Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/306

 The Human Figure as Decorative Element. 253 front {Fig. 369). Schliemann to the last persisted in viewing these abridged human visages as representations of the owl which, on the authority of an ill-understood epithet, he identified with the great Trojan goddess, the Glaucopis Athene of Homer. But the rudimentary human form appears on the prehistoric pottery of the American Indians, and on that of North Germany ; the idea is common to the Mexican, Peruvian, and Pomeranian potter. The indications seen on the external face of the vase were an obvious allusion to physical charms which awake desire ; and Fig. 369. — Vase from second Trojan town. One-eighni. inasmuch as they quickened memory, they may be said to have animated clay, and infused latent life into it. The rare industrial relics which have come from prehistoric Thera, ere it was overtaken by a volcanic eruption, show no vestige, great or small, of efforts having been made to copy the human and animal form. In the Cyclades, on the other hand, sculpture is represented by a numerically rich but monotonous series of idols. A strange-looking object from Rhodes should also perhaps be placed in this period {Figs. 370, 371). The coarse modelling brings to mind the golden masks of Mycenie. The eyes are closed ; the lips are stiffened on the double row