[58] The clay disk stamped with hieroglyphic characters, which has been discovered by Prof. Halbherr at Phaestos, may be cited in support of this view. From a scrutiny of the characters upon it, Dr. Evans concludes that the original home of its peculiar non-Cretan form of writing is to be sought in the South-West coast-lands of Asia Minor, or in an island in close contact with the mainland. The disk belongs to a period when the linear form of script had succeeded the hieroglyphic in Crete itself (see "Scripta Minoa," I., pp. 22 ff., 273 ff.).
[59] It is also through a Hittite medium that we may possibly trace a connection between the composite monsters of Babylonian and Minoan art; see Sayce, op. cit., p. 180. It should be noted, however, that, although the idea underlying the designs upon the Zakro sealings may be of foreign origin, the development of the variant types of many of the monster forms was purely local and confined to a single period (cf. Hogarth, "Journal of Hellenic Studies," Vol. XXII., p. 91). Moreover, the bull-monsters, or "Minotaurs," of Aegean art were obviously derived from the local cult of Knossos; in the winged and bird-like types Cappadocian influence is more probable.
[60] See Burrows, "Discoveries in Crete," p. 149.
[61] In this respect it forms a striking contrast to the clay cylinder from the sepulchral deposit of Hagios Onuphrios near Phaestos. The latter is unperforated and the designs are cut at each end of the seal; it is thus no true cylinder, but merely a double-button seal (see Evans, "Cretan Pictographs," pp. 105, 107).
[62] The figures engraved upon the seal consist of a lion-headed demon and two female figures, possibly with the heads of animals; they are arranged across the field of the cylinder from edge to edge. The seal is of soft, black stone, much worn (see Bosanquet, "The Annual of the British School at Athens," No. VIII., p. 302).
[63] See "Ionia and the East," p. 96 f.
[65] Cf. Hogarth, "Ionia and the East," p. 47 f.