One of these swords from the chieftain's
grave, the short weapon which the noble of Late Minoan II. carried
along with his long rapier, perhaps for parrying thrusts, as the
gallants of Queen Elizabeth's time used their daggers, has a pommel
of translucent agate, and a gold-plated hilt engraved with a design
of a lion chasing and capturing a wild-goat. Great bronze vessels
were wrought with splendid conventional designs, and some of the
stone vases of the period are amazing in the skill with which they
were worked and decorated. 'How the hard material was worked with
precision in the _inside_ of vessels which have only the narrowest
of neck orifices, and that in an age of soft bronze tools, is as
great a mystery as the mode of working diorite and granite in
prehistoric Egypt.'[*] Perhaps the most splendid specimen is the
great amphora, 2 feet high by 6 feet in circumference, with its
two magnificent spiral bands, which was found in the so-called
Sculptor's Workshop at Knossos, beside the smaller vessel which
had only been roughed out when the catastrophe of the palace came.
[Footnote *: D. G. Hogarth, _Cornhill Magazine_, March, 1903, p.
329.]
The linear script, Class B, now supersedes the earlier type, Class
A.
In this period we come for the first time into a sphere where there
is practically an absolute certainty in dating; for now we have the
Keftiu appearing in the tomb frescoes of the Eighteenth Dynasty
at Thebes, with their vessels of characteristic Minoan type, and
their purely Minoan style of dress and general appearance.
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