a long heavy sword sloped over his right shoulder. Instead of wearing puttees, like his commander, he wears half-boots, like those on the figurine discovered by Dawkins at Petsofa. Neither the chieftain nor his officer appears to wear any defensive armour; their only clothing is a scalloped loin-cloth, slightly more heavily bordered in the case of the chief than in that of the soldier; and the modelling of the bodies, with the indications of muscular development, particularly in the legs of the chieftain, is exceedingly fine, and of an accuracy marvellous when the diminutive scale of the figures is considered. The little vase is a valuable doc.u.ment for the appearance and equipment of the warriors of those far-off times, but it is also a treasure of art. 'The ideal grace and dignity of these two figures,' says Professor Burrows, 'the pose with which they throw head and body back, is beyond any representation of the human figure hitherto known before the best period of Archaic h.e.l.lenic art.'

The interest of another of the Hagia Triada finds arises from the fact that it appears to represent a religious ceremony in honour of the dead. The object in question is a limestone sarcophagus covered with plaster, on which various funerary ceremonies are painted. The artistic merit of the work is small, for the figures are badly drawn and carelessly painted, and in all likelihood represent the decaying art of the Third Late Minoan period; but the subjects and their arrangement are of importance (Plate XXVIII.). On one side of the sarcophagus a figure stands against the door of a tomb. He is closely swathed, the arms being within his wrappings, and his att.i.tude is so immobile as to suggest that he is dead. Towards him advance three figures, one bearing something which, by a stretch of charity, may be described as the model of a boat, the others bearing calves, which, curiously enough, are represented, like the great bulls of the frescoes, as in full gallop. At the other end of the panel a priestess pours a libation into an urn standing between two Double Axes, with birds perched upon them. Behind the priestess is a woman carrying over her shoulders a yoke, from which hang two vessels, while behind her, again, comes a man dressed in a long robe, and playing upon a seven-stringed lyre. On the opposite side of the sarcophagus, the painting, much defaced, shows another priestess before an altar, with a Double Axe standing beside it, a man playing on a flute, and five women moving in procession. On the ends of the sarcophagus are pictures, in one case of a chariot drawn by two horses, and driven by two women; in the other, of a chariot drawn by griffins and driven by a woman, who has beside her a swathed figure, perhaps again representing a dead person. The figures of the lyre and flute players are interesting as affording very early information concerning the forms of European musical instruments. The double flute employed shows eight perforations, and probably the full number, allowing for those covered by the player's hands, was fourteen. The lyre approximates to the familiar cla.s.sic form, and the number of its strings shows that Terpander can no longer claim credit as being the inventor of the seven-stringed lyre, which was in use in Crete at least eight centuries before the date at which his instrument was mutilated by the unsympathetic judges at Sparta to put him on a level with his four-stringed compet.i.tors.

[Ill.u.s.tration XVI: A FLIGHT OF THE QUADRUPLE STAIRCASE (_p_. 85)