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

A final consideration:

Although, as we have established seen, there is some precedent for the application of cylinder

seal impressions to rims of pots, we might must point to the rather common occurrence

of fluted decoration on [metallic]/ vessels of Minoan-Mycenaean origin, which may It may

well be that the ornamentation of our pithos rim is in imitation of an attempt to imitate

[margin left: cite examples in connection with Sh 545] this effect. Such an inference is strongly supported by the occurrence of the impressed handle, Sh 545, which

will be discussed below, as an obvious case of such imitation at the same site.

not paralleled any century find on the mainland but that a seal

The occurrence of these patterns from the Minoan-Mycenaean world on ordinary

native Cypriote pottery of the homeliest kind is the surest guarantee that we

have to do directly with only, with imprints, not their makers. It would be the worst misuse

interpretation of evidence to suppose that because Minoan-Mycenaean seals were in

circulation available at Kourion that there was therefore also a Minoan and Mycenaean there.

These latter may have been there, or in Cyprus; but here facts cannot be made to say

so. Rather they indicate that the finest products from the mainland, in many cases perissable (?) just as the ware

freely exported to the Near East. How exported and for what, we do not know. But we

shall no more assume the presence of a Minoan-Mycenaean craftsperson in Cyprus Bamboula from

these seals than we should assume the presence of a Babylonian craftsperson there from the

existence of the Babylonian seal