Mycenaean Elements in the Miniature Fresco from Thera?

Meanwhile a communis opinio seems to have been reached about the Aegean setting of the fresco. The debate about the possible Minoan and Mycenaean influences as stimulated during the last Thera conference and afterwards by a series of papers by scholars such as M. Cameron, S. Immerwahr, S. Iakovidis and most recently R. Laffineur, who all argued for the appearance of Mycenaean features in the fresco. Such Mycenaean features have been seen in the military aspects (the 'shipwreck scene', weapons) as well as in the emblematic character of the pictorial decoration of the ships, which is comparable to that on early Mycenaean inlaid weapons. According to Laffineur, this similarity demonstrates the Mycenaean character of the emblematic language of the ships' decoration.

In my paper I shall try to demonstrate that we have to be very cautious in distinguishing Minoan and Mycenaean features at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age and that we have to avoid simplistic approaches to the problem. The material base for our picture of the beginning of the Late Bronze Age is very different in the two areas: in Crete we know finds from settlements, in the Greek mainland those from cemeteries. Nevertheless, the bellicose representations found on the mainland at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age are no greater in number than those from Crete. All the elements of the emblematic language of the ships' decorations have Minoan parallels. Minoan parallels also exist for the paratactic repetition of the motifs on the ships' hulls. The closest parallels for the Thera ships are to be found in representations on Cretan seals of the so-called 'talismanic group'.

Thus I do not see any evidence for identifying the ships on the Miniature Fresco from Thera as Mycenaean. I think that the Miniature Fresco can be interpreted as an illustration of the bellicose and the religious aspects of the phenomenon which the later Greek tradition called the 'Thalassocracy of Minos'. The fact that this representation has been found not in Crete but in a Cycladic island is not startling. According to the Egyptian sources Crete and the Cyclades apparently formed a political unit, as has been demonstrated by E. and Y. Sakellarakis.

At the time of the last Thera congress and since then, some scholars have suggested the existence of Mycenaean elements in the Miniature Fresco from the West House in Akrotiri (Immerwahr 1977, 173-183; Cameron 1978, 589; Iakovidis 1979, 101; Warren 1979a, 128-129). Most recently, in three papers, Laffineur (1983a, 1983b, 1984) has gone more deeply into an observation first made by Immerwahr (1977, 181-182): the similarities between the decorations of the hulls of the ships represented in the Ship Procession on the south-wall frieze and on inlaid daggers with 'painting in metal' from Mycenaean Greece.

In particular Laffineur compares the flying birds on the hull of the ship under sail no. 5 (Fig. 1; numbering after Basch 1987, 119, Fig. 232) to those on two inlaid daggers, one from Prosymna (Blegen 1937; Pl. II below; Laffineur 1984, 135, Fig. 2), the other in a Japanese private collection (Vermeule 1972, Pl. XIII D); the lions in a flying gallop on the hull of the 'admiral's ship' no. 4 (Fig. 3) to those on an inlaid dagger from Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae (Marinatos and Hirmer 1973. Pl. 51 bottom; Laffineur 1984, 136, Fig. 4); the dolphins on the same vessel to those on weapons from Prosymna (Blegen 1937, 330-331, Fig. 420-421, Pl. II above) and Katarraktis-Pharai in Achaea (Papadopoulos 1978/79, Fig. 321a-b, 357); and finally the spirals on ships nos. 2 and 6 to the running spirals on daggers and swords from the Shaft Graves at Mycenae (Marinatos and Hirmer 1973, Pl. 194 centre; Mylonas 1972/73, Pl. 18b-c).

From these comparisons Laffineur concludes that the decorations of the hulls of the ships on the south wall of the Miniature Fresco from the West House at Akrotiri show a typical Mycenaean symbolism and therefore have to be identified as Mycenaean ships. However, in his argument Laffineur has ignored the fact that parallels for all these motifs are to be found in Minoan Crete as well.

The motif of the flying bird is known in Cretan glyptic art from the Middle Bronze Age onwards (Yule 1980, 133, Pl. 9). At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age it was especially popular in the MM III / LM I glyptic group of the so-called talismanic seals (Onassoglou 1985, 138-152, Pl. L-LIII). More naturalistic representations of flying birds from the LM I sealing archives of Chania (Papapostolou 1977, Pl. 26 n. 16) and especially Ayia Triada (Fig. 2) are directly comparable with the flying doves on the hull of ship no. 5. These seal archives are to be dated to the Cretan LM IB destruction horizon, somewhat later than the Thera Miniature Fresco buried contemporary with LM IA (Niemeier 1980; Marthari 1984). However, the seals which impressed these sealings may be earlier, since the LM IB destructions only give a terminus ante quem for the seals in question. Moreover, seals can be in use for a very long time (Niemeier 1981; Pini 1983, 39).

The oldest known Aegean examples of the motif of the lion in a flying gallop again come from Middle Bronze Age Crete. They are to be found on seal impressions from the MM II-III A 'archivio di cretule' of the Old Palace at Phaistos (CMS II 5, nos. 276-277; for the date of the 'archivio di cretule' cf. Walberg, 1981). In LM I the motif appears on seal impressions from Ayia Triada (Betts 1967, 35, Fig. 7b) and Zakro (Fig. 4).

Representations of fish are to be found in Cretan glyptic and pottery representations from EM III onwards, but only in MM II can we find enough details to identify representations of dolphins (Yule 1980, 135-136, Pl. 10 motif 13; Walberg 1976, Fig. 48 motif V, 5; 1983, Pl. 49 motif IX). MM III-LM IA seals, as well as pottery decorations, show representations of dolphins directly comparable with those of the Thera Miniature Fresco (Fig. 5-7).

The running spiral is a typical Minoan pottery decorative motif from EM III onwards (Betancourt 1984, 26, Fig. 3-5, motif 8; Walberg 1976, 182, Fig. 37-38; 1983, Pl. 31-33; Niemeier 1985, 103 Fig. 43, nos. 1-10) and appears in relief on LM I metal vessels (E.N. Davis 1977, 106 no. 15, Fig. 79-80; Matthäus 1980, 188). In one of the LM II tombs near Knossos - the attribution to Mycenaean conquerors is not convincing (Kilian-Dirlmeier 1985) - a spear-blade with spiral decoration was found (Hood 1952, 261, no. A J 2, Fig. 8), which appears anachronistic within this context and may be a ceremonial weapon and an heirloom (Höckmann 1980, 14-16).

A typical Mycenaean feature is also seen by Laffineur in the arrangement of the hull's motifs in a row (Fig. 8), as on some mainland daggers with 'painting in metal' decoration. But to what extent can we really term the inlaid weapons found on the mainland as Mycenaean works of art? As Vermeule (1975, 28) has correctly stated, 'every student of the Shaft Graves has tried to distinguish among imported objects from Crete, Mycenaean imitations of Cretan models, hybrids of various degrees, and pure Mycenaean. Such judgments are necessarily subjective.' As far as the technique of 'painting in metal' is concerned, it most probably reached the Aegean early in the Late Bronze Age from the Near East via Crete (Dickinson 1977, 82-83). To believe that this technique is exclusively Mycenaean and was not practised on Crete could mean a conclusion ex silentio. All the weapons with 'painting in metal' have been exclusively found in rich mainland tombs of the early Late Bronze Age, and rich tombs of this period have not yet been found on Crete. Moreover in Egyptian representations ofthe XVIIIth Dynasty Cretans are carrying metal vessels with inlay work (Vercoutter 1956, 306-308, nos. 231-234, Pl. 35), and a Vapheio cup in London inlaid with gold, electrum and silver is said to have been found on Crete (E.N. Davis 1977, 118-123 no. 24, Fig. 95-97).

The representational iconography of the weapons with 'painting in metal' has no mainland predecessors (on MH mainland 'iconography' cf. Buck 1964; Kling 1981), only Cretan ones (cf. Pelon 1985; Poursat 1985, 54-55), and demonstrates an aesthetic sensibility which is certainly absent in early Mycenaean works of the Shaft-Grave era like the Shaft-Grave stelai (Müller 1915, 286-294) and other examples showing a rather coarse, 'nomadic' taste (Vermeule 1975, 23-26). Therefore I would agree with Kopcke (1981, 40; cf. also Hiller 1984, 29) that the inlaid daggers, regardless of 'whether they were produced on the islands or on the mainland, stylistically they are Cretan or Cycladic works'. Thus, the similarity between the decorations of the ship's hulls of the Miniature Fresco and the inlaid daggers seems to indicate an influence just the converse of that suggested by Laffineur.

The emblematic composition of the hull's decoration with the single elements in a row cannot be considered as a necessarily Mycenaean influence either. As has been correctly stated by Vermeule (1975, 33; cf. also Hurwit 1979): 'It seems clear that a formal, structural style in Crete was reviving as the premier fashion, long before there is any question of intrusive Greeks at Knossos.' The paratactic arrangement of single motifs in a frieze as on the ships' hulls (Fig. 8), is also to be found in LM I vase-painting (Fig. 10-12) and fresco-painting (Fig. 9).

The decorations of the prows and sterns of the ships on the south wall have also been considered by Laffineur as signs of Mycenaean influence. On the ships where these parts are preserved we can see that the narrow prows are adorned with images of butterflies (ships 2 and 4, Fig. 13, 16), a bird (ship 1, Fig. 18), two dolphins (ship 6, Fig. 21) and an emblem which has been interpreted as griffin but is rather unclear (ship 7; cf. Immerwahr 1977, 182; Morgan 1988, 133, Pl. 172). On each of the preserved bowsprits is a star or rosette, possibly a solar motif, in some cases with dots between the outer points (Fig. 16). A star also decorates the hull of the 'flagship' no. 4 (Morgan 1988, Pl. 169). The sterns are adorned with the images of a lion (ships 2 and 4, Fig. 23) and probably of a griffin (ships 3, 6, 7; cf. Immerwahr 1977, 182).

The star is a familiar element of the LM IB so-called Marine Style pottery (Mountjoy-Jones-Cherry 1978, 147-148, Fig. 3, 5, 'starfish'). The star with dots between its outer points is also found on a fresco fragment from the 13th magazine at Knossos (Fig 17), which has been dated by Evans to MM III (Evans 1921, 479-480). However, this dating is uncertain, since the latest pottery from the context in which the fragment was found is LM IIIA (Warren 1967, 197-198). Therefore, it seems possible that the star motif was first applied to ships as an emblem during the LM IA period, and then associated with a marine environment on the pottery of the following period, as suggested by Morgan (1984, 171-172; 1988, 132). In any case, it cannot be interpreted as a sign of Mycenaean influence, since it appears on the Mycenaean mainland not earlier than LH IIIB (cf. Mountjoy-Jones-Cherry 1978, 148, 154, Table 1; Morgan 1988, 132, Pl. 167).

The butterfly does not seem to have existed as a decorative motif in MM art (cf. Yule 1980, 133-135, motif 12: 'insects'), but from LM I contexts we have parallels for both types of eyed butterflies adorning the Thera ships' sterns - that with scalloped (Fig. 14) and that with rounded edges (Fig 15).

The Minoan origin of the motif of the flying bird has already been discussed. A flying bird in profile very similar to that on the prow of ship 1 (Fig. 17) is represented on an MM III silver discoid from Knossos (Fig. 18), and the combination of flying bird and star appears on a discoid in the Metaxas collection as well, probably to be dated to LM I (Fig. 20). The origin of the dolphin motif has been discussed earlier. However, in this connection it seems worth mentioning that dolphins appear on LM I seals together with star motifs in an emblematic context comparable with that of ship 6 (Fig. 22; cf. also Onassoglou 1985, Pl. LIX nos. 63-65). The long Minoan history of the lion motif is well established (Yule 1980, 91-92, 97-98, 127-129). A good comparison for the lions on the stems of ships 2 and 4 is to be found on an MM III seal from Knossos with the representation of a lion in bust (Fig. 24). In the MM II-IIIA 'archivio di cretule' in Phaistos, and the LM I sealing archives of Zakro and Ayia Triada, lions are found in emblematic compositions (CMS II 5, no. 282; Evans 1935, 611, Fig. 599a-c). Finally, the first appearance of the griffin motif in the Aegean is on sealings from the MM II-IIIA 'archivio di cretule' in Phaistos (CMS II 5, nos. 317-319); in LM I it appears on seal impressions of the Zakro and Ayia Triada archives (Dessenne 1957), some of them showing griffins in emblematical compositions (Hogarth 1902, 82, no. 54, Pl. 6; Levi 1925/26, 115-116, nos. 95-96, Fig. 112-113). Thus, all the decorative motifs of the prows and sterns of the ships on the south wall appear in emblematical compositions in LM I Crete and should not be interpreted as evidence of Mycenaean influence.

According to Laffineur (1983b, 116), 'the mainland origin of the ships represented on the fresco is further emphasized by the presence of a cabin standing on the rear part'. In these cabins (Fig. 25) - according to S. Marinatos (1974, 44) the equivalents of the Homeric ikria - Laffineur recognizes a 'typical Mycenaean feature, unparalleled in Crete'. The mainland fresco representations reconstructed by M.C. Shaw (1980) are very much later than those in the Thera frescoes. A fragment of a stone vase from Epidauros showing a ship's stern section with a cabin similar to the Theran ones should be dated to LH III (Sakellariou 1971, 14; Kaiser 1976, 95, 133-134, 174). If we look to Crete, there appears in the MM III-LM I group of the 'talismanic' seals the motif of an only partially represented ship (Fig. 26). The superstructures have been interpreted as masts and sails (S. Marinatos, 1933, 207; Xenaki-Sakellariou 1958, 52; Gray 1964, 44-45; Basch 1987, 107-112), but after the discovery of the Thera frescoes the ideas of Stais (1915, 121) and Chapoutier (1953, 26), who interpreted the superstructure as representing a cabin, appear to be confirmed (cf. van Effenterre 1978, 595-596; Onassoglou 1985, 28-34). As Onassoglou (1985, 30) has demonstrated, the type defined by her as 'Kajütenschiff' (cabin ship) is a shorthand representation in which two important elements of the ship are combined: the prow and the stern cabin. Thus, the cabins of the Thera fresco have contemporary parallels on Crete, but none on the Mycenaean mainland.

Laffineur's last argument for identifying the ships of the Miniature Fresco as Mycenaean concerns their decoration as a whole: 'The very principle of decorated ships is alien to the Minoan marine... But it is especially attested in mainland Greece.' (Laffineur 1983b, 116.) As evidence for this, Laffineur mentions two LH I sherds from Iolkos showing fragmentary ships with a zigzag ornament painted on the hull (Gray 1964, 43, Fig. 8c) as well as much later examples. However. hulls decorated with similar simple motifs (points, lines) are shown in ship representations on MM seals (Basch 1987, 98 no. B1, 99 nos. B4, B6, 100 no. B9, 101 no. C11). On MM seals, and seals of the MM III-LM I 'talismanic' group, the prow and sometimes also the stern have decorations which can be interpreted as flying birds (Basch 1987, 107-116) or as hooks for fastening emblems, as on the Thera ships (van Effenterre 1978, 596).

Moreover, the ships of the south-wall frieze appear to be attired specifically for the occasion of a ship procession, whereas the ships of the 'shipwreck' scene on the north wall are of the same type but lacking any decoration (cf. Morgan 1978, 631-632; 1988, 121, 130-131). Finally, the type of the Thera ships 'is more characteristic of the curved sweep of ships on Minoan sealstones (albeit less exaggerated) than of the lower, angular line common to Early Cycladic and Early to Late Helladic ships', as correctly stated by L. Morgan (1988, 121). Thus, I cannot see any element in the ships of the Thera Miniature Fresco which identifies them as Mycenaean.

As far as the metaphorical meaning of the single elements of the ships' decorations is concerned, I agree with Laffineur (1984, 135-136) and Morgan (1988, 131-135), who have recognized symbols of power in the lions and the griffins, marine associations in the dolphins, symbols of speed and navigational power in the flying birds, and a sense of motion in the butterflies. However, besides this, there also appears to be a more religious element in the meaning of these animals.

In Minoan religious iconography all of them have a certain function: lions and griffins appear as attendants of deities (Nilsson 1950, 352-356; Niemeier 1986, 74-75 with n. 87), and the same appears to be true of dolphins (Boulotis 1987,32). The religious function of birds as divine signs or determinatives is also established (Nilsson 1950, 330-340; Hägg 1986, 42). Finally, a religious function of the butterfly, as suggested by Evans (1928, 788-789; 1930, 149-151), is now confirmed by the find in Arkhanes of a gold ring with the representation of a goddess attended by butterflies (Warren 1975, Fig. on p. 99), the new reconstruction of the Priest King fresco, which includes a butterfly (Evans 1928, 788, Fig. 514) as representing a god (Niemeier 1987), and the re-examination by Pini of an Ayia Triada sealing representing a woman leaning on a baetyl and adoring two butterflies and a sacral knot (Rutkowski 1981, 47, Fig. 14, 2). Thus, I think that the animals in question in the decoration of the ships are to be interpreted as symbols of deities, too. Given the theme of the south wall a religious festival with a ship procession (cf. Morgan 1978; 1988, 143-145; N. Marinatos 1983, 8-10; 1984a, 52-61), this does not seem surprising.

As Morgan (1988, 139) has convincingly argued, the stern cabin of the ship on the south wall is not a normal part of the equipment, and it must have been carried onto the ship for the purpose of the occasion. The association of the image of a young priestess with eight cabin structures painted on the walls of the neighbouring room 4 indicates that the cabins were objects of ritual (E.N. Davis 1983, 6-7; N. Marinatos 1983, 5-6; Morgan 1988, 143-144), an interpretation which is supported by the religious associations of the 'waz' motifs adorning the stern cabins of that room (Rutkowski 1977, 150-155; 1978, 663-664; 1981, 62-68). Thus, the 'Kajütenschiff' (Fig. 26) on the seals of the so-called 'talismanic' group appears to be nothing else than a pars pro toto representation of a ship procession. A confirmation for this interpretation is given by the representation of an amygdaloid in the Stathatos collection (Fig. 27). It was carved by a Minoan or Minoanizing artist (Onassoglou 1985, 35) and shows a 'talismanic' ship with stern cabin in a more narrative scene: apart from the ship and the cabin, two steersmen, the ship's stern projection (cf. Morgan 1988, 135-137), as well as the oars of the rowers are represented. Consequently the 'Kajütenschiff' motif belongs to a group of motifs in the 'talismanic' group with religious and magical meaning (cf. Onassoglou 1985, 210-211) and forms at the same time evidence for the existence in Crete of nautical festivals similar to those on Thera.

Without going into further detail, Laffineur (1984, 137) interprets the 'admiral of the fleet' as 'a Mycenaean who once set up in Thera as leader of an indefinite Greek foundation on the island'. Here he apparently follows Iakovidis (1979, 101), who recognized in the 'admiral' (S. Marinatos, 1974. Pl. 108) 'pronounced mainland features like those portrayed on the amethyst sealstone from Shaft Grave Gamma' (ibid., Pl. 109). However, although Betts's (1981) assignment of the seal in question to a certain Cretan workshop does not seem to be compelling (Pini 1984, 129), there is still a strong possibility that the seal is a Cretan import. Moreover, the beard of the 'admiral' - which could also be an angular chin (Morgan 1988, 119) - does not identify him as Mycenaean. As E.N. Davis (1983, 7) has demonstrated, 'both in Crete and the Aegean the wearing of beards was optional, at least for men of distinction.'

Finally, Laffineur (1984, 136) recognizes further evidence or the mainland origin of the ships in the 'equipment of the seated warriors - and also of the warriors marching near the first town on the north wall - which is, if not exclusively, at least essentially Mycenaean'. As Morgan (1988, 109-115, 118-120) has demonstrated in her recent exhaustive study of the West House Miniature Fresco, the equipment of the seated men - of whom not all are warriors - is not necessarily Mycenaean: the helmets are zoned helmets common to Crete and the mainland, and in our present state of knowledge the cloaks have parallels neither on Crete nor on the mainland.

As far as the marching warriors on the north wall (Fig. 28) are concerned, Warren (1979, 122; cf. also Iakovidis 1979, 101) has already considered them as Mycenaeans because of their 'absolutely typical armour'. Morgan (1988, 119) is more cautious, saying 'that the marching warriors have affinities with Mycenaeans and could conceivably be mainlanders'. However, for all weapons of the marching warriors we also have parallels on Crete. Apparently the first long swords in the Aegean were produced on Crete in the Old Palace period (Sandars 1961, 17-18; Pelon 1982; 1983; for the exact dating of the long sword recently excavated in a MH shaft grave on Aegina one has to wait for the definitive publication - cf. Walter 1981, 182-184). As Mylonas (1972/73, 314-317) and Hood (1980) have argued, most if not all of the Shaft-Grave swords were imported from Crete. The different types of spear heads in the Aegean appear in the Middle Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, first on Crete and only later on the mainland (Höckmann 1980, 17-18, 22). The oldest representation of a shield in Aegean Bronze Age iconography is to be found on a seal of the Old Palace period from Knossos (Fig. 31; cf. Yule 1980, 172, motif 57 no. 3). This is a figure-of-eight shield. As Morgan (1988, 107) has demonstrated, the rectangular or 'tower' shield is nowhere more numerous than on Thera. Besides Thera, it appears not only in the Shaft Graves but also on Crete: on an MM III sealing from the Knossian Temple Repositories (Fig. 29) and a sealstone, now in the British Museum (Fig. 30), which may be of LM I date (cf. Morgan 1988, 107).

The boar's tusk helmet is frequently said to be of Mycenaean type, but it appears also in Cretan representations before there is any question of Mycenaean intruders on the island: on sealings from the LM I archives of Zakro and Ayia Triada (Fig. 32, 33). A statistical comparison between Crete and the mainland is not helpful, since boar's tusk helmets have been found on the mainland exclusively in rich tombs (cf. Varvarigos 1981), of which virtually none have been discovered on Crete for the period in question. Boars appear on Cretan seals from EM III / MM IA onwards (Yule 1980, 126-127, motif 5). Especially worth mentioning is the ceremonial weapon decorated with a boar's head found at Anemospilia near Arkhanes in an MM III context (Sakellarakis and Sakellarakis 1981, Fig. on p. 206). On Crete some worked boar's tusks have been found which, however, cannot be definitively identified as parts of boar's tusks helmets (Borchardt 1972, 52). But a helmet with boar's tusks was most probably worn by the warrior buried in MM IIIB / LM IA in a chamber tomb in Herakleion-Poros, who had the same weapon types as the warriors of the north wall of the West House Miniature Fresco, one or two spears and a sword or dagger, as has been demonstrated by Kilian-Dirlmeier (1985, 208-209, Fig. 6; cf. also Hiller 1984, 29).

Furthermore, iconographic parallels also exist on Crete for the marching warriors of the Miniature Fresco's north wall. A sealing from the LM I archive at Ayia Triada shows a highly stylized representation of two warriors with figure-of-eight shields (Fig. 34). A similar motif appears on a Cretan seal of Younger's LM I Cretan Popular Group in the Philadelphia University Museum (Younger 1983, 123-127; Fig. 35 below). It has been interpreted as representing two men with inflated garments (Kenna and Thomas 1974, 139), but the 'garments' are in fact shields, as correctly stated by Younger (1983, 123; 1988, 125). From tomb 7 of the Mavro Spilio cemetery at Knossos comes a lentoid showing two marching warriors with figure-of-eight shields (Fig. 36). From chamber B, where the seal was found, no pottery earlier than LM II is published, but from chamber A the oldest pottery is MM II-III (Forsdyke 1925/26, 260-264), indicating that the tomb was in use from that time on (Pini 1968, 14, 36-37). The seal belonging to Younger's Cretan popular group may well be of LM I date.

The Ship-wreck scene with the drowning naked men on the north-wall has been correctly compared by Laffineur (1984, 134) to the silver Siege Rhyton from Mycenae (Sakellariou 1975, 196, Fig. 1) and the inlaid dagger from the Vapheio tholos tomb (S. Marinatos 1927; Evans 1930, 127 and Fig. 181). However, the oldest Aegean representations of naked drowning men, which depend on an old Oriental iconographic convention for defeated enemies (N. Marinatos 1983, 7; Doumas 1985, 33), are to be found on Crete. In the fragments of the MM III faience Town Mosaic from Knossos they appear together with ships, marching spearmen and archers (Evans 1921, 308-310; Polinger Foster 1979, 101-102). The martial nature of part of the Town Mosaic's activity appears not to be ambiguous, as Polinger Foster (1979, 101) thinks, but very clear, forming a parallel to the Ship-wreck scene of the Thera Miniature Fresco. Therefore, I would follow Sakellariou (1980; 1981) in seeing Crete as the origin of this iconographic cycle, but not in differentiating between peaceful representations on Crete and Thera and warlike ones on the mainland (cf. also Warren 1979a, 111-122; for certain differences between the examples of this cycle cf. Morgan 1988, 150-154).

All the other arguments put forward for a special relationship between Thera and the Mycenaean mainland are likewise not convincing (J.L. Davis 1981; Marthari 1980, 207-209). On the other hand, besides the evidence of Cycladic continuity, the signs of Minoan influence on Thera are very clear: in pottery, in Minoan imports (Niemeier 1980, 41-65) and - more important - in local Minoanizing wares (Marthari 1987, 362-366), in architecture (J.W. Shaw 1978; Palyvou 1984, 146-147), in a local workshop producing stone vessels of Minoan-type (Warren 1978; 1979b), in the use of the Minoan weight system (Petruso 1978; 1979), the Minoan Linear A script (Palaima 1982), Minoan-type loom weights (Carrington Smith 1975 ,275-284), cooking vessels (S. Marinatos 1968, 28, Fig. 36; 1971, Pl. 101a; 1976, Pl. 27-28; cf. Betancourt 1980), masses of conical cups (Wiener 1984, 22), Minoan religious iconography and Minoan-type ritual objects (N. Marinatos 1983; 1984b). And the kitchen (Scholes 1983, 298-299), as well as religious customs (Warren 1975, 101; Branigan 1981, 26; Scholes 1984, 47) form the best indicators of immigrants.

As I have argued elsewhere (Niemeier 1986b), the combination of all these Minoan elements appears to indicate a Minoan influence surpassing a 'karum contact' or 'Versailles effect' (Wiener 1984, 17). Minoan Crete was economically dependent on the import of raw materials, especially of metals such as copper, tin, lead, silver and gold. Although not all the sources of the metals used in early Late Minoan Crete are definitively known, lead and silver and a certain portion of the copper were imported from Laurion (Stos-Gale and Gale 1984; Stos-Gale 1985; 1988, 275-276) and tin from Ugarit (Dossin 1970, 98, 103; Astour 1973, 20-21). Peace at sea is essential to any political entity whose economy is based on maritime trade and communications and which, therefore, needs a strong fleet and bases to secure its trade routes against pirates. Thus, it was vital for Minoan Crete to have firm political control over the islands of the Western (J.L. Davis 1979, 146) and the Eastern Strings (Niemeier 1984, 206) connecting Crete with its metal sources, and this control appears to be reflected in the Greek tradition of the 'Thalassocracy of Minos' (Poland 1932, 1907-1911; Huxley 1968). Whether it was some form of diplomatic control (Doumas 1982, 12) or whether the islands in question were ruled by Minoan Crete (Hood 1984) will not be discussed here. The second possibility appears to be true of Phylakopi on Milos after the discovery of the probable seat of an administration writing in Linear A (Renfrew 1978, 411-412; Palaima 1981, 17-18), though no tablet has yet been found in Akrotiri. That Crete and the Aegean islands formed a political unit is confirmed by the Egyptian sources, which speak of Crete as the centre of a larger island complex (Sakellarakis and Sakellarakis 1984, 201-202).

As has been correctly stated by Morgan (1983, 104): 'The major focus of the West House paintings is that of maritime enterprise and the protection of that enterprise through ceremonial events.' I would like to suggest that this enterprise is nothing other than the so-called Minoan Thalassocracy. The interpretation of the Ship-wreck scene, especially of the marching warriors, has caused problems. S. Marinatos (1973, 495) first interpreted them as aggressors in a raid scene, and he has been followed in this by Schachermeyr (1976, 76), Warren (1979, 127-128), E.N. Davis (1983,10) and - as a possibility - by Morgan (1988, 153). However, Marinatos himself (1974, 40-41) had already recognized the peaceful character of the upper part, a pastoral genre scene with a sheep-fold and women bringing in water from a well (Morgan 1985, 8-9). Thus, some scholars (Sakellariou 1975, 207; Thorpe-Scholes 1978, 445) have doubted the aggressive character of the marching warriors. N. Marinatos (1983, 7-8) and I (Niemeier 1986b, 250) have independently arrived at the following interpretation of the scene: the Aegean warriors have defeated non-Aegean aggressors, probably pirates, before the coast, have landed and are displaying their strength peacefully. If this interpretation is correct, the fresco appears to form an illustration of the 'Thalassocracy of Minos', based on an unrivalled fleet, on which troops could be transported to and disembarked at every point in the Aegean. If Crete and the islands formed a political unit, it is unnecessary to ask if the ships and the warriors are Theran or Cretan.

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