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A Note on the Phaistos Disk
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
On p. 275 of vol. i. of Scripta Minoa Mr. Arthur Evans notes with regard to the woman-hieroglyph on the Phaistos Disk (No. 6 of his sign-catalogue; see Fig. 1) that ‘the whole aspect of this figure with its exaggerated breadth of waist contrasts strongly with the Minoan and Mycenaean female types.’ On p. 25 he says ‘still more divergent from all known examples of Minoan dress is that of the woman. It differs not only in its general broad outline …, but in almost every detail.’ This is so, yet this hieroglyph has one close Mycenaean counterpart as a representation of a woman. I refer to the little female figures in gold plate from the Third Shaft-Grave at Mycenae (Schuchhardt, Schliemann, Fig. 182; see Fig. 2), which are practically full-face views of the same squat figure which on the Phaistos Disk is represented in profile. The same curious petticoat is shewn, with its peaked edge, and even much the same unadorned shook of hair. This is perhaps a point worth noticing, as the two representations are very near one another in date, the Disk being ‘Middle Minoan III.’ and the shaft-grave ‘Late Minoan I.’
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1911
References
1 This peculiar style of hairdressing is assigned by Mr. Evans (Scripta Minoa, locc. citt.) to the ‘male Shardana’ on the Egyptian monuments. But Dr.Müller, W. M. in Asien und Europa, (p. 380Google Scholar, which is quoted by Mr. Evans) thinks that the foreign soldiers with this headdress are of the Tursha tribe, not Shardana; and the Shardana are usually represented as wearing a close-fitting helmet or leather coif surmounted by a crescent and ball. The resemblance of the Tursha headdress to the hair of the woman is, however, as Mr. Evans says, very close. But in the case of these warriors it may not be hair but a feather-headdress like that of the Philistines.
2 Mr.Evans's, argument (Scripta Minoa, p. 285)Google Scholar to this effect, in opposition to the views of the discoverers of the disk, seems quite conclusive.
3 Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, xxxi. p. 234. In this article I have already mentioned the view, given above, which I hold as to the silver cup-fragment.
4 Layard, , Nineveh, ii. 44Google Scholar.
5 Asien und Europa, p. 362, where the combined headdress is figured. Dr. Müller's identification of the feather-crown of these Ionian mercenaries with the ‘crown,’ which in the inscription of Naksh-i-Rustam Darius I. says was worn by the Ionians, is extremely probable. He points out the latest reference to the feather-headdress as worn by the Lycian soldiers of Xerxes in Hdt. vii. 92, mentioned above.
6 Schuchhardt, Schliemann, Fig. 221.