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 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.
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