[ΚΕΝΟ]



Sacred Grove and Dance Fresco

Τ25
Plaster
Very few fragments preserved. Largely restored. The reconstruction displayed in the Museum was made by Evans.
Knossos
Palace. Found in the North-West Wing with the miniature Tripartite Shrine Fresco. Comes from a small shrine on the first floor.
Middle -Late Bronze Age. Neopalatial period, Middle Minoan ΙΙΙΒ/ Late Minoan ΙA period.:
1600-1500 BC:
Gallery:
XIII
Exhibition thematic unit:
Minoan wall paintings
The world of the court
Description
Fresco composition of a dance performance attended by a large audience. Within an elongated delimited are fourteen female dancers moving left in two loose parallel rows, raising one hand over the head and lowering the other. The women’s gestures differ slightly, mainly as to how high the hand is raised, the alternation of left and right hand, and the position of the lowered hand. The two rows of adjoining rectangular stone blocks that delimit the dancing-floor are identified as the “processional causeways” of the West Court of the palace of Knossos, slightly raised above the level of the paved court, which allowed pedestrians to cross the court safely and guided the movement of ceremonial processions towards the interior of the palace during festivities. Evans, on the contrary, argued that the olive trees seen among the viewers indicate that the ceremony is taking place in a sacred grove near the palace. Besides the female dancers, a group of men also stands out in the performance space. They are shown full-figure, standing in two parallel lines in contact with the dancing-floor, left hand on chest. This group is clearly distinguished from the rest of the audience gathered in the West Court, the men separately from the women. The prevailing view is that the aim of the gathering was to witness the public epiphany of the goddess, incarnated in a high priestess. The focus of the ceremony seems to have been located on the left side of the scene, now lost, the direction in which the female dancers are facing and the spectators are looking. The public enthusiasm for the events taking place is evident from the gesture of the men in the back row of the audience, who are raising their hands high to salute the presence of the goddess. This fresco is one of the best attestations of the magnificence of Minoan palatial spectacles, especially dances. They have even been associated with the ingenious architect Daedalus, who, according to Homer, constructed the dancing-floor of the palace of Knossos for the princess Ariadne.
Bibliography:
Evans, A.J. The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos. Volume III, London, 1930, 66-9, 73-80, pl. XVIII. Cameron, M.A.S. "Notes on Some New Joints and Additions to well Known Frescoes". Europa. Studien zur Geschichte und Epigraphik der frϋhen Aegaeis. Festchrift fϋr E. Grumach, Berlin, 1967, 65-67, pl. IV c,d, fig. 7A,B,C, 8. Marinatos, Ν. "Public Festivals in the West Courts of the Palaces". In R. H?gg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, (10-16 June 1984), Stockholm, 1987, 135-43. Davis, Ε. "The Knossos Miniature Frescoes and the Function of the Central Courts". In R. H?gg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, (10-16 June 1984), Stockholm, 1987, 157-61. Immerwahr, S. Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age. University Park and London, 1990, 65-6, 173 (Kn No.16), pl. 23. Kontorli-Papadopoulou, L. Aegean Frescoes of Religious Character. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 117, G?teborg, 1996, 41 cat. nos 9, 76, 86, 89, 95, 104, 130, 133, 151, 159, 160, pl. 12, 13. Mandalaki, S. "Ο χορός στη Μινωική Κρήτη". Αρχαιολογία και Τέχνες 90 (2004): 17, fig. 5. Mandalaki, S. "Ο Δαίδαλος και το χοροστάσι της Αριάδνης". In S. Mandalaki (ed.), Δαίδαλος. Στα ίχνη του μυθικού τεχνίτη. Κατάλογος Έκθεσης, Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Ηρακλείου, Heraklion, 2019, 62-65, fig. 1.
Author:
S. M.


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