| Description |
[Is this from Evans, or is it old label copy? --KM]
Combat Scene on Gold Signet: It must be observed that from quite early on in this period of Conquest we see Minoan engravers of the overseas branch illustrating themes that were in a special degree the property of what, at a slightly later date, we may fairly call 'Mycenaean' Greece... It may well be suspected that a man of Mycenae could have equally fitted heroic names to the warriors of the scene of combat on the gold signet from the Fourth Grave. - Evans(?)
From Karo:
Plate XXIV. Gold ring with battle scene. Ring dimensions 1.9 x 0.85 x 0.3. Setting dimensions 3.5 x 2.1 x 0.5
Setting and ring are of quite thick gold sheet welded over a foundation of soft metal (lead?). The ring has lowered, diagonally-[gerieften] borders. The evenly curved obverse of the elliptical setting bears the engraved and [gepunzten] image; fine after-engraving. On the flat reverse an even gutter for the finger. Around almost the entire picture, also along the border above, extends the conventionally stylized, stone terrain, lacking only on the right end. In this frame the battle takes place: the victor (in double-gathered, belted loincloth, long hair, horizontally-structured helm with buckles and fluttering crest) sets his left foot far forward, his right back, grips his foe by the neck with his left hand and is about to stab him in the chest with the sword (with pointed haft and large, round pommel, Type A under p. 97) in his raised right hand. His foe is sunk to his left knee, his right leg stretched far back. His upper body is seen from behind in a bold turn. With his right arm he swings his round-pommeled sword weakly at the head of the victor; with his left he tries to grab his foe’s sword arm in defense. He wears the same loincloth, but no helmet; his long hair seems gathered at the top and knotted. Behind him kneels a warrior, whose great furnace-screen shield [Ofenschirmschild] (with a pattern of small engraved dots) almost completely covers him. Only his helmeted head (helmet like that of the victor, but as it seems with back-clasps), his right arm, stretched far back, which thrusts a powerful lance with 3 unusual looplike appendages near the point at the victor, and his lower leg, are visible. A fourth man crouches, oviously mortally wounded, naked behind the victor. His right leg is drawn up, his left extended, and he supports himself on his hands. Right and left appear correct on the original, reversed on the imprint (Furtwängler, Ant. Gemm. I, pl. III 31). Wonderfully powerful modelling of the nude bodies, the beardless faces more sketchy.
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| Bibliography |
Evans, Arthur, The Palace of Minos at Knossos,. vol IV. London: Macmillan and Sons, Ltd, 1935. Fig. 511 bis, p. 550-1.
Karo, Georg, Die Schachtgraber von Mykenai, Munich: Verlag D. Bruckmann, 1930 – 3. (photocopy of relevant page on file) |
