Mythological Perspective:
The designs on the stones themselves usher the viewer into a world deeply enmeshed within its own ritual and sense of meaning. There are images engraved on these stones that act as a snapshot to something that appears religious or ritualistic – for instance, one that Arthur Evans described in his work on Mycenaean tree and pillar cults showed: |
“a female votary…blowing a conch-shell or triton before an altar of the usual Mycenaean shape. Above the altar is seen a group of three trees apparently cypresses, and immediately in front of them the horns of consecration.' To the right of the altar is a rayed symbol, to the left is apparently another altar base, with a conical excrescence, and behind the votary another tree” (Evans, 142).
Their engravings frequently have images of bulls - a common theme throughout the site – as well as other animals, natural imagery or patterns, or people often performing rituals. For people finding them in the ground, around their homes it would have hinted at a world similar to but slightly different from their own expectations and realities.
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For an archeologist, these stones are just one example of many traditions of small items intended to make impressions. They recall the cylinder seals from ancient Mesopotamia, impressions of which were used to seal cuneiform tablets within clay envelopes and imply authority and ownership. Similar cylinder seals were found on mainland Greece, in the Mycenaean civilization, as well as and small carved stones were used throughout Hellenistic and Roman times and reimagined in Europe in the 19th century with the rise of interest in the classical world. They were found all over the palace at Knossos and other places on Crete and Mainland Greece, with a notable find coming in 2015 on mainland Greece when a team of archeologists found a tomb containing, among other things,
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“More than 50 seal stones, with intricate carvings in Minoan style showing goddesses, altars, reeds, lions and bulls, some with bull-jumpers soaring over the bull’s horns – all in Minoan style and probably made in Crete” (Riley).
These stones also present several mysteries. Work has been done on the presence of mysterious floating objects and people that raises questions of iconographical interpretation (Kyriakidis). These floating objects have a stable form across many different examples of the rings, but their interpretation remains inscrutable. Kyriakidis suggested that one interpretation would be of constellations, which would be consistent both with the forms of the objects and the evidence of Minoan seafaring power. More broadly, they both raise and answer questions about visual representation in the past and how religious and daily life was depicted.
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