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Clay sealing with procession of women

Σ-Τ17 22
Clay
Almost intact. The scene is reconstructed based on the preserved pictorial elements on 21 similar sealings impressed by the same signet ring.
Length 2 cm. Width 1.2 cm.
Zakros
Hogarth's House Α
Late Bronze Age. Neopalatial period, Late Minoan ΙA period.:
1600-1500 BC:
Gallery:
VIII
Case:
77
Exhibition thematic unit:
Late Bronze Age - Neopalatial period (1700-1450 BC). Minoan religion. Palace cult
Cult scenes
Description
Sealing with ritual procession of two women walking left. The female figure in front is wearing a flounced skirt and a characteristic festive garland around her neck, while her arms are bent on her chest. The second, larger woman, is carrying a single-bladed axe on her right shoulder. She is wearing a low, conical cap and a long, wide garment with horizontal bands at the bottom, under a short mantle. The scene echoes the priestly processions of palace festivities, in which sacred emblems, most commonly the double axe, were carried. The iconography of the sealings from the rich archive of the palace of Zakros preserves some events of palace cult which have not survived in other artworks with a larger surface for decoration, such as the frescoes, from which the seal-carvers are thought to draw their inspiration.
Bibliography:
Hogarth, D.G. "The Zakro Sealings". Journal of Hellenic Studies 22 (1902): 78 no. 10, pl. VI. Hogarth, D.G. "Note on two Zakro Sealings",The Annual of the British School at Athens 17 (1910-11): 264-65. Nilsson, M. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion. Lund, 1950, 160. Sapouna-Sakellaraki, Ε. Μινωικόν ζώμα, Athens, 1971, 107-08, fig. 14β. M?ller, W. and I. Pini. Iraklion Arch?ologisches Museum: Die Siegelabdr?cke von Kato Zakros. Unter Einbeziehung von Funden aus anderen Museen. Heidelberg, 2016 (Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, Vol. 2.7), 17.
Author:
S. M.


Photographs' metadata