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Against the authenticity of the ring CMS II.3.326: fragments of a discourse on Minoan glyptic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
In CMS II.3 1. Pini set out a very persuasive case for the view that there are no good stylistic arguments against the authenticity of the Herakleion ring CMS II.3.326 (H.M.216?) [PLATE IV(a)]. Here I want to argue that there are, nevertheless, strong iconographical reasons for doubting that authenticity.
I will begin by reexamining two iconographical arguments against the ring's authenticity which have been considered and criticised by Pini. In my view, though his general criticisms are correct, the particular modalities and forms involved in the case under consideration are such as to suggest that the arguments in question, when focussed in certain particular ways, do have force in this particular situation.
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References
1 CMS 11.3 pp. xlv–xlvii.
2 Schweitzer, B., Gnomon iv (1928) 171.Google Scholar
3 Papapostolou, I. A., Τὰ αφραγίσματα τῶν Χανίων Συμβοὴ στὴ μελέτη της Μινωικης Σφραγιδογλυφίας (Athens 1977) 69–73 pls 38a, 39a–b.Google Scholar
4 JHS xxii (1902) 76–7 no 1, pl. 4. I use the word ‘shrine’ throughout to denote an ‘altar-like structure’, not in its sense ‘sanctuary’.
5 I discuss elsewhere (in a book in preparation entitled Reading dumb images. A study in Minoan iconography and religion — hereafter ‘Reading’), the role and meanings of this tree in Minoan ritual, but the truth of the general statement made here is self-evident.
6 In ‘Reading’ passim, and in a paper entitled ‘Space in Late Minoan religious scenes in glyptic—some remarks’, forthcoming in CMS Beiheft 3.
7 The clearest of these apart from CMS 1.126 is on the ring from Archanes HMm 989 (Archaeology xx (1967) 280 fig. 13). In others (such as on the ring CMS 11.3.114, on the sealing H. Triada 140, on the ring CMS 1.119, and apparently also on the Chania sealings scenes no. 27 and 28) the paved area is less emphatically represented. The rocks on, e.g., CMS 1.119 belong to the shrine nexus, not to the ritual area surrounding the shrine, they are part of the nature-in-culture aspect of the tree-insidethe-shrine, clearly something which could, but need not, be explicitly articulated in all shrines of this type.
8 This suggestion would gain some confirmation if I am right in thinking that the platform inside the sacred enclosure recently discovered at K. Syme represented a separate, paved, ritual area round a tree with shrine inside an enclosure similar in type to those reflected in the rings showing a shrine with a tree. [On this platform inside a sacred enclosure: Ergon 1985, 73 (A. Lebessi)].
9 On Minoan divine epiphanies see now Hägg, R., ‘Die göttliche Epiphanie im minoischen Ritual’, AlhMit ci (1986) 41–62Google Scholar (which also includes earlier bibliography.)
10 Such as the pithos on the Archanes ring HMm 989 (Archaeology xx (1967) 280 fig. 13) and the oval stone on CMS 11.3.114.
11 Alexiou, S., KrChr xii (1958) 293.Google Scholar
12 Cf. on this type of enacted epiphany Hägg (n. 9) 46–62.
13 Papapostolou (n. 3) 80–5 no. 31, pls. 4d, 44a, 45 a–b.
14 I discuss this scene in detail in ‘Reading’ Part Two, section 5. The ‘double oval object with bush’ I discussed in Kadmos x (1971) 67–9 and Kadmos xii (1973) 155–6, 157; I reconsider this cultic nexus of objects in ‘Reading’ Part two, passim.
15 This is a well established gesture of adoration: cf. e.g., in glyptic, the rings CMS 1.292; CMS V. 199; cf. also Brand, E., Gruss und Cebet. (1965) 20.Google Scholar
16 Scenes of this type are discussed by I. A. Sakellarakis in ArchEph 1972, 245–58 and Marinatos, N., Minoan sacrificial ritual (Stockholm 1986) 34–5.Google Scholar
17 Particularly close in type to the gestures of the figure under discussion on CMS 11.3.51 but in this reverse variant, is the standing figure of a worshipper on the ring in Berlin [no inv. no. given] illustrated in: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Antikenabteilung. Berlin. Greifenhagen, A., Schmuckarbeiten in Edelmetall. Band II. Einzelstücke (1975) pl. 53.1Google Scholar 2 (cf. p. 69). Here the figure's smaller scale if nothing else makes clear that this figure is of a lower status than the seated one which is either a goddess (as Greifenhagen op. cit. 69 identifies her) or a priestess.
18 Cf. e.g. the figurine H.M. 3425 Sapouna-Sakellaraki, E., Μινωϊκὸν ζῶμα (Athens 1971) pl. 5γ–δ.Google Scholar
19 Cf. e.g. the figurine H.M. 3415 (Sapouna-Sakellaraki, pl. 5α).
20 As CMS s.v. very tentatively suggests, (‘eine weibliche Gestalt (eine Göttin?) über eine Lilie auf erhöhtem Niveau’).
21 SirEvans, Arthur, The palace of Minos [hereafter PoM ] vol iii (London 1930)Google Scholar Colour pl. xviii; Cf. Demargne, P., Aegean Art (London 1964) 140 fig. 188Google Scholar for an illustration in which the surviving fragments are clearly differentiated from the restorations. Cf. also Schäfer, J., ‘Zur kunstgeschichtliche Interpretation altägäischer Wandmalerei’, JdI xcii (1977) 5–7Google Scholar; Marinatos, N., ‘Role and sex division in ritual scenes of Aegean art’, Journal of prehistoric religion (1987) 23–5.Google Scholar
22 Davaras, K., Μουαεῖον ᾉγίου Νικολάου (Athens 1981) fig. 45.Google Scholar
23 Rutkowski, B., Frühgriechische Kuttdarstellungen (Berlin 1981) 13 fig. 1.7Google Scholar; Hallager, E., The master impression (Göteborg 1985) 63 fig. 24e.Google Scholar
24 Because the sample is small, we should consider also related gestures here.
25 Annuario viii/ix (1925/6) 139 fig. 152 and pl. xiv; Rutkowski (n. 27) fig. 2.14.
26 PoM ii (1928) 33 fig. 15.
27 Cf. also Marinatos (n. 16) 43.
28 On the sealing H.M. 1049 (Pelon, O.Fouilles exécutées à Mallia. Maisons III. Le quartier E (1963–1966) (Paris 1970) 130–5 no. 265 pl. xxvi.6.Google Scholar
29 This phenomenon, which, in my view, produces representations in which Minoan schemata appear in ‘disintegrated’ forms (cf. e.g. the ring from Varkiza, Piraeus Museum Inv. no. 2482 [Themelis, P., ‘A Mycenaean gold ring from Varkiza’, AAA vii (1974) 422–33.Google Scholar], or the ring Ashmolean Museum 1938. 1128 [here plate V(b)] is a very complex one and thus cannot be discussed here. I will only say that, in my view, the ring A.M. 1938. 1128 is a genuine Mycenaean work in which the Minoan ritual syntax has been dissolved, in the sense that combinations which in Minoan ritual iconography had formed one coherent cultic nexus have now been dissolved into their component elements which are represented in what can conventionally be called ‘degenerate’ forms—in the sense of being considerably further removed from their natural models than the Minoan representations. Thus, in my view (which I hope to develop elsewhere), the shrine on one end of the image, the highly conventional tree on the other, and the objects just in front of the shrine, originated in, are dissolved and conventionalized forms of, the nexus ‘shrine with tree and double oval object with bush in front of it’ which appears, for example, on the Haghia Triada scaling H.M. 522. On the Oxford ring the tree has been separated from the shrine and moved away, probably as part of the creation of a balancing decorative effect. The streamer-/branch- like lines/objects may also be descended from the wavy lines which appear on the scene depicted on the Haghia Triada sealings H.M. 505, 506, 533 and Pigorini Museum inv. no. 71979; conceivably, they may have been given this particular form also with the help of inspiration derived from branch motifs such as those on the ring CMS I.127. A comparable form of this motif but much more restrained than in the Oxford ring, is seen in the scene on the ring CMS I.126, which belongs to the same ritual complex as that to which pertains the shrine with tree and double oval objects. (That the scene on CMS I.126 belongs to the shrine + tree nexus is obvious; I shall be discussing its relationship to the particular nexus of ‘shrine with tree and double oval objects’ in ‘Reading’.) This, I suggest, adds some support to the case that this is a genuine Mycenaean work, ultimately inspired from a Minoan iconographical schema belonging to this particular ritual cycle.
* I would like to thank Mr J. Betts who discussed some aspects of this paper with me and Mrs H. Hughes-Brock and Professor I. Pini who read., and commented on, a draft of the paper; to Professor Pini I am also very grateful for having greatly helped my work on Minoan and Mycenaean glyptic by kindly extending to me the facilities of the Marburg Archive. I would also like to thank Mrs M. Bredaki and especially Dr Ch. Kritzas, Director of the Herakleion Museum, for their help. For plate III I am indebted to Dr K. Demakopoulou, for pl. IV to Mr M. Vickers, and for plates I and II to Dr Ch. Kritzas for permission to reproduce them and to Dr I. Pini who kindly provided the photographs. To facilitate use I refer to seals and rings by their CMS (Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel) numbers whenever possible.
I must make clear that this paper does not set out to be a complete investigation of the question of this ring's authenticity (as was my study “On the authenticity of the Ashmolean ring 1919.56” in Kadmos x (1971) 60–9). CMS II.3.326 does also present stylistic problems, but their consideration—and that of technique—is part of another discourse. I will only add here the information that the inventory number ascribed with a question mark to this ring in CMS (‘Edelmetal Inv. Nr. 216(?)’) is not correct. As Mrs Hughes-Brock pointed out to me, if it had been correct, and if the statement in CMS II.3 p. 383 that the seals with an inventory number up to 350 had entered the Museum at the latest in 1903 were valid, it would have followed that CMS II.3.326 would have been in existence before the Isopata ring was discovered. In reality there appears to be some doubt about the validity of the above cited statement (cf. e.g. the ring from Mochlos CMS II.3.252 with the inv. no. 259, which was not excavated until 1908). But in any case, and most importantly, the validity of this statement is irrelevant for our argument, since Dr Kritzas has kindly let me know that the inv. no. 216 does not belong to the ring CMS II.3.326, and that no inv. no. can be ascribed to the latter ring, which cannot be matched to any description included in the Museum Catalogue.