Bamboula (…“Seal impressions…”) Benson 1955Jack L. Benson

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the motif of flying birds flanking a plant is not usual, although it does occur, as on a cylinder seal[sup 44] classified as Cypriote in the Louvre. This has been assigned roughly to the second half of the first millenium[sup 45]. As a glyptic theme, [handwritten: the] this motif is too wide to be well suited to gems, intaglios and stamps, which the Minoan-Mycenean world generally preferred to cylinder seals. We may therefore not be too surprised to find that the Cretan or Greek artist who took over this rare oriental theme decided to put it on a cylinder seal. Formally, probably the closest parallel in Cretan art to the Bamboula impression is a Late Palatial representation[sup 46] from Knossos (Fig.12

Handwritten: 11

). Plants and birds are present, though differently arranged and with [handwritten: a weakened heraldic sig] the [handwritten: effect] through the presence of the woman. For analyzing the birds of the Bamboula impression stylistically with real accuracy and nicety, the juxtaposition prepared by C. Krueger[sup 47] of flying birds seen in profile, from various cultural areas, is most useful. The closest parallels to the Bamboula birds are a series of intaglio impressions on clay lumps from Hagia Triada[sup 48]. Among all the prehistoric Aegean peoples, it is really only the Minoans (and then not always) who caught the swinging arc of a bird's body as it glides in flight. Cretan birds, at their best, are aerodynamic; oriental birds - even Egyptian birds - however magnificent and realistic, seem posed, not streaking through the air. The birds on the Bamboula seal, with their bodies moulded in a graceful, tapering double curve beginning with the beak and ending with the tail, seem just to have swooped down from upper regions to investigate the tree before them. Formally very similar, but executed in a somewhat different spirit, are the birds on a fragment of gold plate[sup 49] from Tomb 3 at Mycenae. Similarly the