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.
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