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… the Bamboula mode of [illegible] pottery is seen to be quite different from the mainland mode. But the basic resemblance in this unusual practice is inescapable. What exactly the relationship between them is cannot be answered at present with any certitude.
An impressed sherd73 from Enkomi proves, in any case, that the custom of putting seal impressions on sherds was not confined, in this Cypriote itself, to Bamboula alone. The impression is apparently on a pithos fragment - a stray find - and in its representation provides a remarkable parallel to Sh 717. Its closeness to Egyptian prototypes is much more striking even than was the case with Sh 717. Once again one may cite the scene in Tomb 17 at Beni Hasan as being the closest prototype: in the stance of the bulls, including the backward thrust of the leg nearest the observer as well as the pressed-together heads; in the twitching of the tails; and particularly in the fact that a man is holding, or stroking, the bull's hind leg. In fact, the cutter's truly detailed knowledge of the Egyptian scene, together with the generally non-Minoan appearance of the figures, puts this impression into an entirely different category from the impression of Sh 717. One is inclined to look to the Syro-Palestinian littoral, where direct Egyptian influence was strong, for the origin of the sherd from which the Enkomi impression was made. Even there it would be an unusual artifact, for Egyptian influence, let alone purely Egyptian motifs, is rare on cylinder seals of that region. 74 Still, if the connection can be upheld, it would at least be a contemporary link with the region where the practice of impressing seals on pottery originated.
Whatever the full explanation for the impressed sherds from Bamboula may be,
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain