Fresco fragment with white lilies



Fresco fragment with white lilies

Τ40Α
Plaster
Incomplete
23Χ23 cm.
Knossos
Southeast House
Middle-Late Bronze Age, Neopalatial period. Middle Minoan ΙΙΙ- Late Minoan Ι period:
1700- 1450 BC:
Gallery:
XIII
Case:
144
Exhibition thematic unit:
Minoan wall paintings
The world of nature
Description
Fragments of a fresco scene with white lilies with green leaves on a reddish background. Although lilies appear in the classic period of Kamares Ware, they become a particularly popular theme in Middle Minoan III – Late Minoan I. Both the white and the red lily are depicted in the Minoan frescoes. The white lily is identified as either the Madonna lily (Lilium candidum) or the coast lily (Lilium maritimum), while the red lily is either Lilium chalcedonicum or Lilium martagon. The latter two are not endemic to Crete, leading some scholars to suppose that the plants depicted were cultivated rather than wild.
Bibliography:
Evans, S. A. (1921). The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos. Macmillan. vol. II, 537, pl. VI.
Author:
K. A.


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