![]() He said the seal must have been engraved by someone with a magnifying glass, even though none has been found, and dismissed the possibility that people of that era had sharper eyesight than today. Perhaps the engraver was nearsighted, the two archaeologists suggest.įritz Blakolmer, an expert on Aegean art at the University of Vienna, argues that the seal stone is a miniature copy of a much larger original, probably a stucco-embellished wall painting like those found at the Palace of Knossos on Crete. is also used in Homer, most frequently in negative sentences after or (Smyth 1763, Monro 362, Palmer 178). I mentioned earlier that I have begun to wonder whether my mind has grown too Lewisian.I was therefore refreshed to find myself, momentarily at least, disagreeing with something Lewis tossed into an essay on Edmund Spenser (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature). Yet no magnifying implements have been found on Crete from this era. or ( in elision) is the usual particle in Homer used to mark a statement as conditional or potential, where would be used in Attic. The detail is so fine that it seems the engraver would have needed a magnifying glass, as would admirers of his work. Work of such quality was not being produced anywhere on the Greek mainland at the time. ![]() Stocker believe that the seal stone, like other objects in the Griffin Warrior’s grave, was made on Crete. Their descendants, a century or so later, built the great palaces at Pylos, Mycenae and Tiryns, places mentioned by Homer.ĭr. Local chieftains, as the Griffin Warrior may have been, used precious items from Crete to advertise their membership in the Greek-speaking elite of the incipient Mycenaean civilization, the first on mainland Europe. He lived at a critical period when the Minoan civilization of Crete was being transferred to cities of the Greek mainland. The seal stone’s owner, known as the Griffin Warrior after the mythical animal depicted in his grave, was buried around 1450 B.C.
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