'Other documents,
in which neither ciphers nor pictorial illustrations are to be
found, may appeal even more deeply to the imagination. The analogy
of the more or less contemporary tablets, written in cuneiform
script, found in the Palace of Tell-el-Amarna, might lead us to
expect among them the letters from distant governors or diplomatic
correspondence. It is probable that some of them are contracts or
public acts, which may give some actual formulae of Minoan legislation.
There is, indeed, an atmosphere of legal nicety, worthy of the
House of Minos, in the way in which these records were secured.
The knots of string which, according to the ancient fashion, stood
in the place of locks for the coffers containing the tablets, were
rendered inviolable by the attachment of clay seals, impressed
with the finely engraved signets, the types of which represented a
great variety of subjects, such as ships, chariots, religious scenes,
lions, bulls, and other animals. But--as if this precaution was not
in itself considered sufficient--while the clay was still wet the
face of the seal was countermarked by a controlling official, and
the back countersigned and endorsed by an inscription in the same
Mycenaean script as that inscribed on the tablets themselves.'[*]
[Footnote *: _Monthly Review_, March, 1901, pp.
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