The Sea-Kings of Crete

by James Baikie

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

The hill of Hagia Triada, about two miles to the north-west of Phæstos, proved sufficiently fruitful to compensate the Italian explorers for the incomprehensible barrenness of Phæstos. 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 archæological 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 Phæstos 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 Phæstos 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 Mycenæ 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 astonishing 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 workmanship, 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 steatite 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 steatite 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 attitudes 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 lustily. 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 cuirass. 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 shields, which are locked together into a wall. The shields 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 nobles 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 attitude 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 document 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 Hellenic 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 attitude 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 classic 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 competitors.

A FLIGHT OF THE QUADRUPLE STAIRCASE (p. [85])

WALL WITH DRAIN (p. [98])