Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/337

 284 Primitive Greece : Mvcenian Art. but although seemingly of indigenous origin, these animals are old acquaintances of ours. Ere Mycenian culture had risen on the horizon of time, both were popular in Egypt and throughout Anterior Asia. The types are too distinctive and characteristic, too sharply defined to permit us to consider their presence on the shores of the ^gean as a mere coincidence, or that they were re-invented here. Hence, we are left with the inevitable conclusion that the master-artist must first have beheld them on imported wares. Yet they were not slavishly copied by him ; by adding certain delicate touches to his griffins and sphinxes he made them stand out from their Egyptian and Asiatic proto- types. The Mycenae griffin sailed straight from Egypt, and is a compromise between an eagle and a lion. The griffin of the Euphrates valley is always figured with crested plumes, which rise from the back of the neck straight up in the air.' This crest is everywhere to seek at Mycenie. Sometimes feathers are not indicated on the neck ; but in their place we find curl-like appendages which fall on the body precisely as with Egyptian griffins.'' At Mycense, as on the banks of the Nile, the griffin is symbolic of strength and agility. His stretch of body when » History of Art. = Wilkinson, Customs and Manners (1878). See also Furtw a holer's article entitled Gryps.