² One of the more extensive recent analyses of the painting is by Immerwahr, S. A., Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age (University Park and London, 1990), 110–11, 190, with references to earlier publications.Google Scholar

³ The literature on bull-leaping frescos is immense. For bibliographical references and for a detailed list of Aegean frescos and painted stucco reliefs see appendices A and B in Shaw, M. C., ‘Bull leaping frescoes at Knossos and their influence on the Tell El Dab'a murals’, Ägypten und Levante, 5 (1995), 91–120, esp. 113–20.Google Scholar For occurrences in other artistic media see J. G. Younger, ‘Bronze age representations of Aegean bull-games, III’, 505–42, and B. P. and E. Hallager, ‘The Knossian bull: political propaganda in Neo-Palatial Crete’, 547–56, both articles in vol. ii of R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds), Politeia: Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Aegaeum, 12: Proceedings of the 5th International Aegean Conference, University of Heidelberg, Archäologisches Institut, 10–13 April 1994; Liège, 1995). Published after submission of the present article to BSA, the last two studies could not be taken into consideration in my discussions. For the religious significance of bull-leaping see Marinatos, N., Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image and Symbol (Columbia, SC, 1993), 218–20.Google Scholar

⁴ M. Bietak, ‘Die Wandmalereien aus Tell El-Dab'a/Ezbet Helmi: Erste Eindrücke’, in Bietak, M., Dorner, J., Heine, I., and Jànosi, P., ‘Neue Grabungsergebnisse aus Tell el-Dab'a und ‘Ezbet Helmi im östlichen Nildelta 1989–1991’, Ägypten und Levante, 4 (1994), 20–58, esp. 44–58 and pls 14–22Google Scholar; Bietak, M. and Marinatos, N., ‘The Minoan wall paintings from Avaris’, Ägypten und Levante, 5 (1995), 49–71.Google Scholar See also three recent studies in Davies, W. V. and Schofield, L. (eds), Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant: Interconnections in the Second Millennium B.C. (London, 1995)Google Scholar: P. Warren, ‘Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt’, 1–18; L. Morgan, ‘Minoan painting and Egypt: the case of Tell el-Dab'a’, 29–53, esp. 40–4; M. Bietak, ‘Connections between Egypt and the Minoan world: new results from Tell el Dab'a/Avaris’, 19–28, esp. 23–4. For comments specifically on the bull-leaping fresco see Shaw (n. 3).

⁵ The frescos were first assigned to the end of the Hyksos period, and the absolute date specified by Bietak was the later part of the 16th cent. BC. The origin of the sport itself and of its depiction in art are questions that lie beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to note here an interesting article by Collon, Dominique, ‘Bull-leaping in Syria’, Ägypten und Levante, 4 (1994), 81–5Google Scholar, in which she claims that the representation started in Syria, as shown by seals and sealings of the 17th century BC. For a different view see Marinatos, N., ‘The “export” significance of Minoan bull hunting and bull leaping scenes’, Ägypten und Levante, 4 (1994), 89–93.Google Scholar

⁶ I am grateful to Mrs Giuliana Bianco, who executed the watercolours and made the final drawings of the individual fragments, based on my tracings of the fragments.

⁷ Il. vii. 180, xi. 46; Od. iii. 305.

⁸ Schliemann, H., Mycenae: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenae and Tiryns (1880; repr. New York, 1967) 130.Google Scholar

⁹ Rodenwaldt, G., ‘Fragmente mykenischer Wandgemälde’, AM 36 (1911), 221–50.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid., pl. ix. 2 and 1, respectively.

¹¹ Lamb, W., ‘Frescoes from the Ramp House’, BSA 24 (1919–1921), 189–94.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., pl. vii; Immerwahr (n. 2), pl. xvi.

¹³ Lamb (n. 11), 189–91; Wace's comments on the stratigraphy of the Ramp and the Ramp House (pp. 71–84) are in his contribution to Wace, A. J. B., Hertley, H. A., and Lamb, W., ‘Excavations at Mycenae’, BSA 25 (1921–1923)Google Scholar—the report of the 1919–21 excavation campaign, whose publication occupies the entire volume.

¹⁴ Wace (n. 13), 71–4.

¹⁵ Mylonas, G.E., Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age (Princeton, 1966), 25–7.Google Scholar

¹⁶ French, E., ‘Late Helladic III A 1 pottery from Mycenae’, BSA 59 (1964), 241–61Google Scholar; Mountjoy, P.A., Mycenaean Decorated Pottery (SIMA 73; Göteborg, 1986), 51.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Lamb (n. 11), 190.

¹⁸ PM i. 444. Lamb (n. 11), 190, finds it unlikely that the fill with the plasters would have been brought from as far as the palace, some distance uphill from here.

¹⁹ For the possible palatial associations of bull-leaping see Shaw (n. 3) and Hallager and Hallager (n. 3).

²⁰ Unfortunately, I have not yet had the opportunity to read Lyvia Morgan's ‘The cult centre at Mycenae and the duality of life and death’, her contribution to a forthcoming volume dedicated to M. A. S. Cameron's memory; but her title is suggestive. Funerary iconography in the frescos was also detected and discussed by Josée Sabourin, a graduate student in the Ancient Studies Program, University of Toronto, in a seminar report (Mar. 1995) and written paper.

²¹ Lamb (n. 11), 189–91.

²² Immerwahr (n. 2), 110–11, comments that the architectural façade in the Mycenaean fresco is more simplified and symbolic than the façades respectively represented in the Grandstand Fresco from Knossos and in the miniature painting from the West House at Akrotiri in Thera.

²³ I thank the staff of the Nafplion Archaeological Museum for allowing me to look for the fragments, and for their assistance.

²⁴ Doumas, Ch., The Wall-paintings of Thera (Athens, 1992), 63, pl. 29.Google Scholar Interestingly, monkeys' paws are also depicted this way in the Theran frescos: Ibid., pls 85–6, 122.

²⁵ See the terracotta model of a Mycenaean shoe in Marinatos, S., Crete and Mycenae (New York, 1960), pl. 236.Google Scholar

²⁶ PM iii, pl. xxi and 217, fig. 148.

²⁷ See the discussion with bibliographical references in Lamb (n. 11), 191, and Rodenwaldt (n. 9), 224.

²⁸ A similar accident of preservation, partly caused by applying the black pigment for the hair à secco, accounts for the apparent baldness of the so-called dancers in the Sacred Grove Fresco from Knossos (PM iii, pl. xviii).

²⁹ One thinks of a table-like object that appears in a miniature fresco from the palace of Tiryns (Rodenwaldt, G. et al. , Tiryns, ii: Die Fresken des Palastes (Athens, 1912)Google Scholar, pl. ii. 7). This table, however, rested on the ground rather than being shown at the eye level of a male figure depicted bending over it.

³⁰ Marinatos (n. 25), pl. xxviii. The other alternative—that the white form might be a tail—was suggested to me by the copy-editor of the present volume, Dr John Waś. The point he made was that the man in the fresco may be an assistant standing behind the bull, ready to receive the leaper. Even then, the gestures do not exactly match other examples of assistants, who tend to be shown with both arms extended forward (see Colour Plate C. 1, 2).

³¹ Betts, J.H., ‘New light on Minoan bureaucracy: a reexamination of some Cretan sealings’, Kadmos, 6 (1967), 14–40, fig. 12 a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² PM iii, pl. xviii.

³³ Ibid. 82, fig. 45.

³⁴ Ibid., pl. xviii, bottom r. The women are more likely to be excited spectators than dancers.

³⁵ For the Sacred Grove see PM ii, pl. xviii, bottom r. A similar gesture is that of the women standing in balconies in the Arrival Town in the Fleet Fresco from Thera: their hands are raised in front of, but with the palms away, from the face. The scene makes it reasonable to assume that this is a gesture of welcoming or greeting (Doumas (n. 24), pl. 79).

³⁶ Details are most visible in Cameron, M. A. S., ‘Notes on some new joins and additions to well-known frescos from Knossos’, in Brice, W. C. (ed.), Europa: Studien zur Geschichte und Epigraphik der frühen Aegaeis. Festschrift für Ernst Grumach (Berlin; 1967)Google Scholar, pl. iv d, more specifically the second hand from the r. in the central fragment, with the characteristic triangular form of the fist.

³⁷ Cameron 1975, slides 47–50. For the fresco fragments see also PM iii. 203–32.

³⁸ Lang, M.L., The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia, ii: The Frescoes (Princeton, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pl. c, 36H105, and the restoration, pl. 124.

³⁹ PM iii. 208–9, fig. 143.

⁴⁰ PM iii. 222–3, fig. 156. In his discussion of bull-leaping manœuvres, particularly in glyptic, Younger refers to this as ‘Evans' Schema’. See Younger, J., ‘Bronze age representations of Aegean bull-leaping’, AJA 80 (1976), 125–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘A new look at Aegean bull-Leaping’, Muse, 17 (1983), 72–80.

⁴¹ Younger, Ibid.

⁴² In his 1983 article Younger (n. 40) redated the third schema to c.1410–1380 B.C.

⁴³ A solitary walking or standing bull is an occasional type in both Minoan and Mycenaean seals, but more frequently in the latter.

⁴⁴ See Lamb (n. 11), pl. vii. Younger conveyed his view through the ‘Aegeanet’ computer network, following my AIA lecture on the Ramp House Fresco (see n. 1). For the Knossian parallel see M. Cameron, A.S., ‘Unpublished fresco fragments of a chariot composition from Knossos’, AA 3 (1967), 330–44Google Scholar and reconstruction in fig. 12. Preserved are the rear part of a chariot with the charioteer followed by a bull, of which only the head is preserved. To my knowledge, chariots are not part of the conventional iconography of Minoan bull-leaping frescos. Whether the Ramp House Fresco was following a separate Mycenaean tradition is also questionable.

⁴⁵ Marinatos (n. 25), pls 182–3. According to Davis, E.N., ‘The Vapheio cups: one Minoan and one Mycenaean?’, Art Bulletin (1974), 472–87, the artist of this particular cup was Minoan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁶ PM iii. 192–202. See also Younger, J., ‘The Elgin plaques from the Treasury of Atreus: evidence for a new reconstruction of the façade’, in Schiering, W. (ed.), Kolloquium zur ägäischen Vorgeschichte (Mannheim, 1987), 138–50.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ However, both the exact positioning of the two slabs and the ethnic identity of the sculptor are issues which continue to be debated by scholars. See Hood, S., The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (Harmondsworth, 1978), 100 and nn. 95 and 96 on p. 254.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ For a restoration see Marinatos (n. 25), 162, fig. 25.

⁴⁹ Groenewegen-Frankfort, H. A., Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the Representational Art of the Ancient Near East (1951; repr. New York, 1972), 185–216.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ As in the astonishing posture of an alighting whiteskinned leaper, whose torso is shown partly in a threequarter view (PM iii. pl. xxi).

⁵¹ Almost identical is the positioning of the legs of a man who drags a goat by the horns, in a carved relief on a fragment of a stone vase found NW of the palace at Knossos (PM iii. 184–5, fig. 128). Morgan, L., The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean Culture and Iconography (Cambridge, 1988), 59Google Scholar, suggests a scene which combines hunt with warfare, since part of the helmet is preserved in the lower edge of the fragment. I would suggest instead that animals are being taken away by the conquerors of a besieged town.

⁵² See the discussion of such principles in Ridgway, B.S., The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1970), esp. 12–28.Google Scholar

⁵³ See Hood (n. 47), 59–60, and Immerwahr (n. 2), 92; but an earlier date (late in LM I) is suggested by Evans, (PM iii. 210).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ There is only one Theran miniature fresco known so far: the so-called Fleet Fresco (Doumas (n. 24), pls 26–48). Also of LM I date is the miniature painting from Tylissos (Shaw, M.C., ‘The miniature frescoes of Tylissos reconsidered’, AA (1972), 171–88Google Scholar).

⁵⁵ The figures in the Ramp House Fresco can be restored as 0.10–0.12 m tall, nearing the likely height of the leaper from the palace of Pylos. The Knossian toreadors are c.0.25–0.35 m high. Figures in true miniature fresco are c.0.06–0.10 m high.

⁵⁶ PM iii. 207–9, figs. 141–2.

⁵⁷ The new restoration varies only slightly from the one published earlier in Shaw, M.C., ‘The Lion Gate relief of Mycenae Reconsidered’, in Φίλια έπη εις Γεώργιον Ε. Μύλωναν δια τα 60 έτη του ανασϰαφιϰού του έργου, i (Athens, 1986), 108–23, and fig 11.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Platon, N., Zakros (New York, 1971), 167.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Marinatos, N., Minoan Sacrificial Ritual: Cult Practice and Symbolism (Stockholm, 1986).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ PM iii. 428–35.

⁶¹ PM i. 442–7, 526–9; ii. 599–606; iii. 32–4.

⁶² Evans suggested a pre-seismic MM III B date, but with good reason this has been criticized by others as too early. See the recent discussion in Immerwahr (n. 2), 173–4.

⁶³ PM ii. 588–605, plan C.; iv. 620, 631, figs. 605, 621.

⁶⁴ R. Hägg, ‘On the reconstruction of the West Façade of the palace at Knossos’, in Hägg and Marinatos 1987, 129–33, fig. 2.

⁶⁵ Cameron 1975, i, fig. 24, after p. 150.

⁶⁶ PM ii. 604, fig. 377.

⁶⁷ It may be of interest here that the half-rosette motif does not appear in representations of the tripartite shrine such as the one in the well-known Zakros Rhyton, or in two Mycenaean gold repoussé reliefs, one from Volos (Vermeule, E., Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago and London, 1964), 170, fig. 32 aCrossRefGoogle Scholar), the other from Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae (Shaw, J.W., ‘Evidence for the tripartite shrine’, AJA 82 (1978), 429–48, 429 fig. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar). By contrast, the halfrosette adorns shrines which are depicted as either in or near a palace, as will be further discussed below. For the use of the half-rosette motif in palatial contexts, including carved stone reliefs used for architectural decoration, see PM ii. 590–6.

⁶⁸ The piece is illustrated in KFA, pl. v. 1. In PM i. 443, fig. 319, the illustration omits the rosette frieze, which, however, seems to join with the architectural façade.

⁶⁹ J. W. Shaw (n. 67).

⁷⁰ The difference has been noted already in my comments on the role of the half-rosette above (n. 67). See further J. W. Shaw (n. 67), 446; Vermeule (n. 67).

⁷¹ PM ii 803–8.

⁷² J.W. Shaw (n. 67) 432–41; Chapin, A.P., ‘The Sanctuary Rhyton from Kato Zakros and the representation of space in Aegean art of the Bronze Age’, AJA 96 (1992), 334 (abstract of her lecture at the 93rd Annual AIA Meeting).Google Scholar

⁷³ Hägg (n. 64), 132, claims that the monumental West Façade of the palace, where he restored a tripartite shrine on an upper storey, was ‘the prototype of the Minoan tripartiteshrine iconography’ (Hägg and Marinatos 1987, 132). A similar view is expressed in N. Marinatos, ‘Divine kingship in Minoan Crete’ (in Rehak 1995, 37–48, esp. 44–5), who claims that ‘The “Tripartite Shrine” is … an iconographical formula derived from, and inspired by the palace façade itself, which was tripartite’. But the West Façade of the palace of Knossos, to which reference is presumably made, is not really tripartite architecturally speaking, even if we accept with Graham that there may have been a window in the central recess of the block that contained magazines 11–16. This block is but a small part of an elaborate façade with more blocks and possible windows in central or other recesses. For an alternative origin of the shrine see Shaw, M.C., ‘The Aegean garden’, AJA 97 (1993), 661–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 678 n. 70. K. Krattenmaker, ‘Palace, peak and sceptre: the iconography of legitimacy’ (in Rehak 1995, 49–59), accepts palace and shrine as independent entities in a study that investigates the ‘legitimacy’ of Minoan rulership, but she does not concern herself with the question of which came first.

⁷⁴ In PM iii. 63–4 Evans describes the piers as built ‘oblong blocks’.

⁷⁵ More recently E.N. Davis, ‘The Knossos miniature frescoes and the function of the central courts’, in Hägg and Marinatos 1987, 157–61, esp. 159; M. A. S. Cameron, ‘The “palatial” thematic system in the Knossos murals’, in Hägg and Marinatos 1987, 320–8, esp. 325.

⁷⁶ Cameron 1975, i. 69–70 and restoration in fig. 11 a.

⁷⁷ For the consistent position of the poles see the more complete reproduction of the Grandstand Fresco in KFA pl. 2. The tie-blocks were probably made of wood and attached to the side of the pier with pegs, tenons, or nails—perhaps the blue and red discs marking the rectangular objects seen in the Sacred Grove Fresco, which Evans took to be capitals set on superposed pillars (PM iii. 63–4). The analogy with Egyptian flagpoles has been discussed by Alexiou, S. (‘Μινωϊϰοὶ ἱστοὶ σημαιών’, Kr. Chron. 17 (1963) 339–51Google Scholar;῾Ιστὶ Μινωϊϰών ἱερών ϰαὶ Αἰγυπτιαϰοὶ πυλώνες’,AAA (1969), 84–8) and further clarified by the depictions on the Peak Sanctuary Rhyton from Zakros (J. W. Shaw (n. 67), 438–9).

⁷⁸ Davis (n. 75) 159.

⁷⁹ For a discussion of the possible attribution of this fragment (PM iii. 59, fig. 59) to the Grandstand Fresco see Davis (n. 75), 159, who believes that the fresco depicts a façade facing the Central Court of the palace. That building façades may have appeared in the less well preserved Sacred Grove Fresco is clear from the join of a fragment to the left part of the composition made by Cameron (n. 36), figs. 7, 8, which modifies Evans's earlier restoration (PM iii, pl. xviii).

⁸⁰ For the later restoration see PM iii, pl. xvi. For an illustration of the fragment in question and the reasons for its elimination from the original restoration see PM iii. 83–5, fig. 47.

⁸¹ The preserved part of the representation suggests that, putting aside the inherent tripartite structure of the shrine, perfect symmetry was hardly intended. Note, for instance, how each room is painted a different colour, and how columns vary both in colour and in details of shape. We should also note that the dismissed fragment preserves part of a barred band, which matches the lower band of the border of the fresco. The architectural cornice below this band on the fragment is at the right distance for it to belong to the elevated central room of the shrine. Perhaps Cameron also doubted the amended later restoration, for his own restoration of the shrine matches the original one: Cameron (n. 75). 326, figs. 8–9.

⁸² Warren, P., ‘The Minoan roads of Knossos’, in Evely, D., Hughes-Brock, H., and Momigliano, N., Knossos: A Labyrinth of History. Papers in Honour of Sinclair Hood (Oxford and Northhampton, 1994), 189–210, esp. 190–2, fig. 1Google Scholar, and n. 18, with references to his preliminary reports. The evidence for a platform was a peculiar structure whose façade wall had a rough interior face and lacked doors, its undivided interior being filled with a rubble core. It was built in LM I and used into LM II, if not later. Reasonably, Warren visualized it as one of a whole line of grandstands that would have extended eastward, culminating at the ‘bastion’ on the S side of the Theatral Area.

⁸³ For the Theatral Area and vicinity see PM ii. 578–87. That some of the stands may have been associated with columns, at least those further W, is suggested by Warren's discovery of a column base. It was rebuilt into a later wall next to a large staircase that Warren believes led to the platform (‘The Minoan roads of Knossos’, pl. 28, above; pl. 32, r.). Warren considers the possibility that the column base was originally part of that staircase (Ibid. 192–4). Quite possibly, the column that stood on it helped support a roof to provide shade. I still maintain, however, that the known fragments from the Grandstand Fresco itself (PM iii, pl. xvii) do not feature any columns, except those within the Tripartite Shrine depicted in it.

⁸⁴ J. W. Shaw (n. 67) 438, 448.

⁸⁵ It is quite possible that much of the construction seen in the Grandstand Fresco was made of wood. The horizontal bands can easily represent a construction using planks or boards, as an outer facing for a rubble core or some other rough construction. Horizontal bands without vertical dividers also characterize the façades of some buildings or rooms, mostly those at the top, in the Arrival Town in the Fleet Fresco from Thera, and in some of the huts in the left area of the ‘Departure Town’ (Doumas (n. 24), respectively pls 79–78, 71). None of these bands can be steps. The problem of recognition may arise from the fact that in some cases (as possibly in the Grandstand Fresco) the planks were shown as white, and can now easily be confused with steps.

⁸⁶ Davis (n. 75), 156–7.

⁸⁷ As suggested in a restoration by Cameron (n. 75), 327, fig. 11.

⁸⁸ I am grateful to Niki Holmes Kantzios for her beautiful drawing. The left side of the area gives an impression of the N side of the West Court and illustrates my view of how stands and steps seen in the Grandstand Fresco may have looked if they had actually existed. Pugilistic competitions of the type depicted in the Boxer's Vase from Haghia Triadha (Marinatos (n. 25), pls 106–7) may also have been performed.

⁸⁹ The motif is one of the most widespread and longlasting in Aegean iconography, and is known from Minoan, Cycladic, and Mycenaean frescos (Cameron (n. 36), 67; Morgan (n. 51), 82–3).

⁹⁰ Davis (n. 75), 160.

⁹¹ See Hood (n. 53) and Immerwahr (n. 2).

⁹² Doumas (n. 24), pl. 58.

⁹³ A. Chapin (n. 72); also ead., ‘Landscape and space in Aegean bronze age art’ (dissertation submitted to the Department of Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995). Compare too the early discussion of space in Theran wall-painting by Iliakis, K., ‘Morphological analysis of the Akrotiri wall-paintings of Santorini’, in Doumas, Ch., Thera and the Ancient World, i (London, 1978), 617–28, esp. 618–21.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Bietak (n. 4); M. C. Shaw (n. 3).

⁹⁵ Bietak, M., Pharaonen und fremde Dynastien im Dunkel (Vienna, 1994), 197, no. 221.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Like Dr Bietak, I assume the source of the theme to be the palace of Knossos, though I also see representational differences (Shaw (n. 3)).

⁹⁷ Similar views are entertained by Younger (n. 40), passim.

⁹⁸ PM ii. 162–6, 593, figs. 83–4, 370; iv. 225, 396.