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MINOAN FRESCOES IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN*

1. The Emergence of the Problem: The Alalakh Frescoes (1939 - 1987)

The question of connections in fresco painting between Crete and the Near East firstarose in 1939, when Sir L.R. Woolley, in a brief preliminary report about his excavations atTell Atchana (later to be identified as the ancient city Alalakh), announced the finds of muraldecorations possessing Cretan affinities.1 They came from a house of the Late Bronze Agelevel IV as well as from an even older context, the palace of Stratum VII, which wascontemporary with the First Dynasty of Babylon, according to Woolley. In her inf luentialbook, the 50th anniversary of which is celebrated in this conference, H.J. Kantor recognizedthe possible importance of these finds but wisely did not speculate further on this matter,commenting only: “Definitive substantiation of these far-reaching claims awaits the fullpublication of the evidence.”2

Woolley published the fresco fragments from Alalakh in 1955,3 stating that those fromthe palace of level VII, named by him ‘Yarim-Lim’s Palace’ show “striking resemblances ... tothe Minoan frescoes.”4 Unfortunately, the Alalakh frescoes were very fragmentary and theirstyle was hard to distinguish on the published black and white photographs,5 with oneexception: the creamy white reeds on red ground on a group of fragments fallen from theso-called grand salon of the piano nobile above magazines 11-136 were indeed painted“unmistakably in the spirit of Cretan art” as stated by Woolley.7 They appear to sway in thewind, a characteristic feature of Minoan art.8 Woolley’s main argument for a connectionbetween the Alalakh murals and those of Minoan Crete was that they both had been executedin true fresco technique (with additions in secco painting).9 Elsewhere Woolley concluded that“there can be no doubt but that Crete owes the best of its ... frescoes, to the Asiatic mainland;”

______________________* Acknowledgments: We gratefully commemorate our partner at Tel Kabri and friend, Aharon Kempinski,

whose untimely passing away on 2nd July 1994 is a great bereavement. We would like to thank A. Drori andthe staff of the Israeli Authority of Antiquities for the permit to take the wall-painting fragments from thepalace at Tel Kabri for two years with us to Heidelberg for study and restoring, the Visitors of theAshmolean Museum in Oxford for the permit to publish here new photographs of the Alalakh frescofragments, P.R.S. Moorey and M. Vickers for their help in the Ashmolean, and the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft for financial support of the travel of W.-D. Niemeier to the conference.

1 L.R. WOOLLEY, Illustrated London News, Dec. 2 (1939) 833. 2 KANTOR, 102. 3 L.R. WOOLLEY, Alalakh: An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana in the Hatay, 1937 - 1949 (1955) 228-34,

pls. 26 b - 29 c. 4 Ibid. 228. 5 Cf. the discussion of the Alalakh fresco fragments based on the published black and white photographs by

W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Minoan Artisans Travelling Overseas: the Alalakh Frescoes and the Painted Plaster Floorat Tel Kabri (Western Galilee),” in Thalassa, 192-94.

6 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) pl. 28 a; NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) pl. XLVI b. For a new illustration in colour, see B.and W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Aegean Frescoes in Syria-Palestine: Alalakh and Tel Kabri,” in Wall Paintings ofThera, pl. 14.

7 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 231.8 H.A. GROENEWEGEN-FRANKFORT, Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the

Representational Art of the ancient Near East (1950) 197; W. SCHIERING, “Die Naturanschauung in deraltkretischen Kunst,” AntKunst 8 (1965) 3; G. WALBERG, Tradition and Innovation; Essays in Minoan Art(1986) 89, 98.

9 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 228-30; BARKER, in Ibid. 233-34.

and he believed, “that trained experts, members of the ... Painters’ Guilds, were invited totravel overseas from Asia (and possibly from Alalakh) to ... decorate the palaces of the Cretanrulers.”10

Woolley’s argument for his suggestion that the inf luence had gone from Syria to Creteand not in the reverse direction was “that Yarim-Lim’s palace antedates by more than a centurythe Cretan examples in the same style.”11 However, Woolley’s date of Alalakh VII to “betweencirca 1780 and 1730 BC”12 proved to be too high. Yarim-Lim of Alalakh was not — as Woolleyhad thought — identical with Yarim-Lim I of Yamhad (Aleppo), a contemporary of the greatHammurabi of Babylon and of Zimri-Lim of Mari, but a younger son of Yarim-Lim’s I son andsuccessor Hammurabi, and he received Alalakh as an appanage principality from his elderbrother, king Abban of Yamhad, probably when the latter was nearing the end of his reign.13

The documents of the clay tablet archives of Alalakh VII cover the reigns of Yarim-Lim, of hisson Ammitaqum, and possibly of a son of the latter, Irqabtum or Hammurabi.14 Since theAlalakh VII documents mention six kings of Yamhad, from Abban to Hammurabi II,15 andthree to four generations of officials and merchants at Alalakh,16 Alalakh VII must havecovered a considerable period of time, between ca. 70 years and almost a century.17 AlalakhVII ended in a destruction which — according to scholarly agreement — is identical with thedestruction of Alalakh mentioned in the res gestae of the Hittite king Hattuöili I.18 Scholarshave proposed dates for this destruction between ca.1650 and 1575 BC.19 An importantcriterion for the absolute date of the destruction level of Alalakh VII is the fact that it did notcontain any bichrome pottery, which does not appear before the following level Alalakh VI.20

According to the evidence from Tell el-Ajjul, bichrome ware came in use in the Levant at thebeginning of the reign of the penultimate Hyksos ruler Apophis, or just before it.21 Apophis,opponent of Kamose within a decade of the expulsion of the Hyksos by Kamose’s younger

______________________10 L.R. WOOLLEY, A Forgotten Kingdom (1953) 74-75. In the quotation we have omitted Woolley’s statement

according to which Crete also owes the best of its architecture to the Asiatic mainland and that members ofthe Architects’ Guilds were invited to build the palaces of the Cretan rulers. As J.W. GRAHAM, “TheRelations of the Minoan Palaces to the Near Eastern Palaces of the Second Millennium”, in E.L. BENNETT(ed.), Mycenaean Studies. Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at“Wingspread,” 4-8 September 1961 (1964) 195-215, esp. 196-202 on Alalakh, has demonstrated, the evidenceis far from substantiating Woolley’s theory of Near Eastern architects working in Minoan Crete. See alsoNIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 191.

11 WOOLLEY (supra n. 10) 74. 12 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 388-90. 13 See J.-R. KUPPER, “Northern Mesopotamia and Syria,” in History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region,

c. 1800-1380 B.C., CAH, 3rd edition, Vol. II.1 (1973) 17-18, 31; M.C. ASTOUR, Hittite History and AbsoluteChronology of the Bronze Age (1989).

14 See the painstaking discussion by M. HEINZ, Tell Atchana/Alalakh: Die Schichten VII-XVII. Alter Orient undAltes Testament (1992) 190-96.

15 KUPPER (supra n. 13) 31; HEINZ (supra n. 14) 190-97. 16 D. COLLON, The Seal Impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 27 (1975) 16 n.

2, 45-46 n. 1, 145, 152-54; Eadem, “A New Look at the Chronology of Alalakh VII: A Rejoinder,” AnatSt 27(1977) 127-28.

17 KUPPER (supra n. 13) 31 allows 75 years, ASTOUR (supra n. 13) 10 allows between 70 and 80 years. A.KEMPINSKI, “The Middle Bronze Age in Northern Israel, Local and External Synchronisms,” in M.BIETAK (ed.), High, Middle or Low? Acts of the Second International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology, SchlossHaindorf/Langenlois, 12-15 August 1990. Ägypten und Levante 3 (1992) 70 even thinks of almost a century.

18 KUPPER (supra n. 13) 31-32; O.R. GURNEY, “Anatolia c. 1750-1600 B.C.,” in History of the Middle East andthe Aegean Region, c. 1800-1380 B.C., CAH, 3rd edition, Vol. II.1 (1973) 241; HEINZ (supra n. 14) 197.

19 Cf. NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 190-91 with references in nn. 16-17; HEINZ (supra n. 14) 198-201. As to thedifferent chronologies used in Near Eastern archaeology, see infra with n. 67.

20 A. KEMPINSKI, Syrien und Palästina (Kanaan) in der letzten Phase der Mittelbronze IIB-Zeit (1650 - 1570 v. Chr.).Ägypten und Altes Testament 4 (1983) 218; Idem (supra n. 17) 70.

21 KEMPINSKI (supra n. 20) 131-48, 223. For Apophis as penultimate Hyksos ruler, see D.B. REDFORD,Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (1992) 71.

70 Wolf-Dietrich and Barbara NIEMEIER

brother Ahmose, reigned for about forty years or more.22 Thus the beginning of Apophis’reign — and the introduction of bichrome ware — are to be dated to between ca. 1620/10 and1590/80 depending on the Egyptian chronology used.23

Following these chronological corrections, the Alalakh frescoes no longer were as muchearlier than their Cretan counterparts as Woolley had thought, but apparently still somewhatearlier.24 Nevertheless, we had problems with Woolley’s theory. The fresco technique of thewall paintings from Yarim-Lim’s palace appeared to be an isolated feature in the Near East. Inall relevant publications one could read that the fresco technique was — with the exception ofAlalakh — unknown in the Near East and in Egypt before the Hellenistic period and that thegenerally used technique was al secco or tempera.25 Crete, however, according to R.J. Forbes,formed “the home country of the real ‘buon fresco’ painting” which was at least in use from ca.2000 BC on.26 As A. Moortgat — an authority on Near Eastern wall painting — stated, the free,natural composition of the reeds on the fresco fragments from Yarim-Lim’s palacedisassociates them from all other ancient Near Eastern pictorial art and connects them toMinoan art.27 Therefore, the Alalakh frescoes seem to us to form an alien element within theircultural context. Since they appeared to be older than their Minoan parallels, they could not,however, be attributed to Minoan inf luence. Thus the Alalakh frescoes for a long time were akind of mystery to us.

2. The Kabri Frescoes (1987-1993)

In March 1987, forty years after the publication of Kantor’s study, during a study travelthrough Israel, we visited the Archaeological Institute of Tel Aviv University and gave a guestlecture on Minoan relations with the Levant, in which the problem of the Alalakh frescoes wasalso addressed. Among the colleagues we met at this occasion was Aharon Kempinski. Hetold us about the interesting excavation which he had started the year before, in the Middle

______________________22 J. von BECKERATH, Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der Zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten.

Ägyptologische Forschungen 23 (1964) 128; L. HABACHI, The second Stela of Kamose and his Struggle against theHyksos Ruler and his Capital. Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Institutes, Abteilung Kairo 8 (1972)59; KEMPINSKI (supra n. 20) 60.

23 See W.A. WARD, “The Present Status of Egyptian Chronology,” BASOR 188 (1992) 53-66, especially 53 and56 on the date of the beginning of the 18th Dynasty varying between ca. 1570 and 1540 BC.

24 As to the problem of the dating of the first phase of Aegean representational wall painting due to theproblems of stratigraphy at Knossos, see S.A. IMMERWAHR, Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age (1990) 39;W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Knossos in the New Palace Period (MM III-LM IB),” in D. EVELY, H. HUGHES-BROCK,and N. MOMIGLIANO (eds.), KNOSSOS: A Labyrinth of History. Papers presented in honour of SinclairHood (1994) 84-85. With the exception of a plaster relief fragment showing part of a bull’s foot, whichEvans (A.J. EVANS, PM I [1921] 376, fig. 273) found stratified below the f loor of the Magazine of theTripod Vases and which probably is of transitional MM IIIB/LM IA date, no representational walldecoration in Crete can be stratigraphically dated before the MM IIIB/LM IA transition, i.e. before ca. 1600BC according to the traditional Aegean chronology — see P.M. WARREN and V. HANKEY, AegeanAbsolute Chronology (1989) 135-37, 169.

25 As to the differences between the fresco and al secco techniques, see A. NUNN, Die Wandmalerei und derglasierte Wandschmuck im Alten Orient. Handbuch der Orientalistik VII.1 (1988) 5-6; for the exceptional statusof the Alalakh frescoes see Ibid. 11-12; P. PHILIPPOT, Die Wandmalerei (1972) 21, 30. As to the general useof al secco technique in the Near East and in Egypt, see A. PARROT, Mission archéologique de Mari II: le palais.2: peintures murales (1958) 58, 109; A. MOORTGAT, Alt-vorderasiatische Malerei (1959) 19; B. MULLER,“Aspects de la peinture murale proche-orientale au IIe millénaire av. J.-C.,” Revue archéologique de Picardie,No. special (1995) 133 (Near East); A. LUCAS and J.R. HARRIS, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Techniques,4th edition (1962) 351-53 (Egypt); R.J. FORBES, Studies in Ancient Technology III (1955) 235-41 (Near Eastand Egypt).

26 FORBES (supra n. 25) 241-42; M.A.S. CAMERON, R.E. JONES and S.E. PHILIPPAKIS, “Scientific Analysesof Minoan Fresco Samples from Knossos,” BSA 72 (1977) 121-84; S. HOOD, The Arts in Prehistoric Greece(1978) 83; IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 14-15.

27 MOORTGAT (supra n. 25) 12. Cf. also Interconnections, 103; F. SCHACHERMEYR, Ägäis und Orient (1967)46.

MINOAN FRESCOES IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN 71

Bronze Age city of Tel Kabri in Western Galilee. Four months after our visit, a threshold oflimestone blocks covered with painted lime plaster was found in the palace of the local rulerat Tel Kabri.28 Painted red lines formed a kind of grid pattern enclosing hardly identifiablerepresentational painting. As Aharon immediately realized, painted plaster f loors areunknown in the ancient Near East,29 but are a typical feature of the Aegean Bronze Agecivilisations.30 He sent us a colour slide of the threshold and asked us if we would beinterested in joining him as partners in the Tel Kabri excavations. Hoping that Tel Kabriwould help to solve the mystery of the Alalakh frescoes, we spontaneously agreed. Our fruitfulcollaboration with Aharon started in 1989 and was only interrupted by his untimely death in1994. We commemorate him here in gratitude and friendship.

The threshold with the painted plaster led into a square hall of 10 by 10 meters in theceremonial wing of the palace.31 The f loor of this hall, covered by painted plaster, wasexcavated in 1989 and 1990.32 Since this painted f loor has already been discussed in aconference paper after the 1989 season, when it was not yet completely excavated,33 we hereonly illustrate the complete plan (Pl. Va) and add some new aspects. The f loor was executedin true fresco technique, as the thorough investigations on the site and laboratory analyses ofsamples in Verona have demonstrated.34 The colours identified in the f loor’s painting areblack, white, gray, red, yellow, orange, brown, and dark blue. According tospectrophotometrical analysis, white came from reserving the lime plaster background, blackwas from carbon, the range of red, yellow, and orange was derived from ochres, and brownresulted from mixing black and red. The dark blue remains somewhat enigmatic since itconsists of a carbon-lime mixture and we do not know how the blue colour effect wasproduced.35 The colours and natural pigments are the same as used all over the easternMediterranean, in the Aegean, the Near East and Egypt.36

The f loor was painted with a grid pattern of red lines imitating a pavement of stoneslabs. The red lines represent the red plaster filling the interstices between the stone slabs aswe find them on a series of Minoan stone f loors.37 The decoration of some squares

______________________28 A. KEMPINSKI, “Area D: The Architecture and the Finds,” in A. KEMPINSKI (ed.), Excavations at Kabri 2:

Preliminary Report of 1987 Season (1988) 36-41 (Hebrew), VI-VII (English Summary), pls. 9, 12. 29 The marbled squares painted on a podium in hall 64 of the palace at Mari and on a platform in courtyard

31 do not form real room f loors and are, in our opinion, to be seen as signs of Minoan inf luence; cf. infrawith nn. 47, 49.

30 See E.S. HIRSCH, Painted Decoration on the Floors of Bronze Age Structures on Crete and the Greek Mainland(1977).

31 As to the layout of the palace at Tel Kabri, comparable to that of Yarim-Lim’s palace in Alalakh VII, see A.KEMPINSKI, “An Integrated Plan of the Palace in Light of the Excavations in Areas D and F,” in A.KEMPINSKI and W.-D. NIEMEIER (eds), Excavations at Kabri 7-8: Preliminary Report of 1992-1993 Seasons(1994) 26-28 (Hebrew), *18 (English summary) fig. 10, the latter repeated by NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER(supra n. 6) fig. 1.

32 W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Area D: The Painted Plaster Floor in Room 611. Technical, Stylistic, Iconographic andChronological Implications,” in A. KEMPINSKI and W.-D. NIEMEIER (eds.) Excavations at Kabri 4:Preliminary Report of 1989 Season (1990) XVI-XXVI, figs. 10-12; W.-D. NIEMEIER, P. CORNALE, P.ROSANO’ and M. TAGLIAPIETRA, in: A. KEMPINSKI and W.-D. NIEMEIER (eds.), Excavations at Kabri5: Preliminary Report of 1990 Season (1991) *24-*26.

33 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 197-98, pls. XLVII-LI. See also W.-D. NIEMEIER, “On the Origin of MycenaeanPainted Plaster Floors,” in E. de MIRO, L. GODART and A. SACCONI (eds.), Atti e memorie del SecondoCongresso Internazionale di Micenologia, Roma - Napoli, 14-20 ottobre 1991, vol. III: Archeologia (1996) 1249-53.

34 NIEMEIER (supra n. 32) xvi-xvii; Idem (supra n. 5) 197; NIEMEIER et al. (supra n. 32). The investigations atthe site were done by M. Tagliapietra, restorer, the laboratory analyses by P. Cornale, geologist, and P.Rosano’, chemist.

35 NIEMEIER et al. (supra n. 32) 25*. 36 See IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 15-16, Fig. 5. For Alalakh, see WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 233-34. 37 For instance: A.J. EVANS, PM II (1928) 683; Idem, PM III (1930) 357-58; L. PERNIER and L. BANTI, Il

palazzo minoico di Festòs, vol II: il secondo palazzo (1951) 46, 73, 266. Ayia Triadha: F. HALBHERR, E.STEFANI and L. BANTI, Haghia Triada nel periodo tardo palaziale. AnnScAtene 55 (1977) 72, 80, 82, 87-88,90-91, 154, 157, 160.


undoubtedly represents the marbling of gypsum slabs, as our thorough investigation with 1:1tracings as well as with infrared photographies demonstrated.38 Painted stone imitationsregularly occur in Minoan art. The earliest known example on a fresco fragment comes fromthe ‘Loom-Weight Deposit’ at Knossos and is ascribed to either MM II or MM III.39 A dadowith painted imitation of gypsum slabs from the east border of the palace at Knossos wasdated by Evans with stylistic arguments to MM IIIA.40 Of LM IA date are painted gypsumimitations from the West House at Akrotiri on Thera, where they formed dadoes in rooms 4and 5,41 and a ‘chessboard’ pattern in the centre of the northeastern wall of room 4.42 In LMIB-II we frequently find painted dadoes imitating gypsum slabs in the palace at Knossos.43

In the Near East, similar painted stone imitations roughly contemporary with the Kabrif loor or earlier were found at two sites.44 Like Alalakh, the Middle Bronze Age city and palaceof Tel Kabri were destroyed and abandoned in the pre-bichrome phase of MB IIB.45 Thus thestone imitations painted on the basalt orthostates in room 5 of the so-called ‘Chamber ofAudience’ in Yarim-Lim’s palace at Alalakh, of which no illustrations have been published,46

are roughly contemporary to the Kabri ones. Earlier than the Kabri and Alalakh examples arethe painted stone imitations in Zimri-Lim’s palace at Mari. There they decorated a podiumon the east side of hall 64 (Pl. Vb),47 the dadoes of a passage leading into court 31,48 and aplatform near to the north-west corner of that court.49 The excavator of Mari, A. Parrot,compared the painted stone imitations to those painted on dadoes at Knossos.50 Elsewherehe asked for possible connections between the Mari and the Knossos murals, and, pointing tothe evidence for connections between Mari and Crete provided by the Minoan preciousobjects mentioned in the Mari archives, he apparently tended to see some Cretan inf luence inthe Mari murals. This was, however, impeded by the dating of the Minoan figural

______________________38 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 198, pls. XLIX b (infrared photograph), L a (water colour). For a colour photograph

and a new corrected version of the water colour, see now NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6) pls. 1-2. 39 EVANS (supra n. 24) 251-52, fig. 188 a; IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 22-23, fig. 6 f. The find context of the

fragment was dated by NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 193, n. 3, to MM II. For the following correction, seeNIEMEIER (supra n. 24) 81: The Loom-Weight Deposit apparently is a filling for the construction of newsubstructure walls in MM III and contains mixed MM II-III material. Thus the fresco fragment can be eitherMM II or MM III.

40 EVANS (supra n. 24) 355-56, fig. 255.41 Room 4: CH.G. DOUMAS, The Wall-Paintings of Thera (1992) 49, 86-91, figs. 49-56; for a reconstruction of

the dadoes within the decoration system of the room, see CH.A. TELEVANTOU, Akroteri Theras: oitoichografies tes Dytikes Oikias (1994) 133-42, figs. 27-32. Room 5: DOUMAS, op. cit. 64, 50-51, figs. 14-17; fora reconstruction of the dadoes within the decoration system of the room, see N. MARINATOS, Art andReligion in Thera: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Society (1984) fig. 17 facing p. 32.

42 TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) 156-59, fig. 37, colour pl. 14; for a reconstruction within the decoration systemof the room, see Ibid. 133 fig. 27 E-Z, 139 fig. 31, 142 fig. 32.

43 See, for instance, A.J. EVANS, PM IV (1935) 893-94, fig. 873. This dado in the West Porch belongs to thesame pictorial program as the paintings of the adjoining Corridor of the Procession which are possibly ofLM IB date — cf. CH. BOULOTIS, “Nochmals zum Prozessionsfresko von Knossos: Palast und Darbringungvon Prestige-Objekten,” in R. HÄGG and N. MARINATOS (eds.), The Function of the Minoan Palaces.Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 10-16 June, 1984 (1987)145-47.

44 We do not discuss here the examples from Alalakh level IV (WOOLLEY [supra n. 3] 232, fig. 29 a-c), whichis of 15th century date (see H. KLENGEL, Geschichte und Kultur Altsyriens [1979] 68-75), and from Qatna(see R. du MESNIL du BUISSON, Le site archéologique de Mishifre-Qatna [1935] 143, frontispiece), which isprobably of 14th century date (see Interconnections, 17-18).

45 Cf. KEMPINSKI (supra n. 17) 70-72. 46 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 92. 47 PARROT (supra n. 25) 67-69, fig. 54, pl. XV, 1-2. 48 A. PARROT, Mission archéologique de Mari II: les palais, 2: architecture (1958) 165, pl. XXXIX,2.49 Ibid. 166, fig. 187, pl. XXXIX,1. 50 Ibid. 165, n. 2.


wall-paintings to not before 1600 BC by the Aegean specialists.51 B. Muller (= B. Pierre) hasdiscussed the imitation of stone slabs at Mari, Alalakh, Tel Kabri, Crete, and Thera within thecontext of an east Mediterranean koiné in wall-painting and argued that the dominatingmovement of this koiné went from the Orient to the Aegean at the beginning of the secondmillennium BC.52 To this we would subscribe. We do, however, not agree with her idea thatMesopotamia was the place of origin of the painted imitations of stone dadoes and f loors. Aswe think, the idea of the painting of imitations of stone dadoes and f loors must haveoriginated in an area where ashlar was actually used for dadoes and f loors. TheMesopotamian Bronze Age architecture was constructed of mudbrick.53 Stone blocks wereexclusively used in foundations and only where they could easily be obtained.54 On the otherhand, in Crete and the Levant stone dadoes (orthostates) are known from at least thebeginning of the Middle Bronze Age on.55 Ashlar f loorings were very common in Crete,although the known examples all are from the New Palace period,56 but the MM IB paintedimitations of ashlar f loors in Phaistos and Mallia57 suggest that Crete had ashlar f looringsalready by the beginning of the Old Palace period around 1900 BC.58 In the Levant, ashlarf looring does not seem to have been very common.59 In Egypt, stone dadoes were unknown60

and ashlar f looring was very rare.61 Thus Crete and the Levant appear to be possiblecandidates for the origin of painted imitations of stone dadoes and f loor. According to thepresent evidence, those imitations exist earlier in Crete than in the Levant. The earliestpreserved examples of painted imitations of marbled stone slabs in the Near East, those in thepalace at Mari (Pl. Vb), imitate gypsum,62 a material frequently used in Minoan architecture63

but not in the Levant.64 All this appears to indicate that painted imitations of gypsum dadoesand slabs at Mari show Minoan inf luence.

______________________51 PARROT (supra n. 25) 109-110. As to the Cretan objects mentioned in the Mari archive, see SWDS, 126-28,

nos. D.2-12, with references. 52 B. PIERRE, “Decor peint à Mari et au Proche-Orient,” M.A.R.I., Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires 5

(1987) 569, 572; B. MULLER, “Les peintures murales de l’Euphrate à la Méditerranée: des conceptionscommunes?,” Sources et travaux historiques 36-37 (1994) 53; MULLER (supra n. 25) 133-35.

53 See H. FRANKFORT, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, 4th revised edition (1970) 18. There areno Bronze Age predecessors for the use of gypsum in architectural contexts from the 9th century BC on forwall reliefs in the palaces of the Neo-Assyrian empire, which probably were due to Aramean inf luence; cf.A. MOORTGAT, Die Kunst des Alten Mesopotamien (1967) 133-34.

54 Cf. FRANKFORT (supra n. 53) 42. 55 See G. HULT, Bronze Age Ashlar Masonry in the Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus, Ugarit, and Neighbouring

Regions (1983) 38-39, 46-47, 66; NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 191, with references in nn. 21-25. 56 HULT (supra n. 55) 47-48, 74.57 Phaistos: D. LEVI, “Gli scavi a Festòs nel 1956 e 1957,” AnnScAtene 35/36 (1957/58) 332-33 = HIRSCH

(supra n. 30) 17, C 43. Mallia, Maison E: G. DAUX, “Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiquesen Grèce en 1964,” BCH 89 (1965) 1000-1001, figs. 1-2 = HIRSCH (supra n. 30) 13, C 22-23, fig. 4. Mallia,in the vicinity of Quartier Mu: J.-C. POURSAT, “Malia, atelier de sceaux,” BCH 102 (1978) 832, fig. 1; Idem,“Quartier Mu,” BCH 109 (1985) 892; for the date, see Idem, “Le début de l’époque protopalatiale à Malia,”Eilapine. Tomos timiotikos gia ton kathegete Nikolao Platona (1987) 463.

58 Here the controversial low and high chronologies for the Aegean roughly synchronize — see WARREN andHANKEY (supra n. 24) 128-35, 169 (low chronology); S.W. MANNING, The Absolute Chronology of the AegeanEarly Bronze Age (1995) 217 (high chronology).

59 HULT (supra n. 55) 40, 73.60 Ibid. 66.61 Ibid. 36, 73.62 Cf. MULLER (supra n. 25) 134.63 Cf. J.W. GRAHAM, The Palaces of Crete, revised edition (1969) 4-5, 143-44, 204-208; J.W. SHAW, Minoan

Architecture: Materials and Techniques. AnnScAtene 49 (1971) 20-23.64 The stone dadoes and ashlar f loors in early Middle Bronze Age Ebla IIIA and in later Middle Bronze Age

Alalakh are of basalt and limestone — see P. MATTHIAE, I tesori di Ebla (1984) pls. 49-51, 55, 63, 64, 74; R.NAUMANN, Architektur Kleinasiens von ihren Anfängen bis zum Ende der hethitischen Zeit, 2nd edition (1972)82. As to the use of gypsum in early 1st millennium Mesopotamia, see supra n. 53.


But is this possible from the chronological point of view? The Mari paintings wereprobably executed before the 35th year of Hammurabi of Babylon, in which he capturedMari,65 although there is some doubt whether the palace was destroyed by Hammurabi or onlylater, by the Hittite king Muröili I during the course of his famous raid on Babylon, or even bythe subsequently installed Kassite dynasty.66 Moreover, there exist problems both inMesopotamian and Aegean absolute chronologies. In Mesopotamia, we are confronted withno less than five different chronologies starting from different datings of the First Dynasty ofBabylon and Hammurabi: the ultra-high, the high, the middle, the low and the ultra-lowchronologies.67 While the highest two and the lowermost one are increasingly ruled out, thereis as yet no consensus on the choice between the middle and the low chronologies.68 In theAegean, the traditional chronology as originally introduced by Evans69 came under attackfrom 1987 on, when P.P. Betancourt and S.W. Manning, starting from radiocarbon dates fromThera, suggested that the Aegean Late Bronze Age had begun considerably earlier than in thetraditional chronology.70 Since then the controversial discussion has not ended, and todaymodified forms of the traditional low chronology and the new high chronology are opposedto each other without reaching a consensus.71

According to the Mesopotamian middle chronology, the 35th year of Hammurabi’s reignwas 1757 BC; according to the Mesopotamian low chronology, it was 1691 BC. According tothe Mesopotamian middle chronology, Muröili I’s raid against Babylon entailing the end ofthe First Dynasty of Babylon happened in 1594 BC; according to the Mesopotamian lowchronology, it happened in 1531 BC. If the fragment from the Loom-Weight deposit atKnossos is of MM II date (Aegean high chronology: 1900/1875 - 1750/20 BC; Aegean lowchronology: 19th century - 1700/1650 BC), it is — assuming that Hammurabi’s 35th yearactually forms the terminus ante quem for the Mari parallels — earlier than the latter or roughlycontemporary to them, according to both possible combinations of chronologies(Mesopotamian middle and Aegean high chronologies or Mesopotamian and Aegean lowchronologies).72 If the Loom-Weight deposit fragment is of MM III date (Aegean highchronology: 1750/20 - 1700/1680 BC; Aegean low chronology: 1700/1650 - 1600 BC), it isroughly contemporary or somewhat later than the Mari parallels, when again using bothpossible combinations of chronologies. If the palace of Mari survived the conquest byHammurabi and remained in use, the painted stone imitations at Mari may be evenconsiderably later than the Loom-Weight Deposit fragment. In summarizing all of theevidence hitherto discussed, I think, with J.C. Crowley,73 that most probably the painted stone______________________65 Cf. KUPPER (supra n. 13) 14, 28; C.J. GADD, “Hammurabi and the End of his Dynasty,” in History of the

Middle East and the Aegean Region, c. 1800-1380 B.C., CAH, 3rd edition, Vol. II.1 (1973) 179-82, 189. 66 See Interconnections, 20. The list of regnal years of Hammurabi only reports the dismantling of the city walls

of Mari for his 35th year; cf. KUPPER (supra n. 13) 28. 67 A good survey is to be found in H. TADMOR, “The Chronology of the Ancient Near East in the Second

Millennium B.C.,” in B. MAZAR (ed.), The World History of the Jewish People, First Series: Ancient Times, Vol.II: Patriarchs (1970) 63-84, with bibliography p. 260, nn. 5-7.

68 Cf. W.G. DEVER, “The Chronology of Syria-Palestine in the Second Millennium B.C.E.: A Review ofCurrent Issues,” BASOR 288 (1992) 11; A. MALAMAT, “Mari and Hazor: The Implication for the MiddleBronze Age Chronology,” in M. BIETAK (ed.), High, Middle or Low? Acts of the Second InternationalColloquium on Absolute Chronology, Schloss Haindorf/Langenlois, 12-15 August 1990. Ägypten und Levante 3(1992) 122.

69 See A. FURUMARK, The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery (1941) 110, with references to Evans. 70 P.P. BETANCOURT, “Dating the Aegean Late Bronze Age with Radiocarbon,” Archaeometry 29 (1987) 45-49;

S.W. MANNING, “The Bronze Age Eruption of Thera: Absolute Dating, Aegean Chronology andMediterranean Cultural Interrelations,” JMA 7.2 (1987) 17-82.

71 See most recently P.M. WARREN, “The Minoan Civilisation of Crete and the Volcano of Thera,” Journal ofthe Ancient Chronology Forum 4 (1990/91) 29-39 (low chronology); MANNING (supra n. 58) 217-29 (highchronology).

72 As to the incompatibility of the Mesopotamian low and Aegean high chronologies, cf. MANNING (supra n.58) 219.

73 J.C. CROWLEY, The Aegean and the East: An Investigation into the Transference of Artistic Motifs between theAegean, Egypt, and the Near East in the Bronze Age (1989) 195, 202.


imitations at Mari form a Minoan intrusive motif in the palace’s painted decoration which isotherwise Mesopotamian in character74 — although showing some Egyptian inf luence75 — andwas painted in secco technique.76

Coming back to the Kabri f loor, the character of the decoration changes in other zones.Here yellow and dark blue f lowers are filling the squares in a checker pattern. The yellowcolour is much faded, and often it is no longer possible to distinguish the single motifs. Thesquares which contained the yellow f lowers are marked in grey on the plan Pl. Va. The darkblue painted f loral motifs depicted stylized linear iris-blossoms of the characteristic Minoan‘V-type,’77 elegantly curved sprays of more ‘naturalistic’ iris blossoms,78 as well as yellowcrocuses.79 All these f lowers frequently occur in Aegean wall-painting and potterydecoration,80 where they have a symbolic meaning.81 As A. Sarpaki convincingly states, inAegean iconography only a selection of the plants belonging to the actual Bronze Ageenvironment is depicted, this selection — together with the other environmental motifsselected — gives us the conceptual environment, tinged by cultural concepts, and shecontinues: “This is the reason why the repertoire of Aegean iconography is precise andrepetitive, exhibiting a type of koiné between areas which interacted culturally.”82 Therefore itis of interest that the crocus and iris apparently did not play any role in Canaaniteiconography,83 where other f lowers with symbolic meaning like the lotus of Egyptian originwere preferred.84

In 1990, when starting to excavate the doorway leading out from Hall 611 to the north,we saw that here the ashlar blocks of the original threshold had been robbed. In the last, verybrief, un-palatial phase of the use of the palace,85 the hole left by this activity was leveled with______________________74 Interconnections, 18, 98-101. 75 Ibid. 49, 96; and more decisively J. ARUZ in the discussion following our paper (infra).76 See MULLER (supra n. 25) 133. 77 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 198, pl. LI b; NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6) pl. 4. 78 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 198, pl. L b, LI a; NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6) pls. 5-6.79 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 198, pl. L b, LI a; NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6) pls. 5-6.80 See H. MÖBIUS, “Pf lanzenbilder der minoischen Kunst in botanischer Betrachtung,” JdI 48 (1933) 7-9, fig.

4 (crocus), 10-11, fig 5 C-D (iris); O. HÖCKMANN, “Theran Floral Style in Relation to that of Crete,” inC.G. DOUMAS (ed.), Thera and the Aegean World II, Papers presented at the Second International ScientificCongress, Santorini Greece, August 1978 (1980) 607-608, 609, fig. 2; I. DOUSKOS, “The Crocuses ofSantorini,” in CH.G. DOUMAS (ed.), Thera and the Aegean World II: Papers and Proceedings of the SecondInternational Scientific Congress, Santorini, Greece, August 1978 (1980) 141-46; S. AMIGUES, “Le crocus et lesafran sur une fresque de Thera,” RA (1988) 227-242 (crocus); W.-D. NIEMEIER, Die Palaststilkeramik vonKnossos: Stil, Chronologie und historischer Kontext (1985) 61-63, fig. 20 (crocus), 63-66, fig. 21 (iris); R.PORTER, “The Theran Wall Paintings’ Flora: Living Plants and Motifs - Sea Lily, Crocus, Iris, Ivy,” in WallPaintings of Thera.

81 As to the religious symbolism, cf. N. MARINATOS, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol (1993) 141,195; for other possible kinds of symbolism, see A. SARPAKI, “Plants chosen to be depicted on TheranWall-Paintings: What does it all mean?,” in Wall Paintings of Thera.

82 SARPAKI (supra n. 81). 83 As our partner at Tel Kabri, A. Kempinski, and other distinguished Israeli colleagues who are working in

the Bronze Age and visited the Tel Kabri excavations, like M. ARTZY, T. DOTHAN, A. MAZAR, B. MAZARand O. NEGBI, have confirmed. The term “Canaanite” here is used in the sense of R. AMIRAN, AncientPottery of the Holy Land (1969) 167-70, who has termed the area between the Amuq plain to the north andthe deserts to the south and to the east “Greater Canaan” for the Middle and Late Bronze Age, since theyform a largely uniform civilization with regional variations.

84 Cf., for instance, M. KAPLAN, The Origin and Distribution of Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware (1980) 33-34, pls. 126-127;E.D.T. VERMEULE and F.Z. WOLSKY, Toumba tou Skourou (1990) 386-87, pls. 182-83; J. ARUZ, “Imageryand Interconnections,” in Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World, 40-41, figs. 31-32; H. WEIPPERT,Palästina in vorhellenistischer Zeit, Handbuch der Archäologie, Vorderasien II.1 (1988) 302-307, figs. 3.51-3.53.

85 Evidence for the unpalatial character of this very last phase of the palace is provided by the robbing of theashlar blocks of the threshold in the doorway leading out of Hall 611 to the north and of the orthostatesalong the walls of Hall 611. Due to the latter activity, the painted plaster f loor of Hall 611 was destroyedalong its edges — see Pl. Va. Storage jars were put along part of the walls of Hall 611 after the robbing ofthe orthostates.


stones and lumps of mud lime, and the doorway finally was covered by a very coarse limef loor. In the filling underneath this lime f loor, we found, in the last days of the 1990 season,the first tiny fragments of wall painting. Analyses again executed by Cornale and Rosano’showed that they also were painted in true fresco technique, and that in addition to the naturalpigments used for painting the f loor, in the wall painting synthetic Egyptian blue was alsoused.86 During the 1991 season, the filling was completely excavated and more than 2000 verysmall fragments were recovered from it.87 By courtesy of the Israeli Authority of Antiquities,we were able to study the fragments for two years in Heidelberg. Our initial impression duringthe recovery proved to be correct: the fragments were not found as fallen from the wall, butin a secondary context, completely jumbled and wantonly crushed to be used together withother debris as filling material.

Little by little, we were able to make progress in identifying the motifs represented onthese tiny fragments. A series of them was painted with spotted brown colour, which on someof them runs out in knob-like protuberances (Pl. Vc). In Aegean art, knob-like protuberancesform a widespread convention for representing a rocky shore.88 In wall painting, we find thesame motif and a similar coloring in the rocky shore to the right of the ‘Departure Town’ or‘Polis IV’ of the south wall of the miniature fresco from the West House at Akrotiri onThera.89 On two of our fragments, a wavy strip is left white. The same enigmatic motifappears in the rugged red-brown terrain to the right of the ‘Departure Town’ or ‘Polis IV.’90

The representation of the rocky shore not only follows Minoan artistic conventions withoutparallels in the arts of the ancient Near East, but also shows a typical Aegean landscape.91 TheMediterranean coast of Israel looks very different and is almost exclusively formed by f latplains and sandy shores.92

More and more it became clear that the Kabri fragments belonged to a miniature frescowith a similar theme as the Theran one. Rough sea is represented in the ‘shipwreck scene’ onthe north wall of the Theran miniature fresco by a gray stippling of loop-like dashes.93 Wefind the same motif on some of the Kabri fragments (Pl. Vd). The curved grey-brown stripesnarrowing to one end probably belonged to boats.94 Other fragments of the Kabri wallpainting belonged to representations of architecture. They show isodomic masonry in whiteand blue as well as rounded so-called ‘beam ends’ (Pl. VIa). The same motifs appear in thetown representations on the Theran miniature fresco: isodomic masonry in white and blue,and in red and brown,95 which may represent ashlar masonry, mudbrick work, andor/plastered facades painted with imitations of ashlar masonry,96 as well as ‘beam ends’ abovethe gate of the ‘Arrival Town’ or ‘Polis V.’97 Representations of isodomic masonry are notrestricted to the Aegean, but also exist in the Mari murals. But there they are pink-orange and

______________________86 NIEMEIER et al. (supra n. 32) 24*. On Egyptian Blue and its introduction to Crete as early as MM II, see

IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 16. 87 B. and W.-D. NIEMEIER, “The Fragments of a Minoan Wall Painting from Locus 723,” in A. KEMPINSKI

and W.-D. NIEMEIER (eds.), Excavations at Kabri 6: Preliminary Report of 1991 Season (1992) 8*-11*. 88 Cf. E. HALLAGER, The Master Impression: A Clay Sealing from the Greek-Swedish Excavations at Kastelli, Khania

(1985) 16, with references. 89 DOUMAS (supra n. 41) 71, fig. 36; cf. L. MORGAN, The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean

Culture and Iconography (1988) 34; TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) 259-60. The town next to the rocky shoreis designated as ‘Departure Town’ by MORGAN, op. cit. 12-13, and as ‘Polis IV’ by TELEVANTOU, op. cit.199.

90 Cf. MORGAN (supra n. 89) 34, who thinks that it may represent a dyke for irrigation. 91 Cf. Ibid. 34.92 Cf. J. ROGERSON, Atlas of the Bible (1985) 58-59. 93 DOUMAS (supra n. 41) 62-63, fig. 29. 94 Cf. the boats on the south wall of the Theran miniature fresco: DOUMAS (supra n. 41) 79, fig. 38;

TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) 278, colour pl. 66. 95 DOUMAS (supra n. 41) 71 fig. 36, 84 fig. 47, 85 fig. 48; TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) 264-74, colour pls. 25,

43, 44, 53, 56, 57, 67, 68. 96 See MORGAN (supra n. 89) 71-74. 97 Ibid. 75, fig. 108; TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) colour pl. 68.


undoubtedly represent mudbricks.98 The round ‘beam ends’ are a typical Aegean feature,seemingly without parallel in the Near East, and have a religious connotation.99 Thus,apparently an Aegean town like those on the Thera miniature fresco was represented on theKabri fresco, as hypothetically reconstructed in Pl. VIa. There were also fragmentsrepresenting f lora and fauna, of which we here illustrate the charming miniaturerepresentation of a f lying swallow (Pl. VIb). Representations of swallows are known fromThera, Crete and the early Mycenaean mainland,100 but to our knowledge not from theLevant. Two of the Kabri fresco fragments show parallel horizontal lines with alternatingcurved triangles and dots between them. This is Evans’ ‘notched plume’ motif,101 which isapplied in different media of Aegean art to the wings of griffins and sphinxes.102 The S-spiralon another fragment may have belonged to the neck of a griffin. Thus, we have hypotheticallyreconstructed a griffin in f lying gallop and with S-spirals on the neck, similar to that on theeast wall of the Theran miniature fresco (Pl. VIc).103 The winged Griffin and Sphinx arefabulous creatures which certainly did not originate in Crete, but were introduced to the islandfrom the Levant.104 In the Aegean they got, however, some characteristic new features whichthey did not have before, among them the ‘notched plume’ wings.105 Thus the griffin (orsphinx) of the Kabri miniature fresco appears to be an iconographical re-import to the Levant,and all preserved motifs of the Kabri miniature fresco have a purely Aegean character.

Where had the Kabri miniature fresco been situated? We think that the material of thefill containing the wall fresco fragments was not brought from elsewhere but was formed bydebris from this area. Thus, the miniature fresco probably belonged, together with the paintedplaster f loor, to the interior design of Hall 611 and ran along the wall in the zone above thedoors in a similar position to that of the miniature fresco in room 5 of the West House atAkrotiri.106

3. The Tell el-Dabca Frescoes (1992 - Present)

At the end of our paper at the Thalassa conference in spring 1990, after having discussedthe Alalakh fresco fragments and the painted plaster f loor at Tel Kabri, we speculated thatAegean frescoes may have existed at more Canaanite sites.107 For this M. Bietak ascribed an

______________________98 B. PIERRE-MULLER, “Une grande peinture des appartements royaux du palais de Mari (salles 219-220),”

M.A.R.I., Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires 6 (1990) 484-85, fragments M 4592-94, 4599, p. 524-25. 99 Cf. MORGAN (supra n. 89) 75-77. 100 The swallow in particular often appears in Theran wall painting and vase painting — cf. S.A. IMMERWAHR,

“Swallows and Dolphins at Akrotiri: Some Thoughts on the Relationship of Vase Painting to Wall Painting,”in TAW III, vol. I, 238-41. In Crete we find it on a series of seals, some of them depicting cult scenes — cf.J.P. RUUSKANEN, Birds on Aegean Bronze Age Seals: A Study of Representation (1992) 56-57. The fact that wehave only one fresco representation of a swallow from Crete, EVANS (supra n. 37) 379, fig. 211, probably isdue to accidents of preservation. The swallows on a gold foil from Shaft Grave III at Mycenae, G. KARO,Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (1930/33) 47, no. 24, pl. 21, are of Minoan inf luence.

101 EVANS (supra n. 24) 548-51. 102 Cf. C. d’ALBIAC, “The ‘Diagnostic’ Wings of Monsters,” in: C. MORRIS (ed.), Klados. Essays in Honour of

J.N. Coldstream. BICS Suppl. 63 (1995) 64-67. 103 DOUMAS (supra n. 41) 65, fig. 32; TELEVANTOU (supra n. 41) 252-54, colour pl. 47. 104 Griffin: H. FRANKFORT, “Notes on the Cretan Griffin,” BSA 37 (1936/37) 106-122; A. BISI, Il grifone:

storia di un motivo iconografico nell’Antico Oriente Mediterraneo (1965) 171-72, 193; MORGAN (supra n. 89)50-53; CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 46-51, 271-73. Sphinx: A. DESSENNE, Le sphinx, étude iconographique: desorigines à la fin du second millénaire (1957) 122-29; CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 40-44, 271-72.

105 DESSENNE (supra n. 104) 130 no. 294, 133 no. 299; BISI (supra n. 104) 193-95; CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 44,48.

106 For the reconstruction of room 5 of the West House at Akrotiri, see CH.A. TELEVANTOU, “New Light onthe West House Wall-Paintings,” in TAW III, vol. I, 313-14, figs. 4-6; for an attempt to reconstruct Hall 611,see W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Tel Kabri: Aegean Fresco Paintings in a Canaanite Palace,” in S. GITIN (ed.), RecentExcavations in Israel: A View to the West, Archaeological Institute of America, Colloquia and Conference Papers No.1 (1995) 10, fig. 1.14.

107 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 199.


“almost mantic foresight” to us after he had found fresco fragments with strong Minoanaffinities at Tell el-Dabca in the eastern Nile Delta.108 As the earlier Austrian excavationsunder the directorship of Bietak at Tell el Dabca and other excavations in the eastern NileDelta have demonstrated, the Hyksos rule of the Second Intermediate Period followed aconsiderable inf lux of Canaanites from Syria-Palestine, and Tell el-Dabca was the Hyksoscapital Avaris.109 From 1989 on, the main excavations at Tell el-Dabca/Avaris have focussedon Ezbet Helmi, at the western edge of the site. The discovery of “Minoan wall-paintings” atEzbet Helmi was first announced in 1992.110 Several thousand fragments were found in areasH/I and H/IV.111 These all came from secondary contexts, unstratified from the upperlevels, from filling levels of the 18th Dynasty, and from walls and foundation trenches ofreparations and additions to the mudbrick platform of a monumental building,112 probably apalatial fortress.113 With good reason, the excavators think that the frescoes from which thesefragments come originally had adorned walls of this monumental building,114 which first wasdated by them to the late Hyksos period before the conquest of Avaris by Ahmose.115 As P.Jánosi has demonstrated, the position of this palatial fortress next to the Pelusiac branch ofthe Nile fits very well with the description on Kamose’s second stela of the women fearfullylooking down from the roof of the palace to Kamose’s f leet on the river during his(unsuccessful) attack against Avaris.116

More fresco fragments were found in Areas H/II and H/III, ca. 200 m to the southwestof area H/I. According to the preliminary reports, the architectural remnants probablybelonged to two major structures, a Hyksos palace followed by an early 18th Dynasty one.117

The fresco fragments in Area H/II also came from mixed contexts and were dated by theexcavators “either to the late Hyksos period or to the early 18th Dynasty.”118 The only in situfinds of lime plaster were made in Area H/III. On the lowermost part of the facade of theHyksos period building, lime plaster without preserved representative painting but “typical ofMinoan wall painting” was found.119 In the level of the early 18th Dynasty, fresco fragments

______________________108 M. BIETAK, “Die Wandmalereien aus Tell el-Dabca/Ezbet Helmi: Erste Eindrücke,” Ägypten und Levante 4

(1994) 56. For the use of fresco technique together with al secco technique, see Ibid. 46. 109 Tell el-Dabca: M BIETAK, “Avaris and Piramesse: Archaeological Exploration in the Eastern Nile Delta,”

Proceedings of the British Academy 65 (1979) 218-68; Idem, “Canaanites in the Eastern Nile Delta,” in A.F.RAINEY (ed.), Egypt, Israel, Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period (1987) 41-56;Idem, Avaris, The Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dabca (1996) 10-67. Other sites: W.G.DEVER, “Relations between Syria-Palestine and Egypt in the ‘Hyksos’ period,” in J.N. TUBB (ed.), Palestinein the Bronze and Iron Ages. Papers in Honour of O. Tufnell (1985) 71, with references; C.A. REDMOUNT, “Potsand People in the Egyptian Delta: Tell el-Mashkuta and the Hyksos,” JMA 8.2 (1995) 61-89.

110 M. BIETAK, “Minoan Wall-Paintings unearthed at Ancient Avaris,” Egyptian Archaeology 2 (1992) 26-28. 111 For the location of these areas and others which will be mentioned later, see the most recent published plans

of Ezbet Helmi: BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 69, fig. 55. 112 P. JÁNOSI, “Die stratigraphische Position und Verteilung der minoischen Wandfragmente in den

Grabungsplätzen H/I und H/IV von Tell el-Dabca,” in Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World,63-71.

113 P. JÁNOSI, “Tell el-Dabca - Ezbet Helmi: Vorbericht über den Grabungsplatz H/I (1989-1992) Ägypten undLevante 4 (1994) 31, 37; Reconstruction: BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 71, fig. 58.

114 BIETAK (supra n. 110); Idem (supra. n. 108) 44; Idem, “Connections between Egypt and the Minoan World:New Results from Tell el-Dabca/Avaris,” in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant, 20; JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 32;Idem (supra n. 112) 66.

115 BIETAK (supra n. 110) 26; Idem (supra n. 108) 55-58; Idem (supra n. 114) 20; JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 27-33;Idem (supra n. 112) 66.

116 JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 37 with n. 94. The relevant passage of the text of Kamose’s second stela: J.B.PRITCHARD (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition (1969) 554;HABACHI (supra n. 22) 34.

117 BIETAK (supra n. 114) 23; M. BIETAK and N. MARINATOS, “The Minoan Wall Paintings from Avaris,” inHyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World, 49; BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 70.

118 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 49. 119 Ibid.


were found on both sides of a wall “concentrating around a portal.”120 From thestratigraphical evidence in Area H/III, M. Bietak and N. Marinatos, in 1995, came to theconclusion that “Minoan wall painting existed in Avaris both during the late Hyksos periodand the early 18th Dynasty.”121

The fragments from Area H/I-H/IV at Ezbet Helmi instantly created much sensation,since among the scenes depicted on them are spectacular representations of bull leaping soclosely identified with Minoan cult and culture (Pl. VId).122 Other categories of motifs on thefragments having parallels in the Aegean are those representing elements of the landscape,like barren hills,123 ‘Easter egg’ pebbles which are very much a Minoan iconographic form (Pl.VId, upper left),124 and plants, most of which are at home in the Aegean and in Egypt and arerepresented in both arts, but some of which are alien to Egypt and are not depicted in Egyptian

______________________120 Ibid.; M. BIETAK, “Le début de la XVIIIe Dynastie et les Minoens à Avaris,” Bulletin de la Société Française

d’Égyptologie 135 (1996) 14. 121 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 49. 122 BIETAK (supra n. 110) figs. on pp. 26-27; Idem (supra n. 108) 46-49, frontispiece, pls. 15-16; BIETAK and

MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 49-54, figs. 2-4. As to the close identification of bull leaping with Minoan cultand culture, cf. MARINATOS (supra n. 81) 218-20; Eadem, “The ‘Export’ Significance of MinoanBull-Hunting and Bull-Leaping Scenes,” Ägypten und Levante 4 (1994) 98-93; L. MORGAN, “MinoanPainting and Egypt: The Case of Tell el-Dabca,” in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant, 40, with references in n.97; M.C. SHAW, “Aegean Sponsors and Artists: Ref lections of their Roles in the Patterns of Distribution ofThemes and Representational Conventions in the Murals,” in Techne, 497-99. D. COLLON, “Bull-Leapingin Syria,” Ägypten und Levante 4 (1994) 81-88, has suggested that the Minoan bull-sports had their immediateantecedents in Syria, where a group of glyptic representations depict bull-sports. The only example from adatable archaeological context is a seal impression from the Level VII palace at Alalakh, Ibid. 81, pl. 1,2.Thus the terminus ante quem is formed by the destruction of Alalakh VII in the later 17th century or around1600 BC (cf. supra with nn. 20-23). For stylistic reasons, Collon argues that the seal was probably madearound 1700 BC, perhaps in a royal workshop in Aleppo; see D. COLLON, “The Aleppo Workshop: A Sealcutter’s Workshop in Syria in the Second Half of the 18th Century B.C.,” Ugarit-Forschungen 13 (1982) 33-43.Since Collon is using a rather high version of the middle chronology, the date may be lowered to the firsthalf of the 17th century BC. As opposed to Collon’s suggestion, we would agree with BIETAK (supra n.108) 56-57, ARUZ (supra n. 84) 36-39, and SHAW, op. cit. 499 n. 104, in seeing Minoan inf luence in thoseSyrian seal representations. As Aruz has pointed out, these and other seals of Collon’s ‘Aleppo’ group showdecisive stylistic innovations: the animals break away from any ground line and the setting of the scene, thetraditional schemes of composition, are ignored. As to the bull leaping scenes, in two of them, on theAlalakh VII sealing and on a cylinder seal, formerly in the Erlenmeyer collection, now on loan to theMetropolitan Museum (COLLON, Ägypten und Levante 4 [supra] pl. 1,3; ARUZ [supra n. 84] 37 fig. 16, 38figs. 17 and 19), the bull-leapers are symmetrically doubled in an unrealistic way, apparently indicating thatthe iconographic motif was adopted from Crete, but probably not the actual ritual sport of bull-leaping.Bietak sees some problem in the fact that we do not have contemporary bull-leaping scenes from Crete. Butwhen adopting the high Aegean chronology — to which the present authors are tending — this problemdisappears and the Syrian seals in question are roughly contemporary to the oldest preserved Minoanrepresentation of actual bull-leaping from the MM III-LM IA Knossian Temple Repositories; cf. A.J. EVANS,PM III (1930) 218, fig. 149. As to the dating of the Temple Repositories in MM IIIB - LM IA, see I. PINI,“The Hieroglyphic Deposit and the Temple Repositories at Knossos,” in T.G. PALAIMA (ed.), Aegean Seals,Sealings and Administration. Proceedings of the NEH-Dickson Conference of the Program in Aegean Scripts andPrehistory of the Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, January 11-13, 1989. Aegaeum 5 (1990)46-53; NIEMEIER (supra n. 24) 79. The date of the MM IIIB-LM IA transition according to the Aegean highchronology is ca. 1700/1680 - 1675/50 BC; see MANNING (supra n. 58) 217-20.

123 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 33 pointing to parallels from Kea and Thera. The fragment mentioned by Morganis now published in a water colour: BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) fig. 15.

124 Another example: BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 59, fig. 14. For the ‘Easter egg’ pebbles beinga Minoan iconographic form, see MORGAN (supra n. 89) 34; Eadem (supra n. 122) 33.


art, like lilies125 and possibly olive trees (if Bietak’s identification is correct).126 The animalsin the Ezbet Helmi paintings, lions, leopards, antelopes, and dogs, are all found in Egyptian aswell as in Aegean art.127 But their f lying gallop is a typical movement expressing animal speedin Aegean art and not introduced to Egypt before late in the Hyksos period.128 Two animalsat home in the Nile and often depicted in Egyptian art, the crocodile and thehippopotamus,129 do not appear in the Ezbet Helmi fragments yet known. Fragments of thewings of two griffins, one large-scale and one small-scale, have been identified at EzbetHelmi.130 Of both wings, only the upper edge is preserved. Thus it is not certain if the wingshad ‘notched plumes.’ But the hanging spirals appear to indicate that the griffins were ofAegean type. Most recently the head of the smaller griffin has been identified.131

As to the representations of human figures, beards like that painted in parallel lines onthe fragment of a near life-size head132 very seldom appear in Aegean wall painting.133 Butother features of the head have good parallels in Aegean wall painting, like the internalmarkings in sinuous lines of the ear as well as the eye of a more rounded type than in Egyptianart and with the iris and pupil painted in red ochre with a black dot.134 Bietak and Marinatosinterpret the head as that of an Aegean bearded priest, with comparisons to a number ofrepresentations on sealstones.135 Two men of small size, painted against a facade, have beenidentified as belonging to the same composition,136 which, according to Bietak and Marinatos,was probably a procession like that of the north wall of the Theran miniature fresco or thaton the Kea miniatures.137 The movement and the position of the arms of the ‘runner’ iscomparable to that of the man on a fragment of the Tylissos miniature fresco,138 as well as ofthe ‘Captain of the Blacks’139 and another male figure on Knossian fresco fragments.140 Tworather well preserved bull leapers from two different compositions have Minoan hairstyles,with long curly hair, and wear a bracelet on the upper arm (one on Pl. VId, lower left).141 This

______________________125 Ibid. with references in n. 32; illustration: BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 59 fig. 14. 126 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 45-46, no. F 1, pl. 14 A. The earliest finds of olives in Egypt date from the 14th

century BC and it may not have been planted until yet later; see. L. MANNICHE, An Ancient Egyptian Herbal(1989) 128-29. MORGAN (supra n. 122) 33-34 doubts the olive tree identification and thinks that myrtle maybe depicted. Myrtle is thought to have been used by the Egyptians for its medicinal and aromatic properties,but is not generally included among the garden plants of Egyptian wall paintings; see MORGAN (supra n.122) 34 with references in n. 43. In Aegean wall painting, myrtle appears rather often (if correctlyidentified); see Ibid. 33-34 with references in nn. 39-42.

127 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 34-36. Published are the fragments of a leopard: BIETAK (supra n. 108) 50-51, no.F 9, pl. 19 A; BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 61, fig. 16; of an antelope: BIETAK (supra n. 114)24, pl. 4.1; and of a dog: BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 55, fig. 6.

128 KANTOR, 92-97, 106-107; Interconnections, 26, 77, 155; CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 113-17; MORGAN (supran. 122) 36-38.

129 See E. BRUNNER-TRAUT, “Krokodil,” Lexikon der Ägyptologie III (1980) 791-802; L. STÖRK, “Nilpferd,”Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV (1982) 501-506.

130 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 52-53, nos. F 15 (small-scale) and F 32 (large-scale) pl. 21 A-B. 131 See BIETAK (supra n. 120) 22, fig. 12. 132 BIETAK (supra n. 110) 49, no. F 6, pl. 17 A; BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 55-56, fig. 7.133 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 38, with reference in n. 78, knows only one example in the miniature fresco from

Thera. 134 Cf. Ibid. 38, with references in nn. 76-77.135 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 55-56, figs. 8-9. Cf. also the ‘portrait’ seal representations of

priests, J.H. BETTS, “The Seal from Shaft Grave Gamma,” TUAS 6 (1981) 74-83, with references;MARINATOS (supra n. 81) 128-29, figs. 89-91.

136 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 55-57, figs. 9. 10. 137 Thera: MARINATOS (supra n. 41) 59-60, fig. 38; DOUMAS (supra n. 41) pl. 79. Kea: L. MORGAN, “Island

Iconography: Thera, Kea, Milos,” in TAW III, vol. I, 254-57, figs. 1-4. 138 M.C. SHAW, “The Miniature Fresco of Tylissos reconsidered,” AA (1972) 172 no. 3, 174 fig. 3, 184 fig. 13. 139 EVANS (supra n. 37) colour pl. XIII opposite p. 756. 140 A.J. EVANS, The Knossos Fresco Atlas (1967) pl. VI, fig. 11.141 BIETAK (supra n. 108) frontispiece, pls. 15 B. 16.


is a typical Minoan custom,142 as is also the wearing of a seal at the wrist by one of the two.143

On the latter, a kilt of Minoan type is also preserved,144 as are the white boots. More whiteboots with parallels in the Aegean are extant on other fragments.145 As pointed out by L.Morgan, the fact that the Keftiu in Egyptian tombs are depicted wearing white boots showsthat the latter were characteristic of Aegean men.146 Further, there are fragments of at leastthree acrobats from Ezbet Helmi, apparently performing in a grove of palm trees, of whichone is published.147 Acrobats occur in Minoan as well as in Egyptian art,148 but the acrobatof the published fragment wears a Minoan kilt, white boots and a headgear of Minoan typewith a waz-lily.149 The so-called ‘African’ on a fresco fragment from Thera, recentlyreconstructed by Marinatos as an acrobat wearing a plumed headgear and performing next toa palm tree,150 forms a parallel in Aegean wall painting.

Associated with the bull leaping scenes of the fragments integrated in the reconstructionon Pl. VId are two interesting ornaments: a maze-like or labyrinth pattern as background anda half-rosette and triglyph frieze as dado.151 Maze-like patterns occur in Egypt and in theAegean,152 but the half-rosette and triglyph frieze is a characteristic Aegean motif153 withreligious connotation.154 Thus all motifs of the fresco fragments from area H/I and H/IV atTell el-Dabca/Ezbet Helmi have parallels in the Aegean. Several of them also occur inEgyptian art, but others are of distinctive Aegean character: the bull leaping, the f lying gallop,the dress and jewellery, the triglyph and rosette frieze.

4. The Re-examination of the Alalakh Frescoes (1994-1996)

After all these exciting fresco fragments had been found at Tel Kabri and Tellel-Dabca/Avaris, it was even more of a desideratum to restudy the Alalakh fragments. Forsome time we had tried to find them, and had even travelled to the Antakya museum wheremost of the finds from Alalakh are kept. But then Aharon Kempinski heard from P.R.S.Moorey that the fresco fragments found by Woolley in Yarim-Lim’s palace of Alalakh Level VIIare kept in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, to which they were handed in 1957 by theBritish Museum in London. This was for us an irony of fate, since we had visited theAshmolean several times for studies in the collection and in the Evans archive, but we hadalways gotten stuck in the Evans room and had never entered the next room in which theAlalakh fragments are exhibited. Participation at the Spring 1994 Oxford colloquium in

______________________142 Cf. M. EFFINGER, Minoischer Schmuck (1996) 62, with references. 143 BIETAK (supra n. 108) pl. 15 B (photograph); Idem (supra n. 114) pl. 1,1 (water colour). As to the Minoan

custom of wearing seals at the wrist, see J.G. YOUNGER, “Non-Sphragistic Uses of Minoan-MycenaeanSealstones and Rings,” Kadmos 16 (1977) 141-59; Idem, “Representations of Minoan-Mycenaean Jewellery,”in EIKVN, 272-73; EFFINGER (supra n. 142) 85-86. As to peculiarities of the Tell el-Dabca bull-leaper withthe seal at the wrist which led Younger to doubt that it was painted by a Minoan artist, see infra with n. 247.

144 BIETAK (supra n. 108) pl. 16. As to P. Rehak’s view according to which this kilt is a miscomprehendedMinoan ‘breechcloth,’ see infra with n. 260.

145 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 52, no. F 13, pl. 20 B; as to its identification as a boot, see MORGAN (supra n. 122)39 with references to parallels from Knossos, Tylissos, and Melos.

146 Ibid. 39. On the boots in the Keftiu representations, see J. VERCOUTTER, L’Égypte et le monde égéenpréhellénique (1956) 289-95, pls. XXX-XXXIV.

147 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 49-50, no. F 7, pl. 17 B; Idem (supra n. 114) 24, pl. 3,1.148 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 35, 39-40, fig. 4-6. 149 See references in Ibid. 39, with references in nn. 84-85. 150 N. MARINATOS, “The ‘African’ of Thera reconsidered,” OpAth 17 (1988) 137-41; Eadem, Acrobats in Minoan

Art (forthcoming).151 See the photographs of the actual fragments, BIETAK (supra n. 108) 47-48, no. F 4, pls. 14 D, 15 B, p. 51,

no. F 10, pl. 18 B. Another fragment shows a diagonal maze-like pattern: Ibid. 46, no. F 2, pl. 14 B, C. 152 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 43-44, with references in nn. 149-52. 153 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 51 with references in n. 140; SHAW (supra n. 122) 499-504.154 EVANS (supra n. 37) 605-608; W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Zur Deutung des Thronraumes im Palast von Knossos,”

AM 101 (1986) 84-85; SHAW (supra n. 122) 500.


honour of Sinclair Hood, who as a young archaeologist had been Woolley’s collaborator atAlalakh in 1947-1948,155 gave us the opportunity to study the Alalakh fragments and todiscuss them with distinguished colleagues.156

We shall discuss here two groups of fragments for which we have produced newreconstructions. A restored panel, probably coming from the NE part of the salon, has at theupper edge a horizontal violet band framed by two yellow-brown ones outlined in black.157

Near to the left edge of the panel, the yellow-brown horn of a bull is preserved and above it,on the corner of the restored panel, part of the black curved outline of an object. The exactupright position of the horn appears to indicate that not a living animal but rather an isolatedbull’s head or a bucranium, seen from the front, was represented, as suggested by Woolley.158

He found it tempting to see in the bull design an analogy with Knossos, but then preferred anorth-Syrian origin for the motif, pointing to the tradition of the frontal bull’s head goingback to the pottery of the Tell Halaf culture. To our knowledge there is, however, nocontinuity with regard to the frontal bull’s head motif in the Near East between Tell Halaf andthe wall paintings from the palace of the 15th century BC at Nuzi,159 where this motif possiblyis inf luenced by Minoan prototypes.160 In Crete, frontal bulls’ heads are to be found on sealsfrom MM IB-II on161 (high chronology: ca. 1925/1900 - 1750/20 BC; low chronology: 19thcentury - ca. 1700/1650 BC), in vase painting from MM III on162 (high chronology: ca.1750/20 - 1700/1680 BC; low chronology: ca. 1700/1650 - 1600 BC), as also in wallpainting.163

What was the rounded object between the horns of the Alalakh fragment?Representations of frontal bulls’ heads and (more seldom) bucrania with rounded objectsfrequently occur in Aegean art. In Minoan vase painting, seal representations, and thin goldencut-outs from Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae inf luenced by Minoan iconography, we see doubleaxes between the horns,164 while on inlaid metal vessels we find rosettes instead of the doubleaxes.165 The curve of the black object at the edge of the Alalakh fresco fragment in questionis rather f lat. If reconstructed as a rosette, this would be very large. Thus we consider thereconstruction as a double axe to be more probable (Pl. VIe). If this is correct, it would formstrong evidence for a Minoan character of the fresco.

______________________155 H.V.F. WINSTONE, Woolley of Ur: The Life of Sir Leonard Woolley (1990) 249-56.156 Beside P.R.S. MOOREY, to whom we are grateful for all his help, these colleagues were P.P. BETANCOURT,

R. LAFFINEUR, N. MARINATOS, O. NEGBI, J. SCHÄFER, W. SCHIERING, and J. WEINGARTEN. 157 For a colour photograph of the fragment, see NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n . 6) pl. 12.158 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 231. 159 R.F.S. STARR, Nuzi (1937/39) 143-44, pls. 128-29; Interconnections, 33, 113-14, fig. 51.160 Cf. CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 175-76, 188. 161 MM IB-II: P. YULE, Early Cretan Seals: A Study of Chronology (1980) 123-24, pl. 4, motif 3 A. MM III-LM I: A.

ONASSOGLOU, Die ‘talismanischen’ Siegel. CMS Suppl. 2 (1985) 120-28, pl. XLVI. LM I: J. WEINGARTEN,“Aspects of Tradition and Innovation in the Work of the Zakro Master,” L’iconographie minoenne. BCHSuppl. XI (1985) 169-73, fig. 1.

162 J.H. CROUWEL and W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Eine knossische Palaststilscherbe mit Bukranion-Darstellung ausMykene,” AA (1989) 6-7, figs. 3-4.

163 EVANS (supra n. 37) 742, fig. 475; Idem (supra n. 122) 40-41, fig. 25 a, d. According to Evans, these bulls’heads formed ornaments on garments of large, seated female figures, whereas STEVENSON SMITH(Interconnections, 80) thought that they may have belonged to representations of architecture. If this is true,they reproduce much larger prototypes.

164 Vase painting: CROUWEL and NIEMEIER (supra n. 162) 7, figs. 3-4. Seal representations: EVANS (supran. 37) 619, n. 1; N. PLATON and I. PINI, CMS II.3: Irakleion, Archäologisches Museum, Die Siegel derNeupalastzeit (1984) 14, no. 11; M.A.V. GILL, in I. PINI, CMS XI: Kleinere europäische Sammlungen (1988) 268,no. 259; V.E.G. KENNA and E. THOMAS, CMS XIII: Nordamerika II, kleinere Sammlungen (1974) 17, no. 15.Golden cut-outs from Shaft Grave IV: KARO (supra n. 100) 91-92, nos. 353-54, pl. 44. As to the Minoaninf luence in these pieces, cf. E.T. VERMEULE, The Art of the Shaft Graves at Mycenae (1975) 48-49.

165 VERCOUTTER (supra n. 146) 306, pl. 35, no. 231 (representation of a silver Keftiu cup in the tomb ofSenmut in Egyptian Thebes); E.N. DAVIS, The Vapheio Cups and Aegean Gold and Silver Ware (1977) 118-23,no. 24, fig. 95, 263-66, no. 109, figs. 210-12.


Two other fresco pieces had been found together in situ as fallen from the salon.166

Woolley thought that “if they do not actually fit one to the other they must be practicallycontinuous.” He saw on one of the fragments the trunk, and on the other the foliage, of atree. W. Stevenson Smith reconstructed in a drawing the tree imagined by Woolley.167 Thisreconstruction has been accepted and re-illustrated by several scholars, including ourselves.168

Nevertheless it is wrong, as our investigations demonstrated.169 The fragment on the right inStevenson Smith’s reconstruction is reproduced much too small. Moreover, it has to berotated ninety degrees, as indicated by a ladder pattern which also occurs near the upper edgeof the other fragment. At first we thought that the ladder pattern of the fragment to be turnedwould be the continuation of the ladder pattern on the other fragment. There, a wavy whiteband with doubled outline ‘hangs down’ from the ladder pattern. This is an example of acharacteristic Minoan phenomenon called “umschliessende Bildform” (encirclingcomposition) by W. Schiering,170 “concentric composition” by Stevenson Smith,171 and“all-embracing landscape” by S.A. Immerwahr,172 in which terrain motifs also project fromabove. As Schiering has demonstrated, the multiple wavy outlines of these projections areinf luenced by the marbling of gypsum slabs.173 Next to the ladder pattern of the otherfragment, we distinguished a different terrain motif: tight rounded units representing pebblesor boulders.174 Similar terrain motifs can be seen on the bases of a faience panel from theKnossian Temple Repositories showing an agrimi (Cretan wild goat) suckling her calf,175 ofthe LM IB-II relief fresco with the charging bull from the Northern Entrance Passage atKnossos,176 and of the bull-hunt and bull-tethering scenes of the two Vapheio gold cups.177

The reliefs of the Vapheio cups are especially interesting, since motifs comparable to the wavyband of the other Alalakh fragment are hanging down from the upper edges of their friezes.E.N. Davis has interpreted these hanging motifs as representations of clouds,178 but this is notcertain.179 Be that as it may, the ‘pebbles’ and ‘clouds’ of the Vapheio cups form interestingparallels to the corresponding motifs on the two Alalakh fresco fragments. Thus we hadidentified the lower and the upper edge of the frieze. But what was depicted in the frieze?Here we had a great surprise. When having a closer look on the supposed foliage of the treewe realized that it shows the ‘notched plume’ motif, and thus the ‘foliage’ in fact is the wing-tipof a griffin. On the other fragment, we identified more ‘notched plume’ motifs from thelower, narrower part of the wing, as well as parts of the griffin’s white body. Ourreconstruction (Pl. VIf) shows a reclining griffin of Aegean type. As in our reconstruction,ladder patterns are framing Knossian and Theran frescoes from above and/or below.180 Theslender curved lines in groups of three above the ladder pattern of the left fragment,

______________________166 WOOLLEY (supra n. 3) 230-31, pls. 36 b, 37 b-c. 167 Interconnections, 103, fig. 137. 168 NUNN (supra n. 25) 93, fig. 171; NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 193-94, pl. 46 c; E.H. CLINE, “Tinker, Tailor,

Soldier, Sailor: Minoans and Mycenaeans abroad,” in Politeia, 269. 169 Which are more thoroughly described in NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6).170 SCHIERING (supra n. 8) 3.171 Interconnections, 73-77.172 IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 41-42. 173 W. SCHIERING, “Steine und Malerei in der minoischen Kunst,” JdI 75 (1960) 26-34; Idem (supra n. 8) 9-11. 174 See the colour-photograph in NIEMEIER and NIEMEIER (supra n. 6) pl. 19. 175 EVANS (supra n. 24) 510, fig. 366. As to the MM IIIB-LM IA dating of the Temple Repositories, cf. supra n.

122. 176 EVANS (supra n. 122) 171-72, fig. 115; Idem (supra n. 43) 16-17, fig. 8. As to the probable LM IB-II dating,

see B. KAISER, Untersuchungen zum minoischen Relief (1976) 287-89. 177 S. MARINATOS and M. HIRMER, Kreta, Thera und das mykenische Hellas (1973) pls. 200-207; DAVIS (supra

n. 165) figs. 1-10. Roll-out of the entire compositions: F. SCHACHERMEYR, Die minoische Kultur des altenKreta (1964) pl. 49 b-c.

178 DAVIS (supra n. 165) 20-23.179 See WALBERG (supra n. 8) 129-30. 180 Knossos: EVANS (supra n. 24) 549, fig. 400; IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) pls. 22, 41, 43. Thera: DOUMAS

(supra n. 41) 174-75, pls. 136-37.


interpreted as stalks of missing f lowers by Woolley, instead formed part of the imitation ofstone inlays combined in some Minoan frescoes with ladder pattern frames.181

5. The Problem of the Date of the Tell el-Dabca Frescoes

From 1990 on, we suggested that the Kabri and the Alalakh frescoes were painted bytravelling Aegean specialists,182 and from 1992 on Bietak and Marinatos did the same for theAvaris frescoes.183 Following the identification of the Hyksos as Canaanites and the initialdating of the fresco fragments from Ezbet Helmi Areas H/I and H/IV to the late Hyksosperiod, they have, together with the Alalakh and Kabri frescoes, been interpreted by a seriesof scholars as a phenomenon of the Hyksos period and have caused speculation about somepossible special relationship between the Canaanites/Hyksos of the later Syro-PalestinianMiddle Bronze Age and the Minoan world.184 Until most recently Bietak belonged to thisgroup of scholars,185 editing the Metropolitan Museum Symposium of November 1993 on thetopic “Trade, Power and Exchange: Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World.”186

Before we discuss the possible background and reasons for this fascinatingphenomenon, we have to consider two aspects shaking this scenario. The first aspect has beenproduced by Bietak himself. As discussed supra, for several years he had dated the frescofragments from Ezbet Helmi Area H/I and H/IV to the late Hyksos period, whereas accordingto him frescoes certainly to be dated to the early 18th Dynasty had been only found in AreaH/III. Therefore, the participants in a colloquium in memory of Aharon Kempinski inNovember 1995 in Jerusalem were rather surprised and confused when in his paper Bietak,without giving further explanation, changed the dating of the fragments from Area H/I andH/IV to the early 18th Dynasty. In a Post Scriptum to the 1995 preliminary report on theAvaris frescoes, Bietak and Marinatos stated “that excavations in 1994 and 1995 opened thepossibility to date the platform construction H/I perhaps into the very beginning of the 18thDynasty.”187 In his most recent publications of 1996, Bietak now firmly ascribes the palatialfortress in Area H/I to Ahmose, after his conquest of Avaris, and — dismissing thestratigraphical evidence according to which fresco painting existed in Tell el-Dabca/EzbetHelmi in the Hyksos period as well as in the early 18th Dynasty188 — dates all Avaris frescofragments to the early 18th Dynasty.189 Confusingly, he in the same year, however, editedwithout any change a paper given in a 1992 conference by the actual excavator of themonumental platform in Area H/I, P. Jánosi, in which the latter maintains the late Hyksosperiod dating of the structure,190 whereas Bietak himself changed the late Hyksos date of thestructure given in his 1992 Distinguished Lecture in Egyptology at the British Museum for the1996 publication of that lecture to the early 18th Dynasty.191

______________________181 For instance: IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) pls. 41-42. According to EVANS (supra n. 24: 312-14; Idem [supra

n. 122] 211, n. 2), these imitations of stone inlay are a variant of the scale pattern used as a conventionalindication of rocks.

182 NIEMEIER (supra n. 32); Idem (supra n. 5) 192-99; Idem (supra n. 106) 2-11. 183 BIETAK (supra n. 110) 27-28; Idem (supra n. 108) 55; Idem (supra n. 114) 26; BIETAK and MARINATOS

(supra n. 117) 60. 184 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 192-200; Idem (supra n. 106) 9-11; V. HANKEY, “Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant,”

Egyptian Archaeology 3 (1993) 28-29; CLINE (supra n. 168) 267-70; M.J. MELLINK, “New Perspectives in theHyksos period,” in Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World, 86-87; MORGAN (supra n. 122) 29, 44;P.M. WARREN, “Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt,” in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant, 4-5, 13.

185 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 55-58; Idem (supra n. 114) 26; BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 60-61. 186 Published in Ägypten und Levante 5 (1995). 187 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 62. 188 See supra with nn. 119-21. 189 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 75-76; Idem (supra n. 120) 13-14 with n. 31. 190 P. JÁNOSI, “Die Fundamentplattform eines Palastes (?) der späten Hyksoszeit in Ezbet Helmi (Tell

el-Dabca),” in M. BIETAK (ed.), Haus und Palast im Alten Ägypten, Internationales Symposium, 8.-11. April 1992in Kairo (1995) 93-98.

191 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 67-83.


Scholars have reacted to this re-dating in two ways. Some accept it without furthercomment,192 others — to which the present authors belong — are rather perplexed andskeptical. E.H. Cline, belonging to the latter category, states that “Bietak’s decision to redatethe relevant strata (C/1-3) at Tell el-Dabca is rather sudden, to say the least” and suggests “thatthe rest of the scholarly community might consider giving the Tell el-Dabca excavators somebreathing room” and should “wait until they have concluded their excavations in the relevantareas of the site, and have published all of their raw data, including sectional drawings andenough stratigraphical evidence to firmly date the frescoes and other pertinent artifacts, bothto their satisfaction and to ours.”193 We sympathize with Cline’s suggestion. Since we have,however, taken the task to summarize in this conference the state of research on Minoanfrescoes in the eastern Mediterranean, and because Bietak’s redating — if it is correct — hasconsiderable consequences, we must here discuss the evidence for it. The arguments as yetput forward by Bietak are the following:

1. The orientation of the foundation of the palatial fortress in Area H/I is the same asthat of the early 18th Dynasty palatial compound in Areas H/II-III, while it is oblique to theorientation of the late Hyksos period stratum.194

2. The foundation in H/I resembles the substructure of the so-called “Southern Palace”and “Northern Palace” at Deir el-Ballas in a complex interpreted by its excavator, P. Lacovara,as a military residence of the late 17th Dynasty during the war against the Hyksos andabandoned after the conquest of Avaris by Ahmose.195

3. “It would ... be more easy and economic to explain the presence of the paintingswithin one stratum instead of two which are separated by a political break.”196

As to the first argument, differences in orientation do not necessarily indicatechronological differences but may have topographical and other reasons.197 The orientationof the monumental platform in Area H/I corresponds to the curve of the Pelusiac Branch ofthe Nile just to the north of it.198 Borings by J. Dörner have shown that there are no olderarchitectural remnants below the monumental platform.199 If the platform was notconstructed during the Hyksos period, this strategically important area of the Hyksos citadelat the bend of the Pelusiac branch was not built up before the 18th Dynasty. This would beinconsistent with the description on Kamose’s second stela, according to which women lookeddown from the palace’s roof to the river during his attack against Avaris.200 If the palatialfortress on the platform of Area H/I did only have a very short period of use in the early 18thDynasty, as Bietak now thinks,201 how is one to explain the evidence for different buildingperiods, including repair work with stratified fresco fragments in the foundations?202 If the

______________________192 For instance, SHAW (supra n. 122) 483; P. REHAK, “Interconnections between the Aegean and the Orient

in the Second Millennium B.C.,” AJA 101 (1997) 400; S.P. MORRIS, “From Thera to Scheria: Aegean Artand Narrative,” in Wall Paintings of Thera.

193 E.H. CLINE, “Rich beyond the Dreams of Avaris: Tell el-Dabca and the Aegean World - A Guide for thePerplexed,” BSA 93 (1998; in press). We would like to thank E.H. Cline for sending us a copy of the paperbefore its publication.

194 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 68.195 BIETAK (supra n. 120) 8-11; P. LACOVARA, State and Settlement: Deir el-Ballas an the Development, Structure,

and Function of the New Kingdom City, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago (1993) 27. 196 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 62. 197 Cf., for instance, the discussion of the different orientations of the Mycenaean Kadmeia in Boeotian Thebes

by H.W. CATLING, J.F. CHERRY, R.E. JONES and J.T. KILLEN, “The Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars andWest Crete,” BSA 75 (1980) 95-96.

198 See the plan in BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 69, fig. 55.199 See JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 27.200 Cf. supra with n. 116, and BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 70: “From this platform a magnificent view over

the river could be obtained. Besides its military function this platform must also have had a palatial andperhaps even cultic purpose.”

201 Ibid. 68; Idem (supra n. 120) 11. 202 Cf. supra with n. 112.


building was not partly destroyed or did not partly dilapidate in connection with or after theexpulsion of the Hyksos,203 who was responsible for its destruction or dilapidation soon afterits erection?

As to the second argument, the similarity of the platform in Area H/I to the palaces atDeir el-Ballas had already been recognized in 1994 by P. Jánosi,204 without impeding him fromdating the Avaris platform to the late Hyksos period. Bietak himself concedes that similarsubstructures were found in the Hyksos level of Area H/III, as well as on top of defensivestructures at Ebla and Hazor, and that therefore a Near Eastern origin of this type ofconstruction cannot be ruled out.205 As to the third argument, earlier Bietak himself hadregarded as possible that “trade ... links between Avaris and Crete ... might have survived adynastic change and might have carried on into the 18th Dynasty, even after the fall of theHyksos,”206 and there is indeed enough evidence from history that the kind of diplomatic andeconomic relations which apparently are behind these fresco paintings (see infra) can survivethe changes of regimes.

Now Bietak apparently no longer attaches importance to the diplomatic and economicrelations between the Hyksos and the Minoan world, although he had earlier pointed to theKhyan lid from Knossos — thought to indicate diplomatic relations between the Hyksos andthe Minoan rulers — and other Hyksos period imports in the Aegean.207 According to Bietak,“king Ahmose, the founder of the 18th Dynasty and most probably the builder of the citadelof the early 18th Dynasty, fits particularly well into the picture of Minoan connections.”208 Asevidence for this, Bietak points to the dagger and inlaid axe showing Aegean inf luence (f lyinggallop, crested griffin with ‘notched plume’ wings), inscribed with Ahmose’s name, and foundin the tomb of the 17th Dynasty Queen Ahhotep, mother of both Kamose and Ahmose.209

He imagines the possibility of a political deal between Ahmose and the “MinoanThalassocracy” in which the Minoan f leet helped Ahmose — who had no f leet — against thedanger still threatening from the Hyksos harbour bases in southern Palestine.210 There is noarchaeological or textual evidence for the latter hypothesis, and it recalls rather imaginativeand today forgotten scenarios connected with the expulsion of the Hyksos, like thoseaccording to which Mycenaean mercenaries helped Ahmose in evicting the Hyksos,211 oraccording to which fugitive Hyksos princes conquered the Argolid and subsequently wereburied in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae.212 Moreover, Kamose and Ahmose already had a f leet:

______________________203 As JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 38; Idem (supra n. 112) 68-70 thinks.204 JÁNOSI (supra n. 113) 31. 205 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 68-70. 206 BIETAK (supra n. 114) 26. 207 BIETAK (supra n. 108) 55-56. As to the Khyan lid probably being a diplomatic gift, cf. H. STOCK, “Der

Hyksos Chian in Bogazköy,” MDOG 94 (1963) 74-80. To the three Tell el-Yahudiyeh juglets probably fromThera mentioned by Bietak (op. cit. n. 168), add more recent finds from the Akrotiri settlement: fragmentsof MB IIB stone vessels (P.M. WARREN, “The Stone Vessels from the Bronze Age Settlement at Akrotiri,Thera,” ArchEph [1979] 88-90, 106-107) and a Canaanite storage jar (S. MARINATOS, Excavations at TheraVII [1976] 30, pl. 49), with parallels in the MB IIB pottery group 4 from Kabri tomb 498 (cf. A.KEMPINSKI, “Some samples of Pottery from Tomb 498,” in A. KEMPINSKI [ed.], Excavations at Kabri 3:Preliminary Report of 1988 Season [1989] 31-35 [Hebrew] X-XI [English Summary] fig. 18, no. 9), as well asfrom the MB IIB Levels XI and X at Megiddo (cf. G. LOUD, Megiddo II: Seasons of 1935-39 [1948] pls. 35no. 2, 42 no. 2, 43 no. 1), and the MB IIB level 3 in Hazor Area C (cf. Y. YADIN et al., Hazor II: An Accountof the Second Season of Excavations [1956] 89-90, pl. CXIV, 1-6).

208 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 80. 209 Cf. KANTOR, 63-66, 71-74, pl. XIII A; W. STEVENSON SMITH, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt,

revised with additions by W.K. SIMPSON (1981) 219-22, figs. 215-16. 210 BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) 80-81; Idem (supra n. 120) 24-25. 211 A.W. PERSSON, New Tombs at Dendra near Midea (1942) 178-96; F. SCHACHERMEYR, “Welche

geschichtlichen Ereignisse führten zur Entstehung der mykenischen Kultur?,” Archiv Orientálni 17 (1949)331-40.

212 F.H. STUBBINGS, “The Rise of Mycenaean Civilisation,” History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region,CAH , 3rd edition, Vol. II.1 (1973) 633-37.


Kamose attacked Avaris from ships,213 and Ahmose captured Avaris after a series of assaultsby both land and water, as an Egyptian sea captain with the same name reports in a textinscribed in his tomb at el-Kab in Upper Egypt.214 According to this report, after the captureof Avaris, Ahmose proceeded to southern Palestine and besieged Sharuhen, most probably tobe identified with Tell el-Ajjul,215 for three years before conquering it. There apparently wasno more danger from the Hyksos, since the pharaoh and his captain then sailed to Nubia.

The two weapons from Ahhotep’s tomb certainly are not imported Aegean works, butare of Egyptian workmanship showing inf luence from the Aegean world.216 The character ofthis inf luence is not easy to detect, but the motif of the f lying gallop as seen on the daggerwas already introduced to Egypt during the Hyksos period,217 possibly via Syria.218 Insummary, in the present state of published evidence, we still consider it possible that theAvaris fresco fragments come from two different periods, the late Hyksos period and the early18th Dynasty.

6. Travelling Aegean Fresco Painters?

Were the Alalakh, Kabri and Avaris frescoes painted by itinerant Aegean artists, as we aswell as Bietak and Marinatos think? Several scholars have agreed to this theory,219 whereasothers are skeptical or refuse it. When V. Hankey thinks that “it is premature to attribute the(Avaris) frescoes to Minoan artists when very little is known about Near Eastern wall paintingbetween those at Mari (18th century BC) and those from Alalakh VII, Tell Kabri and Tellel-Dabca (17th to 16th century BC),”220 she is, of course, correct that our material is ratherfragmentary. We would disagree, however, with her argument that the Avaris frescoes are toograndiose to be of Minoan origin.221 Grandiose wall decorations are not unknown in MinoanCrete. The East Hall in the palace at Knossos was adorned in the first period of its existence— dated to MM III — with magnificent stucco reliefs of bulls in life-size, together with somehuman figures.222 Some time in the LM I period, in LM IA223 or LM IB,224 the East Hall wasremodeled into its final shape. The decorative scheme with human figures carrying objects,female figures, at least one priestly figure in hide-dress, griffins of various sizes, and a huge‘Snake Frame’ certainly was very grandiose and prestigious,225 as were also the impressive bullscenes (charging bulls and/or bull leaping) in the West Porch and above the Northern

______________________213 As the inscription of his second stela reports; cf. supra with n. 116.214 See the translation in PRITCHARD (supra n. 116) 233-34. 215 Sharuhen has been identified with Tell el-Far’ah (South) — see Y. YISRAELI, “Far’ah, Tell el- (South),” in E.

STERN (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 2 (1993) 441 — or Tellel-Ajjul — see KEMPINSKI (supra n. 20) 147-48. We consider the second suggestion to be the more probableone, since Tell el-Far’ah (South) is situated inland, whereas Tell el-Ajjul was the most important strongholdof the Hyksos in Southern Palestine and is situated next to the sea. Thus, the participation in the siege bythe sea captain Ahmose makes more sense when Sharuhen is identified with Tell el-Ajjul.

216 Cf. STEVENSON SMITH (supra n. 209) 222; ARUZ (supra n. 84) 42-43. 217 Cf. Interconnections, 155. 218 Cf. ARUZ (supra n. 84) 40. 219 O. NEGBI, “The ‘Libyan Landscape’ from Thera: A Review of Aegean Enterprises Overseas in the Late

Minoan IA Period,” JMA 7.1 (1994) 87-88; ARUZ (supra n. 84) 33. 43; E.H. CLINE, “‘My Brother, My Sun,’Rulership and Trade between the LBA Aegean, Egypt and the Near East,” in Role of the Ruler ,150; Idem(supra n. 168) 267-69; E.N. DAVIS, in the Discussion at the end of Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern MediterraneanWorld, 128; MORGAN (supra n. 122) 44; WARREN (supra n. 184) 4-5.

220 HANKEY (supra n. 184) 28.221 V. HANKEY, “A Theban ‘Battle Axe’, Queen Aahotep and the Minoans,” Minerva 4.3 (1993) 13. 222 KAISER (supra n. 176) 289-90.223 EVANS (supra n. 122) 496. 224 KAISER (supra n. 176) 292. 225 Ibid. 279-82, 287-93; R. HÄGG AND Y. LINDAU, “The Minoan ‘Snake Frame’ Reconsidered,” OpAth 15

(1984) 75-77.


Entrance Passage in the Knossian palace.226 When S. Sherratt thinks that those scholars whosee in the Alalakh, Kabri and Avaris frescoes the work of Aegean craftsmen are mesmerizedby an Aegeocentric view,227 this suspicion could possibly count for Aegean archeologists likeE.N. Davis, L. Morgan, and us, but not for Near Eastern archaeologists like A. Kempinski andO. Negbi, or an Egyptian archaeologist like M. Bietak. Sherratt states that “if Bietak had gotto Dabca, or Kempinski and Niemeier to Kabri, before Evans got to Knossos, I doubt if thequestion of a diaspora of Aegean fresco artists to the east would seriously have arisen.”228 Theplace of origin of objects of art is, however, not necessarily identical with their first findspot.Greek vases were, for instance, found in Etruria before they were excavated in Greece and werecommonly called Etruscan during the 18th century.229 Vases of the 7th century Wild GoatStyle were first found in Rhodes and for a long period of time designated as ‘Rhodian.’230

More recent scientific analyses and stylistic investigations have, however, demonstrated thatRhodes was not an important pottery production centre and that there were four producersof Wild Goat Style pottery: Miletus, Chios, Clazomenae and a further place in northern Ionia,of which Miletus was the most important one.231 Following Sherratt’s scenario, I think thatafter Evans had gone to Knossos and Marinatos had gone to Thera, they and other scholarssoon would have recognized that the frescoes of Alalakh, Kabri, and Avaris display a style verysimilar to the Knossian and the Theran ones, but very different from the styles of Egyptianand Levantine arts.

The differences between the styles of Egyptian and Minoan arts have been analyzed byH.A. Groenewegen-Frankfort and, most recently, by M. Bietak.232 According toGroenwegen-Frankfort, Minoan art differs from Egyptian (and ancient Near Eastern) art in its“absolute mobility in organic forms.” Bietak aptly explains this with the different culturalpatterns of both civilizations. The Minoan society was not — as the Egyptian one — dominatedby writing, listing, and absolute order, and therefore Minoan art was not subjected tohieroglyphic clichés and a rigid canonical order. As to a comparison of Canaanite and Minoanarts, we unfortunately do not have many objects of art from the late Middle Bronze AgeLevant. But those which are extant show a style distinctly different from the Minoan one. Forinstance, the bird representations on bone inlays from Megiddo and Lachish233 seemmotionless in comparison to the crane on an ivory plaque from Palaikastro.234 Canaanitefemale and male metal figurines235 appear stiff in comparison to the Minoan female and malemetal figurines displaying strong inner tension and dynamics.236

______________________226 See B. and E. HALLAGER, “The Knossian Bull — Political Propaganda in Neo-Palatial Crete?,” in Politeia,

547-48, with references. 227 S. SHERRATT, “Comment on Ora Negbi, The ‘Libyan Landscape’ from Thera: A Review of Aegean

Enterprises Overseas in the Late Minoan IA Period,” JMA 7.2 (1994) 237-40, esp. 237. 228 Ibid. 238.229 Cf. B.A. SPARKS, The Red and the Black, Studies in Greek Pottery (1996) 47-50.230 Cf. R.M. COOK, Greek Painted Pottery, 2nd ed. (1972) 117231 P. DUPONT, “Naturwissenschaftliche Bestimmung der archaischen Keramik Milets,” in M.

MÜLLER-WIENER (ed.), Milet 1899-1980: Ergebnisse, Probleme und Perspektiven einer Ausgrabung. IstMittSuppl. 31 (1986) 57-71; R.E. JONES, Greek and Cypriot Pottery: A Review of Scientific Studies (1986) 665-71;R.M. COOK, “The Wild Goat and Fikellura Styles: Some Speculations,” OJA 11 (1992) 255-66.

232 H.A. GROENEWEGEN-FRANKFORT, Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Time and Space in theRepresentational Art of the Ancient Near East (1951) passim, especially 195-205; M. BIETAK, “The Mode ofRepresentation in Egyptian Art in Comparison to Aegean Bronze Age Art,” in Wall Paintings of Thera.

233 I. ZIFFER, At the Time the Canaanites were in the Land (1990) 23* fig. 1*, 28 fig. 24.234 MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n. 177) pl. 113 above. 235 ZIFFER (supra n. 233) 79* fig. 39* (silver figurine of naked female from Megiddo), 114 fig. 130 (steatite

mould from the Nahariya temple for casting goddess figurines); O. NEGBI, Canaanite Gods in Metal (1976)passim (male figurines).

236 C. VERLINDEN, Les statuettes anthropomorphes crétoises en bronze et en plomb, du IIIe millénaire au VIIe siècle av.J.-C. (1984) pls. 4-6, 16-18 (female), 7-15 (male).


In the preference for red backgrounds at both Alalakh and Tell el Dabca/Avaris, S.Sherratt sees a difference to the Aegean where, according to her, red backgrounds are rare.237

In fact, red backgrounds are rather common in Minoan frescoes from MM III-LM I on,238 andalso occur in Mycenaean frescoes.239 “The unusually large scale of the bull’s head at Alalakh”is considered by Sherratt an un-Aegean feature.240 In our reconstruction (Pl. VIe), however,the bull’s head with horns is only ca. 22 cms high and thus smaller than, for instance, the bulls’heads on a jar from Pseira.241

According to J.G. Younger and M.C. Shaw,242 the frontal face of the bull in a bull leapingscene from Tell el-Dabca/Avaris243 is rather unusual. According to Shaw, in the Aegean “bulls’faces are not shown that way until later than the estimated date of the Tell el-Dabca frescoes.”She cites two examples from LM IB/LH IIA find contexts: seal impressions from thedestruction level of the Minoan ‘villa’ at Sklavokampos,244 and a bull on the ‘quiet’ one of thetwo gold cups from the Vapheio tholos.245 The find contexts provide, however, only a terminusante quem. For stylistic reasons, B. Kaiser dated the Vapheio cups to LM IA or even littleearlier.246 Moreover, Shaw uses the traditional low chronology. If using the revised highchronology (to which we tend), the Tell el-Dabca/Avaris frescoes are contemporary with LMIB/LH IIA.

Another reason for Younger not to see genuine Minoan works in the Tell el-Dabca/Avarisfrescoes is that the two preserved bull leapers do not conform accurately to any of the posesreconstructed by Evans and himself.247 This typology is, of course, not of Bronze Age date,

______________________237 SHERRATT (supra n. 227) 237. 238 Examples: The Saffron Gatherer fresco from Knossos: EVANS (supra n. 24) 265, pl. IV; new restoration:

IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) pl. 11. The Lily fresco from Amnisos: MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n.177) colour pl. 23. Both the Saffron Gatherer fresco and the Lily fresco are possibly of MM III date; for theSaffron Gatherer, cf. NIEMEIER (supra n. 24) 85, with references in n. 155; for the Lily fresco, cf. V.STüRMER, “Areal A: Die ‘Villa der Lilien,’” in J. SCHÄFER (ed.), Amnisos nach den archäologischen,historischen und epigraphischen Zeugnissen des Altertums und der Neuzeit (1992) 148-49. The Monkey frescofrom the House of the Frescoes at Knossos: EVANS (supra n. 37) 447, pl. X; M.A.S. CAMERON,“Unpublished Paintings from the ‘House of the Frescoes’ at Knossos,” BSA 63 (1968) colour pl. A1 (MMIII/LM IA). The Sacral Knot fresco from Nirou Chani: S. XANTHOUDIDES, “Minoikon Megaron Nirou,”ArchEph 1922, 11, fig. 9, and restoration in the Herakleion Museum. The Yellow Lotus (?) fresco fromstratum IIA of house 1 at Ialysos in Rhodes: M. MONACO, “Scavi nella zona micenea di Jaliso 1935-36,”Clara Rhodos X (1941) 88-89, pl. X; for the date see A. FURUMARK, “The Settlement at Ialysos and AegeanHistory c. 1550 - 1400 B.C.,” OpArch 6 (1950) 153-66. The White Lily fresco from the so-called first buildingperiod of Bronze Age Miletus: M.-H. GATES, “Archaeology in Turkey,” AJA 100 (1996) 303, fig. 117; B. andW.-D. NIEMEIER, “Projekt ‘Minoisch-Mykenisches Milet’: Zielsetzung und Grabungen auf demStadionhügel und am Athenatempel 1994/95, AA (1997) 239, fig. 78 (LM IB). The Priest King relief frescofrom Knossos: EVANS (supra n. 37) 775-90, pl. XIV (frontispiece); new reconstruction: W.-D. NIEMEIER,“Das Stuckrelief des Prinzen mit der Federkrone aus Knossos und minoische Götterdarstellungen,” AthMitt102 (1987) 65-98; for the date, cf. KAISER (supra n. 176) 284 (LM IB-II). The Griffin fresco from theThrone Room in the palace at Knossos: A.J. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos IV (1935) 908-913, pls.XXXII-XXXIII (frontispiece); for the date, cf. W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Zur Deutung des Thronraumes im Palastvon Knossos,” AthMitt 101 (1986) 67-68 (LM IB-II); IMMERWAHR (supra n. 24) 94, 96-98 (LM II-IIIA:1).

239 G. RODENWALDT, Tiryns II: Die Fresken des Palastes (1912) 217; M.L. LANG, The Palace of Nestor at Pylos inWestern Messenia II: The Frescoes (1969) 79-81, 43 H 6 and 44 H 6, pls. 125, A.

240 SHERRATT (supra n. 227) 237. 241 MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n. 177) pl. 81. 242 J.G. YOUNGER, “Bronze Age Representations of Aegean Bull-Games III,” in Politeia, 516-18; M.C. SHAW,

“Bull Leaping Scenes at Knossos and their Inf luence on the Tell el-Dabca Murals,” in Hyksos Egypt and theEastern Mediterranean World, 105.

243 BIETAK (supra n. 108) pl. 15 B (photograph); Idem (supra n. 114) pl. 1,1 (water colour). 244 S. MARINATOS, “To minoikon megaron Sklavokampou,” ArchEph (1939-1941) 90, fig. 15.245 MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n. 177) pl. 207; DAVIS (supra n. 165) figs. 2, 8. 246 KAISER (supra n. 176) 160-63. 247 YOUNGER (supra n. 242) 517.


but rather invented by these two archaeologists.248 Not all representations fit in their scheme,such as, for instance, an unusual bull leaping scene on a gold ring from chamber tomb 4 atAntheia in Messenia.249 Younger certainly goes too far in suspecting the piece — which wasfound in a regular excavation — of being a forgery, salted in the tomb to appear authentic.250

One of the two Tell el-Dabca/Avaris acrobats251 grasps the neck of the bull in a similarmanner as the acrobat on a sealing from the Knossian Temple Repository.252 The otherone253 may be the hitherto singular representation of a side leaper as suggested by Bietak andMarinatos.254 Another peculiarity is seen by Younger in the cushion seal worn on the rightwrist by the first bull leaper. It is the twelfth depiction of a sealstone worn at the wrist in anAegean setting, “but the only one of a cushion seal (all the rest are lentoids), one of the twodepictions with the seal worn on the right wrist (it is extremely common to wear seals or ringsat the left wrist ...), and the only one worn by a problematic bull-leaper.”255 The cushion is,however, also a characteristic Minoan seal shape.256 Evidence from Minoan tombsdemonstrates that not only lentoids were worn at the wrist, but also other seal types.257 Asconvincingly argued by N. Marinatos, bull games provided an arena for display of the youngmen of the aristocracy.258 If so, why should not the young aristocrats have worn their seals asstatus symbols, as does the Cup Bearer of the Knossian Procession fresco,259 probably also ayoung aristocrat, and the ‘priest’ on a jasper lentoid from the Vapheio tholos?260 The latteris, by the way, the only representation of a ‘priest’ with a Syrian robe known to wear a seal atthe wrist. Thus one should be very cautious in using statistics in Aegean iconography.

P. Rehak interprets the kilt of the second bull leaper as a misunderstanding of a Minoan‘breechcloth’ with a rigid codpiece of metal or leather, which makes it unlikely that this waspainted by a Minoan artist.261 We do not think, however, that this rigid codpiece actuallyexisted. The feature is merely due to the often strong accentuation of the penis.262 The kiltof the Tell el-Dabca/Avaris bull leaper is similar to the kilts of the ‘officer’ and the ‘chieftain’of the Chieftain Cup from Ayia Triada,263 and to the kilt of the man falling down alongsidethe charging bull on the ‘violent’ Vapheio cup.264 According to Rehak, “the heads of theDabca leapers are large in proportion to their rubbery bodies: compare the lithe, even sinewy,musculature of Minoan figures.”265 The only leaper of which the head and most of the bodyis preserved is the ‘side leaper.’ I cannot see that its head is abnormally large in proportion.As to the bodies, one has to take into account the state of preservation of the very worn Tell______________________248 Cf. also the critical remarks by J. PINSENT, “Bull-Leaping,” in O. KRZYSZKOWSKA and L. NIXON (eds.),

Minoan Society: Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium 1981 (1983) 259-60. 249 M. KOUMOUZELIS, in I. PINI, CMS V, Suppl. 1B (1993) no. 135, found on the f loor of the tomb. 250 YOUNGER (supra n. 242) 512, 530 no. 63. 251 See illustrations cited supra n. 143. 252 EVANS (supra n. 122) 218, fig. 149. 253 See illustrations cited supra n. 144. 254 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 51, 52, fig. 2.255 YOUNGER (supra n. 242) 517-18. 256 Cf. YULE (supra n. 161) 44-46. 257 M.S.F. HOOD, “Another Warrior-Grave at Ayios Ioannis near Knossos,” BSA 51 (1956) 85, 93- 94, no. 3, fig.

3, pl. 14 c-d; PLATON and PINI (supra n. 164) nos. 64 (amygdaloid) and 65; M.S.F. HOOD and P. de JONG,“Late Minoan Warrior Tombs from Ayios Ioannis and the New Hospital Site,” BSA 47 (1952) 273-74, nos.III.22-23, 275, fig. 16, pl. 54; for the find position next to the wrist, see Ibid. 251, fig. 6. We do not see anyreason why cushion seals should not also have been worn at the wrist.

258 MARINATOS (supra n. 81) 218-20.259 EVANS (supra n. 37) pl. XII facing p. 756. 260 P. REHAK, “The Aegean ‘Priest’ on CMS I.223,” Kadmos 33 (1994) 76-84.261 P. REHAK, “Aegean Breechcloth, Kilts and the Keftiu Paintings,” AJA 100 (1996) 39-41, with n. 29.262 Cf. H.-E. GIESECKE, “Kretische Schurze,” OpAth 17 (1988) 91-92. 263 MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n. 177) pl. 102; S. HOOD, The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (1978) 144, fig.

137.264 MARINATOS and HIRMER (supra n. 177) pl. 200 above; DAVIS (supra n. 165) fig. 7. For the reconstruction

of this kilt type, see GIESECKE (supra n. 262) 96-97, figs. 8-9, type IIId. 265 REHAK (supra n. 192) 401.


el-Dabca/Avaris fresco fragments. When looking at the photographs of the originalfragments, one realizes that much of the interior details of the bodies are lost.266 Taking thisinto account, I do not find the bodies of the bull leapers more rubbery than, for instance,those of the fishermen from the West House at Akrotiri on Thera.267

Shaw and Rehak argue that the combination of bulls and a geometric backdrop pattern(Pl. VId) is unusual.268 For Rehak, it is even a “most un-Minoan concept.” We have, however,to consider that we only possess a very small fraction of the Minoan frescoes which actuallyexisted. The fact that the combination of bulls and a geometric backdrop pattern is not a“most un-Minoan concept” is demonstrated by a cushion seal from Gournia with therepresentation of a bull with a ‘tectonic ornament’ as backdrop.269

Rehak doubts that the Kabri f loor was painted by Minoan artists since “the f loral chainsare really quite unlike anything attested in the Aegean.”270 This is not true. Floral chains ofiris V-f lowers exist in Minoan pottery decoration from at least LM II on.271 As the examplesof the festoon with crocus pendant and the ‘water sign’ motifs show, in Minoan art motifs canappear earlier in other media and only later in pottery decoration.272 Iris V-chains decorate,for instance, the garment of one of the crocus gatherers on the fresco of room 3 b in Xeste 3at Akrotiri on Thera, contemporary with LM IA.273 If the Fresco of the Garlands fromKnossos274 had been found in the Levant or in Egypt, would Rehak doubt that it was paintedby a Minoan artist since it has no parallels in Crete?

I do not see any peculiarities in the Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris frescoeswhich would be so hybrid as to exclude the possibility that Minoan artists were involved inpainting them. Style and iconography are very close to those of genuine Aegean frescopaintings and very far from anything else known from the Levant and Egypt. The relationshipbetween style and ethnic identity is a complicated and controversial issue.275 We would agreewith J.M. Hall that it is “hopeless to believe that archaeological evidence can identify ethnicgroups in the past. Artifacts can, however, be taken and consciously employed as emblemicindicia of ethnic boundaries in much the same way as language or religion. The task, then,that should be reserved for archaeology, and for which it is well equipped, is to illuminate theways in which ethnic groups actively employed material culture in marking boundaries thathad already been discursively constructed.”276 In this sense, fresco painting in Minoan styleand iconography form in combination with Minoan religion (obvious to us in special types ofsanctuaries as tripartite shrines, peak sanctuaries and cave sanctuaries, religious iconographyand cult implements), Minoan domestic pottery, and Minoan language (Linear A script),evidence for the ethnic boundaries of the ‘Minoans.’277 The existence of fresco paintings ofMinoan style and iconography in foreign countries and cultural surroundings form evidencefor an export beyond the ethnic boundaries which has to be explained. ______________________266 See, for instance, the ‘side leaper;’ BIETAK (supra n. 108) pl. 16. Of his face, only the eye is visible; the

profile outline is lost, as probably also are interior details of the muscles.267 DOUMAS ( supra n. 41) pls. 18-19. 268 SHAW (supra n. 242) 110; REHAK (supra n. 192) 401. 269 PLATON and PINI (supra n. 164) no. 238. 270 REHAK (supra n. 192) 401-402. As to the f loral chains, see NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) pl. LI a-b.271 See W.-D. NIEMEIER, Die Palaststilkeramik von Knossos (1985) 63-64, 65 fig. 21:21. For LM IB predecessors,

see Ibid, fig. 21:6, 8. 272 See L. MORGAN, “Morphology, Syntax and the Issue of Chronology,” in J.A. MacGILLIVRAY and R.L.N.

BARBER (eds.), The Prehistoric Cyclades, Contributions to a workshop on Cycladic Chronology (1984) 166-71,172-75.

273 DOUMAS (supra n. 41) fig. 156. 274 P.M. WARREN, “The Fresco of the Garlands from Knossos,” in P. DARCQUE and J.-C. POURSAT (eds.),

L’iconographie minoenne. BCH-Suppl. XI (1985) 187-208. 275 See most recently S. JONES, The Archaeology of Ethnicity (1997) 110-16, 119-27; J.M. HALL, Ethnic Identity in

Greek Antiquity (1997) 132-34. 276 Ibid. 142. 277 Cf. R. HÄGG and N. MARINATOS, “Conclusions,” in Minoan Thalassocracy, 221-22; M.H. WIENER, “The

Isles of Crete? The Minoan Thalassocracy Revisited,” in TAW III, vol. I, 128-60; W.-D. NIEMEIER, “A LinearA Inscription from Miletus (MIL Zb 1),” Kadmos 35 (1997) 87-99.


Sherratt thinks that the similarities in iconography between the Levantine and theAegean frescoes should be seen in terms of an intermediary textile connection.278 As E.J.W.Barber has argued, there indeed appears to have been a textile exchange in the secondmillennium eastern Mediterranean in several directions: Syria to the Aegean (the motifs of thegriffin and the sphinx may have come via embroidery from Syria to Crete)279 and the Aegeanto Egypt.280 Aegean textiles were an important component of international trade from earlyin the second millennium,281 and there is possible evidence for the appearance of figuralmotifs on Minoan textiles from the beginning of the New Palace period on.282 According toSherratt, “the links .... between the f loral elements of the Kabri painted f loor and Aegeanpottery might equally plausibly be seen in terms of an intermediary textile connection.”283

But what about the imitation of gypsum slabs on the Tel Kabri f loor? This motif has nothingto do with textiles. Nor can the Aegean landscape and architecture of the Tel Kabri miniaturefresco fragments have been transmitted via textiles. Moreover, it appears a strange scenarioto us that Aegean pictorial motifs should have been transmitted via textiles to the Near Eastand there copied by Near Eastern painters in the Aegean fresco technique not at home in theNear East.

The use of the fresco technique in the Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avarismurals, representing an isolated and rather short-lived element in the Levant and Egypt,forms, in combination with the Aegean iconography and style, the strongest argument for thesuggestion that this phenomenon cannot be explained without direct reference to Aegeanfresco painting artistry. There are various possibilities: the frescoes were painted by travellingAegean artisans; they were painted under the supervision of Aegean artists with the assistanceof Levantine painters trained by them; they were painted by Levantine painters trained byAegean masters. It is difficult to decide in each case which of these solutions is the correctone. We would agree with P.P. Betancourt that only a very small percentage of the frescopaintings is known and “that we are touching the tip of the iceberg of a whole series ofinterrelated workshops, working in Knossos, the Aegean islands, on the coast of Western Asiaand in Egypt, perhaps travelling back and forth, perhaps occasionally exchanging personnelor going back to Knossos to learn the most recent things.”284

7. The Alalakh, Tel Kabri and Tell el-Dabca Frescoes Within the Eastern MediterraneanKoiné

As argued in an earlier paper, we see the phenomenon of the Alalakh and Tel Kabrifrescoes (to which now the Tell el Dabca/Avaris frescoes are to be added) in the framework ofdiplomatic relations and gift exchange between the rulers in the ancient Near East, in whichthe rulers of Crete whose palaces “appear to be at the West end of a long line of palaces,palace-temples and temples stretching to the East as far as the Euphrates and the Tigris”285

were involved.286 This has been doubted by Manning et al. on the grounds that “it has yet tobe demonstrated convincingly that the Aegean palaces, and especially those of the LM IA/LHI periods, participated in the same level of interpalatial exchange that is evidenced in the Near

______________________278 SHERRATT (supra n. 227) 239. 279 E.J.W. BARBER, Prehistoric Textiles (1991) 321.280 Ibid. 338-57. 281 As copies painted in Egyptian tombs of the 12th Dynasty demonstrate: see M.C. SHAW, “Ceiling Patterns

from the Tomb of Hepzefa,” AJA 74 (1970) 25-30; BARBER (supra n. 279) 346-47. 282 Ibid. 320-21, figs. 15:6-7. It is not certain, however, that the fresco fragments from Knossos with miniature

bulls’ heads, sphinxes and griffins come from representations of women’s clothing. They may havebelonged to representations of architecture as argued by Interconnections, 80.

283 SHERRATT (supra n. 227) 239. 284 P.P. BETANCOURT, in the Discussion at the end of Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World, 129. 285 G. CADOGAN, “Why was Crete Different?,” in G. CADOGAN (ed.), The End of the Early Bronze Age in the

Aegean (1986) 153-71, esp. 169. 286 NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 199-200. This view has been adopted by NEGBI (supra n. 219) 87-88 for the Tell

el-Dabca frescoes.


Eastern palace archives: such an Aegeocentric approach is unwarranted on presentevidence.”287 Indeed, there exists as yet no archival evidence from the Minoan palaces forinterpalatial exchange with the palace centres of the Near East. However, the MinoanHieroglyphic and Linear A scripts remain undeciphered, and they may be as silent on thistopic as are the later Linear B tablets, although there is evidence of Mycenaean élite exchangewith the Near East from the archaeological record.288 And there is evidence that MinoanCrete was involved from the Old Palace period in a “down the line palatial gift exchange” withthe Near East and Egypt:289 the export of fine palatial Kamares pottery,290 precious metalvessels,291 richly decorated textiles,292 and possibly jewellery.293 Of special interest are anumber of texts from the archives of the Mari palace — contemporary either with the Cretanlate Old Palace period or the very beginning of the New Palace period (cf. supra) — which listobjects of Caphtorian (Cretan) manufacture, including ostentatious weapons, metal vases,clothing and leather shoes.294 The fact that some of these Cretan objects were given by kingZimri-Lim of Mari as diplomatic gifts to other Mesopotamian kings, among them Hammurabiof Babylon, demonstrate their prestige character within the Near Eastern élite exchangenetwork. The lid of an alabaster vase with the cartouche of Khyan appears to indicate thatroyal gifts were sent by the Hyksos pharaoh of Avaris to the ruler of Knossos.295 Later, in theearly 18th Dynasty, emissaries from Keftiu (Crete)296 are represented in the wall-paintings ofa series of tombs of high officials in Egyptian Thebes carrying precious objects, among themgold and silver vessels with inlays, swords and textiles, many of them undoubtedly of Aegeanorigin.297 In the tomb of Menkheperresoneb, these objects are given to the pharaoh by thewr (prince or king) of Keftiu, who is named together with the princes/kings of Hatti, of Tunipand of Kadesh.298 As Cline has convincingly argued, the goods carried by the Keftiu in the

______________________287 S.W. MANNING, S.J. MONKS, G. NAKOU and F.A. de MITA Jr., “The Fatal Shore, The Long Years and

the Geographical Unconscious,” JMA 7 (1994) 219-35, esp. 220-21. 288 For the silence on this topic of the Linear B tablets, cf. J. CHADWICK, The Mycenaean World (1976) 156-58;

J.T. KILLEN, “The Linear B Tablets and the Mycenaean Economy,” in: A. MORPURGO DAVIES and Y.DUHOUX (eds.), Linear B: A 1984 Survey (1985) 241-305, esp. 262-70; for the archaeological evidence, mostrecently SWDS, passim, esp. 85-88.

289 M.H. WIENER, “The Nature and Control of Minoan Foreign Trade,” in Bronze Age Trade, 325-50, esp. 328. 290 See B.J. KEMP and R.S. MERRILLEES, Minoan Pottery in Second Millennium Egypt (1980) 1-219; G.

WALBERG, Provincial Middle Minoan Pottery (1983) 144; WARREN and HANKEY (supra n. 24) 134-35;WIENER (supra n. 289) 332; G. WALBERG, “The Finds at Tell el-Dabca and Middle Minoan Chronology,”Ägypten und Levante 2 (1991) 115-18; J.A. MacGILLIVRAY, “A Minoan Cup at Tell el-Dabca,” in Hyksos Egyptand the Eastern Mediterranean World, 81-84.

291 G. CADOGAN, “Early Minoan and Middle Minoan Chronology,” AJA 87 (1983) 507-518, esp. 514, thinksthat two silver cups with spiral decoration from the Royal Tombs at Byblos might be Minoan; P. MONTET,Byblos et l’Égypte. Quatre campagnes de fouilles à Gebeil 1921-1922-1923-1924 (1929) 191-92, Pls. 111:748,112:749.

292 As copies in Egyptian tombs of the 12th Dynasty demonstrate: see SHAW (supra n. 281) 25-30; BARBER(supra n. 279) 346-47.

293 G. WALBERG, “A Gold Pendant from Tell el-Dabca,” Ägypten und Levante 2, (1991) 111-12 has suggestedthat a gold pendant from a Middle Kingdom level at Tell el-Dabca is of Minoan manufacture. This has,however, been doubted by J. ARUZ, “Imagery and Interconnections,” Ägypten and Levante 5 (1995) 33-48who considers the piece to be of Canaanite origin.

294 See most recently SWDS, 27, 126-28 nos. D:3-12 with references. 295 Cf. supra with n. 207. 296 We here follow recent research which almost unanimously identifies the country of Keftiu as Crete; cf. E.

and J.A. SAKELLARAKIS, “The Keftiu and the Minoan Thalassocracy,” in Minoan Thalassocracy, 197-203with references, to which S. WACHSMANN, Aegeans in the Theban Tombs (1987) has to be added. For adifferent view, see J. STRANGE, Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation (1980).

297 KANTOR, 44-49; VERCOUTTER (supra n. 146) 305-368; W. HELCK, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens undVorderasiens zur Ägäis bis ins 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (1979) 64-75; WACHSMANN (supra n. 296) 55-57, 60-61,64-66, 69-70, 72-73.

298 VERCOUTTER (supra n. 146) 64; STRANGE (supra n. 296) 50-51; CLINE (supra n. 219) 146.


Theban paintings were not tribute but gifts from the rulers of Crete to the rulers of Egypt.299

The word inw is usually translated as ‘tribute,’ but this should not be taken literally since,according to Egyptian ideology, the pharaoh was not only king of Egypt but actually the divineking of the world.300 As A.R. Schulman has argued in a similar case of inw given by the courtof Hatti to Thutmose III: “The Egyptians, however, with their characteristic egocentric senseof superiority, would have presented such gifts as tribute.”301

Although admittedly somewhat fragmentary, this archaeological, textual, and pictorialevidence appears to indicate that the Cretan palaces from the Old Palace period on wereinvolved in interpalatial exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean. We completely agree withSherratt that the Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris frescoes are to be seen “in termsof the forging of an élite koiné — artistic, iconographical, ideological, technological — in thecircumstances of the intense maritime interaction between the coastal Areas of the EasternMediterranean.”302 We do not understand, however, why the existence of this koiné shouldmean that the frescoes of Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris have nothing to do withMinoans per se, as argued by A.B. Knapp.303 Essential to an artistic koiné are the exchangesof ideological ideas, of motifs, of iconography, of techniques, but also of living people. As C.Zaccagnini has demonstrated, the sending of specialized craftsmen is well attested in theframework of the diplomatic relations between the rulers in the ancient Near East, and theirtransfers were inserted into the dynamics and formal apparatus of the practice ofgift-exchange.304

Bietak has suggested that the Tell el-Dabca/Avaris frescoes were painted by Minoanartists belonging to the entourage of a Knossian princess married to the pharaoh, which hefirst identified as a Hyksos ruler, but now as Ahmose, the first pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty.305

As stated by Cline, dynastic intermarriage was a favoured diplomatic tactic in the Bronze AgeNear East.306 P.W. Haider thinks that the entourage of a foreign princess would compriseseveral hundred people, who until the end of their lives remained in the harem of thepharaoh, and that one can well imagine that at Tell el-Dabca/Avaris the rooms of the foreignprincess and her entourage were decorated according to her desires.307 According to theirfind positions, the frescoes from areas H/I and H/IV had not, however, decorated the innerrooms of a harem, but apparently the eastern f lank of the building, probably next to a rampleading into the building.308 The frescoes from area H/III had served as ornamentation of thegate of an enclosure wall.309 As discussed supra, at Alalakh and Tel Kabri, the frescoesprobably had been attached to the walls of major ceremonial (and possible ritual) halls of thepalace, not of the private rooms of queens or princesses. Moreover, when accepting Bietak’shypothesis, we would have to imagine that the in-coming Minoans brought no domestic andcultic accoutrements, but nonetheless insisted on Minoan artists providing a painted shrine forpersonal worship. I would agree with Morgan that this is a curious scenario.310

______________________299 CLINE (supra n. 219) 145-46. Cf. also K. KILIAN in the discussion after the paper by I. STRØM, “Aspects

of Minoan Foreign Relations, LM I-LM II,” in Minoan Thalassocracy, 191-94, esp. p. 195. 300 Cf. STRANGE (supra n. 296) 47, 52.301 A.R. SCHULMAN, “Hittites, Helmets and Amarna: Akhenaten’s First War,” in D.B. REDFORD (ed.), The

Akhenaten Temple Project Vol. 2: RWD-MNW, Foreigners and Inscriptions (1988) 53-79, esp. 73 n. 55. 302 SHERRATT (supra n. 227) 237-39. 303 A.B. KNAPP, unpublished lecture at Reading, UK, December 1995, summarized by him in an Email

communication on “Aegeanet,” 7.3.1996. See also Idem, in this volume. 304 C. ZACCAGNINI, “Patterns of Mobility among Ancient Near Eastern Craftsmen,” JNES 42 (1983) 245-64. 305 BIETAK (supra n. 110) 28; Idem (supra n. 114) 26; Idem, Avaris (supra n. 109) 136; BIETAK and

MARINATOS (supra n. 117) 61 306 CLINE (supra n. 168) 277-78; see also CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 256-66; P.W. HAIDER, “Menschenhandel

zwischen dem ägyptischen Hof und der minoisch-mykenischen Welt,” Ägypten und Levante 6 (1996) 137-56,esp. 149-55.

307 Ibid. 155-56. 308 JÁNOSI (supra n. 112) 68. 309 BIETAK and MARINATOS (supra n. 117).310 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 44; cf. also M.H. WIENER, in the discussion at the end of Hyksos Egypt and the

Eastern Mediterranean World, 127, 131-32.


In our opinion, the occurrence of frescoes in Aegean technique, style, and iconographyin the palaces of Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris has to be explained in a differentway. The Ugaritic myth according to which the god of handicrafts, Kothar-wa-Khasis, has hisseat in Crete and has to be brought from there to build a splendid palace for the god Baal andto furnish it with precious works of art,311 demonstrates that Minoan handicrafts were highlyesteemed in the Levant. On the other hand, it points to an esoteric dimension. In this context,M.W. Helms’ investigations on long-distance relations, trade, and craftsmanship are helpful.As she has demonstrated, the knowledge of distant realms and regions as well as theacquisition of foreign prestige goods are used by elites for their political advantage.312 In thiscontext, artisans travel because elites seek craftsmen from distant locales to enhance theirchief ly reputations with their presence and the products of their skills.313 The acquisition ofesoteric knowledge from outside has an important role in this kind of long-distanceconnection.314 This may explain the religious connotations of the themes of the Alalakh, TelKabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris frescoes,315 and the fact that later many of the Aegean objectscarried by the Keftiu in the wall-paintings of the Theban tombs have cultic functions in theAegean: rhyta of different shapes (bull’s head, lion’s head, conical rhyta) and bull statuettes.316

Minoan fresco painting apparently was a rather short-lived phenomenon in the Levantand Egypt — in Egyptian terms, covering the Hyksos period and the very beginning of the early18th Dynasty. Later, in the palaces of Amenhotep III at Malkata in Thebes and of his sonAmenhotep IV (Akhenaten) at Amarna, we find again paintings of nature scenes which appearto breathe a Minoan spirit.317 They are, however, executed in secco technique and certainlywere not painted by Aegean artists. Minoan wall painting was a thing of the past at that time.H. Frankfort suggested that the Egyptians at the time of Akhenaten had seen older paintingswhile trading in the Argolid. The suggestions by Kantor and Stevenson Smith, that suchinf luences derive from earlier contacts with the Aegean rather than contemporary contacts,appear more convincing.318 As Morgan has pointed out, the Minoan frescoes of Tellel-Dabca/Avaris may well provide the first, and crucial, example of the missing links.319 Thepainted imitations of gypsum dadoes at Alalakh level IV (15th century BC) and at Qatna(probably 14th century BC)320 possibly indicates a similar survival of motifs of Minoan originin later local wall paintings. Thus, the Minoan artists involved in the painting of the frescoesat Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Tell el-Dabca/Avaris apparently formed an important element in thegrowth of the so-called ‘International Style’ of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean.321

Wolf-Dietrich and Barbara NIEMEIER______________________311 See NIEMEIER (supra n. 5) 199, with references in nn. 91-92. 312 M.W. HELMS, Ulysses’ Sail: an Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge, and Geographical Distance (1988) 3-4,

131-71; Eadem, Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade, and Power (1993) 8-9, 160-70. 313 Ibid. 34; cf. also CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 263-65.314 HELMS 1988 (supra n. 311) 16, 148-60, 261. 315 At Alalakh, the religious connotation of the fresco fragments is clear from the motifs represented, the

frontal bull’s head with a double axe (cf. M.P. NILSSON, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival inGreek Religion, 2nd edition [1950] 231) and the griffin (cf. N. MARINATOS [supra n. 81] 54, 151-54). Thesame applies to the Tell el-Dabca frescoes with the representation of bull-leaping; cf. Ibid. 218-20. For theTel Kabri fresco, the religious connotation is at first glance not so clear, but the parallel from the WestHouse at Akrotiri had a ritual function (see W.-D. NIEMEIER, “Iconography and Context: the TheraFrescoes,” in EIKVN, 99-100, with references), as had Hall 611 of the Kabri palace on which the frescoprobably was painted (cf. NIEMEIER [supra n. 5] 197; Idem [supra n. 106] 2).

316 VERCOUTTER (supra n. 146) 311-21, 323-28; 357-59; HELCK (supra n. 297) 71-72; WACHSMANN (supran. 296) 55-61, 69-70.

317 Cf. D. FIMMEN, Die kretisch-mykenische Kultur, 2nd edition (1924) 206-207; H. FRANKFORT, The MuralPaintings of El-’Amarneh (1929); STEVENSON SMITH (supra n. 209) 286-95.

318 KANTOR, 83-84; Interconnections, 161-62. 319 MORGAN (supra n. 122) 29-30. 320 Cf. supra with n. 44. 321 On the ‘International Style,’ see Interconnections, 32, 44-45, 97, 107, 113; CROWLEY (supra n. 73) 221-27;

CAUBET, in this volume.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Pl. Va Tel Kabri, Palace, Hall 611, painted plaster f loor, plan, by B. Niemeier.Pl. Vb Mari, palace, podium on the east side of hall 64 painted with imitation of gypsum slabs; from A. Parrot,

Mission archéologique de Mari, Vol. II.2: le palais, peintures murales (1958) Pl. XV:2.Pl. Vc Tel Kabri, palace, fragments from miniature fresco, representation of a rocky shore, reconstruction by

B. Niemeier.Pl. Vd Tel Kabri, palace, fragments from miniature fresco, representation of rough sea and boats (?),

reconstruction by B. Niemeier. Pl. VIa Tel Kabri, palace, fragments from miniature fresco, representation of an Aegean town, reconstruction

by B. Niemeier.Pl. VIb Tel Kabri, palace, fragment from miniature fresco, representation of a f lying swallow.Pl. VIc Tel Kabri, from the palace, fragments from miniature fresco, representation of a griffin, reconstruction

by B. Niemeier.Pl. VId Tell el Dabca/Avaris, fragments from bull-leaping fresco, reconstruction by L. Pinch-Brock; from

BIETAK, Avaris (supra n. 109) Pl. IV. Pl. VIe Alalakh, from the palace of level VII, fresco fragments with representation of a frontal bull’s head with

double axe, reconstruction by B. Niemeier.Pl. VIf Alalakh, from the palace of level VII, fresco fragments with the representation of a reclining griffin,

reconstruction by B. Niemeier.


Discussion following W-D. and B. Niemeier’s paper:

J. Aruz: I just wanted to make one comment about Mari, that it’s not surprising to see Minoan-inspiredworks [there], because even in the most significant wall painting which you said otherwise waspurely Mesopotamian, it, in fact, is not. It is full of Egyptianizing imagery, surrounding theinvestiture scene of the king. And so, there is an openness related perhaps to the position of Marias a great international emporium, that is ref lected in the visual arts.

W-D. Niemeier: Thank you.

A.B. Knapp: I hadn’t realized until the last couple of years what an impact Gordon Childe made uponAegean history. The continuing reaction against a ‘Light, and a few rampant metallurgists,coming out of the East’ now comprises coming out of the West, I believe, a Minoan king or prince,a princess, traders, raiders, craftsmen, wall painters and so on. I am not in a position to comeback with point-by-point iconographic arguments to yours, but there are people who are workingon just that point. But one thing I would like to ask you, specifically in response to what youtalked about today: you want to see the inf luence being Minoan iconographic instead ofCanaanite iconography. My question to you is: what is Canaanite iconography? I’ll make it easyon you. Just tell me three features of Canaanite iconography.

M. Fotiadis (Chair): Shall we reserve the answer for this evening? That might give him some time tothink and we really have to stop at this point.


minoan frescoes in the eastern mediterranean · 2012-03-06 · minoan frescoes in the eastern...

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