In observing these equivalents it must be noted that whole patterns with their detail are taken over complete from Egypt. There are none of the series of intermediate steps which we have traced in the mother country; and where a simpler form occurs it is known to be later, the grave steles being after the age of the great ceiling. Thus there is the surest sign of a borrowed art, apart from the facts of the exact resemblances we have noted. Of course the Mykenaean designs are mostly influenced by the taste of the race. Many of them are strongly European, and might be of Celtic or Norse work, as has been shown by Mr. Arthur Evans; but the source of the designs lies in the two thousand years’ start which Egypt had before Europe awoke.
Fig. 66.
67.—R.C. lvii.
68.—P. [97]. 105.
69.—R.C. lxii.
A separate form of the spiral pattern is that used for borders, otherwise called the wave or maeander, which merged into the guilloche. Although the chain of coils on the scarab borders in the XIIth dynasty may be regarded as a wave border, yet no example is known of this border on other objects until the XVIIIth dynasty. At that time it appears as often on foreign objects as on Egyptian, and the only instance of the guilloche is on foreign dress. Hence this development of the spiral idea may well be due more to the Aegean civilisation than to that of Egypt. This will agree with the occurrence of the guilloche on black pottery from Kahun, which class, wherever it can be dated, is found to belong to the XIIth-XIIIth dynasty. The metal vases shown on the monuments of the XVIIIth-XXth dynasties are mostly foreign tributes, and on them the wave border is common, merging into a twisted rope border which is also found—though rarely—on scarabs of the Middle Kingdom.