The Flora of the Theran Wall Paintings: Living Plants and Motifs - Sea Lily, Crocus, Iris and Ivy

Sea lilies, Pancratium maritimum, rather than papyri, were found to be represented in the plants of the House of the Ladies, the floral column in the scene with monkeys in Sector Alpha, and in the 'papyri' of the river scene of the miniature frieze in the West House. The same sea lily motif was found to be used in other 'papyrus' scenes, such as in the Mycenae dagger with the scene of wild cats hunting ducks and the mural from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos. The ways in which the crocus representations in the Xeste 3 murals relate to real Crocus cartwrightianus (wild saffron crocus) are defined. Recognition of the garland of fresh stigmas worn by the girl carrying the necklace adds a new element to the ritual usage of crocus stigmas. The stylised ivy frieze at the top of the Boxing boys and 'Antelopes' mural is shown to derive from the mature heart-shaped ivy leaf and its berry umbel, by way of the Minoan prototype. The iris of the hairpin of the girl with wounded foot is identified as Iris unguicularis var. cretensis.

INTRODUCTION 

The Theran floral art, like the Minoan, is essentially a religious, aesthetic and practical response to the fecundity of the land as manifest in the exuberant floral (and faunal) display of the spring and autumn seasons. The flora is often so cryptically stylised and the plants so unfamiliar that identifying spicies and grasping the artists' treatment of the subjects is difficult.

Since decoding the floral images depends on close familiarity with the plants themselves (to detect subtle references), I have gone directly to the flora in the field in order to understand the details of plant morphology, habitat conditions, seasonal states and other factors. My professional knowledge as artist/designer, my eye trained for detail, understanding of stylisation and knowledge of the Minoan visual idiom have given me access to the artists' treatments. Detailed study drawings of the plants and damaged paintings have disclosed previously inaccessible information, and have instructed me in the artists' thinking and craft. My horticultural experience has given me privileged access to the plants. some of which I have grown for observation, and to their structure and growth habits.

Botanical advice from Brian Mathew, the crocus expert and a Principal Scientific Officer at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (and plant explorer of the Balkans, Aegean and south-west Asia), has been of great value in understanding the plant subjects.

SEA LILIES: HOUSE OF THE LADIES, ALTAR WITH MONKEYS AND OTHER

The large painted plants of the House of the Ladies (Doumas 1992, figs. 2-5) have been interpreted as sea lilies (or sea daffodils, Pancratium maritimum L.) by S. Marinatos (1972, 39), Baumann (1993, 174-175, pls. 346-349), Diapoulis (1980), Doumas (1992, 34) and Höckmann (1978, 614), as papyri by Warren (1976, 91), Rackham (1978, 757), N. Marinatos (1984, 94) and Morgan (1988, 21ff.), and as sea lily/papyrus hybrids by Cerceau (1985, 182).

I support the sea lily identification, as the motif can be shown to derive directly from this plant. Moreover, some other so-called papyri in Aegean art are found, on the basis of the House of the Ladies sea lily motif and compared with the real sea lily, to be variants on an identical pattern (Fig. 6).

The stylised motif shares some features of Egyptian papyrus motifs, but these are generic: tall stature, leafless stems, single flower to a stem, yellow spathes (or bud bracts), flower striping and blue fan-shaped flower heads. But the tufts of basal leaves, and the emphasised coronas with scallop crests and large bean-shaped yellow anthers, are deliberately indicated as features of sea lilies; these are not papyrus traits (papyrus, Cyperus papyrus, especially lacks strap-form basal leaves). Another indication of sea lily is the wavy-topped, non-rocky, yellow ochre ground from which the plants grow - a clear representation of this plant's seaside sand dune habitat. The plants are not shown growing in water, essential to papyri, and as depicted in Egyptian art.

Living sea lilies were observed at Ambelos in south-east Crete, and drawn and photographed on September 5-8, 1994 (Figs. 2-4b). The springtime state of leaves in full growth was observed on May 5, 1992. The name sea lily, as used by botanists Grey-Wilson and Mathew, and in accord with the Greek name κρίνον την θάλασσας, is used here instead of sea daffodil, as more appropriate (Grey-Wilson and Mathew 1981, 139).

       Why sea lily?

The flowering of the late summer lily of the sea is a major local environmental and seasonal event - especially for the sea oriented islanders. Its beauty, strong scent and night blooming habit give it special appeal. Its abundant availability when no other flower was available for cult purposes in the dry, hot late summer points to a cult status, perhaps equal to that of the lilies and crocuses.

Its whiteness and strong scent (lily-like but more pungent) made it especially appropriate as an offering to the Minoan goddess, as pronounced fragrance was a property of cult flowers like the lily and crocus and aromatic foliage plants like myrtle and ditanny (strong affecting scent was - and is - used in rituals to please a deity and attract his or her attention, and emotionally heighten the transcendent experience of religious rituals). Its widespread flowering on the seaside sand dunes, associating it with the sea and the sea imagery of Minoan art showing goddesses and trees in boats, points to possible inclusion in sea oriented theology (e.g. the Mochlos ring).

It is also a bulb plant, like the sacred lilies, crocuses and sea squills which were singled out as especially significant. Some of the leafed-out bulbs in ritual scenes may in fact be sea lilies. (For sea squills, Urginea maritima (Baker), in ritual contexts see Warren 1984.) Its whiteness (purity) allied it with the pure white spring-flowering Minoan lily (Lilium candidum L.).

A late summer sea lily festival, with gathering of sea lilies on the beaches, is inferred. Floral offerings were brought to shrines and goddesses, as pictured on the Aidonia rings 16 and 17 (Demakopoulou 1996) and in the offering of flowers being made to the goddess seated under a tree on the Mycenae ring. In the scene on ring 16 both sea lilies (one with closed scalloped crown) and white lilies are depicted, representing two seasons.

The mural in the House of the Ladies may have been part of the sea lily ritual, an embodiment of the dune landscape when the sea lily was in full flower, allying it with other ritually used wild landscape settings such as the Xeste 3 crocus and marsh landscapes, the Spring fresco with its lilies and the Knossos throne room with its misty reed landscape (as noted by N. Marinatos (1984, 94)). The sea lily's symbolic status is further suggested by other overlooked sea lily representations discussed below, such as the lily-topped column of the 'altar' surrounded by monkeys from Sector Alpha.

       The living sea lily.

The sea lily, a white flowering bulb plant of daffodil form (40-60 cm.), flowers in August/September on the sand dunes of the shores of most of the islands and mainland. On Thera, it also flowers inland on the sandy ash soil of the island. The thick, pointed and budded stems thrust up through the sand, forming into clumps of 2-20 stems scattered among the dunes and rising from underground colonies of large bulbs (single stalks also occur). It is a nocturnal bloomer with a strong fragrance (irritatingly pungent in enclosed spaces) and night-visible white flowers, features evolved to attract insect pollinators active at night. By midday the flowers wither and die, to be replaced around 4 p.m. by other maturing buds and opening flowers (Figs. 2-4b).

The flowers and buds are arranged in an umbel (cluster) at the top of the stem, enclosed in a pair of pointed membraneous yellow-brown spathes (7-8 cm.) (in the motif the spathes are shortened, tripled and painted yellow). The umbel forms a 'V', consisting of (1)-2-21-(23) pointed buds of various sizes and stages of development and opening and dying flowers (Fig. 4a). The buds are pointed and striped light green (cf. those represented in the faience sea lily plaque from Knossos, Fig. 6k). The flowers are funnel-shaped with long tapering tubes (perianth tubes, V-form in profile) with a swollen feature (the ovary, where large black seeds develop) at the base of the tube. A corolla of six lanceolate tepals radiates from the large central cup-like corona, which is flared and crested at the top with twelve sharp teeth and six stamens with large (1-1.4 cm.) yellow crescentiform anthers held horizontally on tall stalks which are fused to the interior wall of the corona and visible as dark lines on the corona's exterior (the source of the corona stripes on the motif (see Fig. 1)). A long, slender white female pistil topped with a small knob-like stigma protrudes above the stamens, a feature which is not represented in the sea lily motifs.

       Shape.

From above, the flowers are star-shaped (Fig. 3) with the slender, sharply pointed radiating tepals and sharp corona teeth dominant. Viewed from the side, as in the motif, the tepals are thinner and less dominant, the shape and crest of the corona becoming more important in this view (Fig. 2; cf. also the motif). The teeth of the crest and the large upraised yellow anthers on their tall stalks are very prominent.

       Scalloping.

The series of scoops with high points ('scalloping'), which represent the more complex sharply pointed teeth of the natural corona, recur with the same crescentiform anthers on the earring of the older saffron gatherer from Xeste 3 (Pl. 20; Doumas 1992, fig. 119). They also figure in an ornamental frieze from Sector Gamma (Doumas 1992, fig. 145; Marinatos 1970, 43, fig. 25, pl. B2) where they are involved in a spiral configuration with the same anthers, plus a trail of red pollen dots and a ball of yellow pollen. Their recurrence in Palace Style (LM II) flower motifs (for example, on a jar in Walberg 1986, fig. 16), where they probably signify the sea lily, emphasises the favoured status of this plant in the repertory.

        Fluting.

The corona cup has six concave sections between the upright stamen stalks which create a fluted effect (cf. the fluting on the faience sea lily plaque from the Knossos Temple Repositories (Fig. 6k)). The corona stripes and the scoops of the crest in the House of the Ladies motif also suggest fluting.

       Flower colour.

Against the darkening sand of late afternoon the flowers appear very white. Against a light background and in shadow they appear grey-blue, as depicted in the motif.

       Stem and leaves.

The thick columnar stems (elliptical in section) and the large V-shaped umbels of buds and flowers form the dominant impression of the plant. The numerous strap-shaped leaves at the bases of the stems are grey-green, narrow (ca. 2 cm.), blunt-pointed and corkscrew-twisted. These appear not at the time of flowering, but in the spring. A few green leaves may be present at flowering, as in Diapoulis 1980, 137, fig. 3 and in Fig. 4a, but mostly they have died over the summer, leaving tattered remnants of dried yellow-brown leaves around the bases of the stems. When continually watered in cultivation the leaves remain green and do not die down, and are less twisted.

       The motif and style of the mural.

Basically, the motif consists of clumps of three flowers rising on three long leafless stems from low tufts of strap-shaped leaves divided into two groups of three leaves each. The flower coronas are enlarged and flattened, the twelve-toothed crest translated into scalloping with the six anthers greatly enlarged. The flowers' long tapered tubes have been shortened, so that they rise directly out of the tripled yellow spathes (changed from two to three to conform to the tripartite design with its central axis). Two spiky elements (tepals) are placed on each side of the flower at the base (Fig. 1). Currently four of the large plants (of a possible eight) have been restored.

All elements except the yellow anthers and spathes are outlined in black, with the coronas emphasised with a heavier outline. The undersides of the side tepals are shadowed with a heavy black tapered line. The basal leaves are also shadowed with heavy black tapered underlining, which lends a three-dimensional solidity to the leaves and whole plant groups.

This is a more formalised landscape than the more naturalistic crocus and marsh scenes of Xeste 3. The plants and the dune are treated almost in abstract fashion. The identical large plants represent clumps of three-stemmed sea lilies, with much of the stiffness of the stout stems preserved in the artist's rendition; the sharply pointed nature of the tepals and crest teeth has also been emphasised. The single flower to a stem is a simplification of the real multi-flowered sea lily, although single-flowered plants also exist. The massive enlargement (1.20 m.) of the small white sea lilies (40-60 cm.) seems to emphasise the importance of the plant and their probable use - along with the landscape as a whole - as cult equipment (lily cutouts of similar size, interspersed between larger gesturing women, appear in a miniature painting of a cult scene from Ayia Triada). Sea lilies of natural size would undoubtedly have had less impact.

The blue colour of the motif and flowers is explicable as rendering the greyed appearance of white flowers against light backgrounds, in order to make a white flower show up on white (see the greyed white crocus in Fig. 8), and to create a bold, crisply defined motif in keeping with the emblematic simplicity of the design. Literal naturalism is not the point here.

The triple figure, or triad, seen in the three flowers, six stamens (here seven), three spathes, three stems and three leaves, echoes the deep seated triadic symbolism found in Minoan religious imagery and architecture: the tripartite shrines, the double axe form, the throne flanked by a pair of antithetical griffins, etc.. The structure of the cult flowers (sea lilies, lilies and crocuses) is also based on the number three: the lily has six petals and six stamens, the crocus six petals, three stigmas and three stamens. The iris also has three falls and three standards.

       Formal aspects.

The identical clumps of sea lilies are repeated against the white background (sky), rising from the wavy dune and enclosed at the top by the elegant banded frieze. What they suggest is a large-scale detailed version of the smaller ornamental floral friezes found in Theran and Minoan pottery decoration. There is a strong stress on formal design in this work: the symmetrical motifs, arranged in mirror-image on the walls, are rhythmically linked by a pattern of inferred arched lines made by the arcs of the leaves, outcurved stems and arched tops of the flower heads, which is accented by the strong vertical axes. The subtle visual rhyming of the numerous arched lines and crescent shapes is stressed for aesthetic effect (a common strategy in the formalist style).

       Adjacent water.

All these sea lily motifs are depicted on the banks of streams. The real ones, however, would be associated with the sea. There is no indication of blue water preserved on the restored sea lily mural in the House of the Ladies. Water would, however, be expected as a recurring theme. The streamside location of these sea lilies, unless purely the result of artistic license, may reflect a habitat range which included inland streams in addition to the sandy seaside environments to which they are now mainly limited. ⁽¹⁾

       Sea lily topped column with monkey (Fig. 6l).

The sea lilies of the adorant monkey scene, which top the column of an outdoor 'shrine' or 'altar', follow the standard sea lily motif as found in the House of the Ladies, but with differences (Doumas 1992, fig. 147). The two flowers flop outwards at an angle, just as the real flowers do at top of the natural stems. The column can be taken as the stem of the flowers (it is apparently decorated with an ivy pattern). The flowers have the same fan-shaped blue coronas as those in the House of the Ladies, and the same pointed scalloping of the crest is present, though damaged, rendered in black. However, the colours of the tepals and anthers have been changed: the tepals are red instead of blue, and the anthers also red instead of their natural yellow, as in the House of the Ladies motif. An important point is that the anthers also display their natural bean-shape, as do those in the House of the Ladies. The tepals are crescentiform, very pointed and longer than the tepals in the House of the Ladies, curving up closer to the corona as in nature. The column shaft is a yellow ochre colour. The coronas have only three stripes (a central one, with two others hugging the fan-shaped sides of the corona) as on the Mycenae dagger, rather than five as in the House of the Ladies.

The flowers spring directly from the triple torus rings at the top of the column (see the lily-topped posts of the ikria from the West House for the same triple rings). It seems to be intended as a column with floral capital, to support the triple-stepped cornice above; on the other hand, it may be meant as a large, painted simulacrum of a sea lily, as a piece of cult furniture or a floral offering of a permanent nature. A similar flower-topped column appears in front of the seated goddess with attendant demons on the Tiryns ring. Parallel are the two small stone capitals of floral form from Knossos (Zervos 1956, pls. 619, 620), one representing the seed head of a poppy, the other a crocus flower.

       Faience sea lily plaque from Knossos (Fig. 6k).

A small, light blue faience plaque, from the Temple Repositories at Knossos, has a fan-shaped corona with distinct fluting and a series of indented scoops and points across its arched top, like the scalloped crests of the House of the Ladies motif. Two petal-like tepals cup the corona, while another rises in the centre. Two buds are also associated with it, and several fluted scalloped pieces seem to represent only coronas. The solid shape of the corona and the buds (which are not as pointed as real buds) clearly represent the sea lily rather than papyrus. Although the crescentiform anthers are missing, they may be inferred. The light blue colour of the plaque is in accord with the flower colour of the other sea lily motifs.

       The sea lilies of the Mycenae dagger (Fig. 6i).

The plants on this famous dagger (Hood 1978, fig. 179 (detail); Evans 1930, pl. XX (reconstruction of both sides)) have been interpreted, since Evans first proposed it, as papyrus, because of the supposedly Nilotic setting of the scene based on the erroneous notion that the cats are large-sized leopards, thus apparently indicating an Egyptian influence rather than an Aegean setting with realistic Aegean wild cats.

This is a key sea lily representation, which follows the same sea lily pattern as the House of the Ladies motif. The natural size of the plants, compared with the size of the wild cats and ducks, the diagnostic white coronas and basal leaves and the same sea lily flower heads reduced to a single flower, strongly support the interpretation of the plants in the House of the Ladies fresco as sea lilies.

The two sides of this inlaid dagger of Minoan design from Shaft Grave V at Mycenae each have several clumps of sea lilies (a total of twenty-four flowers and three buds) growing on the banks of a fish-filled stream, interspersed between four zoologically correct wild cats (Felis silvestris)⁽²⁾ attacking eight mallard ducks. Three clumps with flowers on long stems rise from V-shaped basal leaf tufts. One group of seven flowers and one bud, with basal leaves cropped, rises from the edge of the design field. Single flowers are set on long stems growing directly from basal leaf tufts, as in the House of the Ladies motif. The stems are gracefully S-curved rather than stiff. Like those of the living sea lilies, the coronas are white (silver) against a dark ground. Accented in gold, the two crescentiform side tepals rise from the sides of the coronas. Spathes, stems, buds and leaves are yellow (gold). The natural number of six anthers in the form of gold dots is placed in a row above the flower crests. There are three black corona stripes, one in the middle, the other two placed near the edges of the coronas (suggesting the natural fluting of the latter). The stemmed flowers overlap the stream from bottom to top, as do the palms in the river scene on the east wall of the West House miniature fresco.

       The 'papyrus' sea lilies of the West House river scene.

These (Doumas 1992, figs. 30, 33) follow the same sea lily pattern, despite the fact that their received interpretation as papyri is bound to create resistance to this idea. They have the same linear basal leaves and stream-bank location as the sea lilies on the dagger, and the same size relative to that of the wild cat attacking the red-ring-necked shelgoose, Alopochen aegyptiacus (Perrins 1993, 78, 79 pl.). The cat is a version of the standard wild cat of Aegean art, as in the scene on the dagger, and should be considered as being the same size (Felis silvestris: 90-120 cm. with tail; shelgoose: 70 cm.).

The best preserved sea lilies are located behind the wild cat's chest and shoulder, and are rooted in the river bank below the elbow of his foreleg. Two stems are shown, with a complete flower with blue fan-shaped corona, and three corona stripes and two long side tepals in red. The slight point of a spathe is also visible. The anthers of the stamens are rendered as red dots hovering over the blue coronas (as in the coronas on the dagger). The adjacent flower has only a hint of its blue corona remaining but one red side tepal is preserved. Long arching basal leaves are visible behind the cat's shoulder.

Both stem and basal leaves sprout from the earth on the upper bank of the river, not from the water like papyri. The corona of the main plant has been wrongly restored as wider than it originally was (it is extended over a crack).

       The sea lily 'papyri' on the mural from the House of the Frescoes (Figs. 6c-e, 6g).

These ornate variants of our sea lily motif (Evans 1928, 446, pl. X), this time in a rocky streamside landscape inhabited by monkeys and rock pigeons, have again been traditionally seen as representing papyri; and, indeed, they do look superficially like papyri, until inspected in detail. The scale of the vervet monkeys, which are depicted in their natural house-cat size, indicates that none of the clumps of our motif is tall; in fact, they are the same size as real sea lilies. Though this may be an artistic adjustment of the large-size papyri to the artist's design, he made the crocuses, irises and ivies in this mural life-size, showing a consciousness of natural scale. The two preserved monkeys, which seem to be hunting around in the clumps for food, may well be depicted looking around in sea lily clumps -which is what these resemble, particularly since the diagnostic basal leaves of the sea lily appear in two of the clumps.

Briefly, the variants share the same features as the motif in the House of the Ladies: blue coronas, very prominent tepals (curved and sharply pointed), yellow spathes; and all have anthers in the form of dots, rather than crescentiform ones. As can be seen in the main variants illustrated in Figs. 6c-e and Fig. 6g, the blue coronas are topped by an arched band in yellow ochre, with the dot anthers positioned on the top and bottom edges of the band (these vary in each variant, arid the number of dots -though these are not well preserved - seems to be random).

The main variants are: Fig. 6c: the group is painted against a yellow ochre ground; they have blue coronas, top crest bands in light yellow ochre and anthers in the form of dots, white at the top and black at the bottom; they have side tepals in natural white, and five corona stripes. The colour of the spathes and stems has been lost. Fig. 6d: the group, against a cream ground, has blue coronas, a larger number of corona stripes, stem leaves for added decorative effect (these are not a reference to reeds) and, most markedly, a central raised and pointed tepal with black accented outlines. Fig. 6e: the group, painted against white, has the stout-armed monkey leaning over the clump (the flower heads are the same size as the monkey's head) (Evans 1928, fig. 268D); their coronas and tepals are blue; there are two yellow spathes, as in real sea lilies; they have green leafless stems and the diagnostic basal leaves of the sea lily, painted blue; a swirling clump also has basal leaves and fancy 'eyed' coronas. Fig. 6g: this group is one of the fancy clumps with small flowers (4 cm.) which have 'eyes'; the illustrated group has a triple cluster of flowers at the tip of a single stem, like sea lilies. The ornate conception behind this rich clump is evident in the white tepals and the numerous array of white dot anthers, the blue crescentiform leaves which echo the shapes of the tepals, the dots of yellow pollen interspersed between the leaves, the 'eyes', the thin black stems and the blue coronas against the deep red ground.⁽³⁾

       Evans's 'sea lilies' from the House of the Frescoes.

Evans interpreted a few sketchy fragments with V-shaped white flowers (against a red ground), multiple stamens topped with yellow bean-shaped anthers and blue pointed strap-shaped leaves as sea lilies (Evans 1928, 456, col. pl. XI; Warren here, vol. I, fig. 20). While the restoration, including the tapered perianth tubes, is perhaps correct, these do not have the coronas typical of the sea lily, and instead look more like half-opened white lilies (L. candidum) with many upright stamens and the basal leaves characteristic of these, than sea lilies. The botanical illustration of the sea lily (from Sibthorp's Flora Graeca (1806-1840)), which Evans published to support his corona-less sea lily interpretation, is incorrect. The Sibthorp flowers have been mistakenly given unduly short coronas atypical of Pancratium maritimum with its tall coronas. S. Marinatos (1972, 38) reported that Evans eventually abandoned this sea lily interpretation. However, both Diapoulis (1980, 135, fig. 1) and Warren (here, vol. I, fig. 21) reproduce Sibthorp's atypical illustration.

       Sea lilies on a fragment of bath tub from Melos (Fig. 5).

This is a fragment (preserved height 15 cm.) of a ceramic bath tub, painted in red and black on a dark buff ground. It is a looser, less formal brush drawn image of parts of two single sea lilies with a single corona to a stem (Fig.6j). The spathes are red with black accents. The coronas are scalloped with scoops at the crests, and are reserved against the buff ground to indicate their white colour; they are fan-shaped, and have a narrower, more natural spread than the broad spread of the House of the Ladies motif. There are three crescentiform tepals, shown longer than the corona in natural fashion, and tapering to a point at the top: one in the centre, and two hugging the edges of the corona. There are four red crescentiform anthers at the apex of the black corona stripes, two on each side. Parts of black strap-shaped basal leaves are preserved, and a black-necked red-breasted shelduck taking to wing among the waterside thicket of plants (probably the same species as the flying bird in the river scene on the east wall of the West House: Doumas 1992, 25 (detail)).

       A key sea lily design on pottery.

This is the much-reproduced LM IB ewer from Palaikastro (Hood 1978, 39, fig. 18). It is a linear monochrome (sepia on cream ground) version of the basic sea lily pattern. It repeats the triple flowers on a stem rising from strap-shaped basal leaf tufts of the House of the Ladies motif, each of three units having a pair of leaves rising from a wavy band (representing a river bank); the leaves on the outer sides of the outer pairs are doubled to correspond with those on the inner sides; the flowers are set on leafless stems; the coronas are fan-shaped and flared at the top; twelve dots to represent anthers run across the crests (representing a doubling of the natural six); the crest arc is rendered as a double line, as are two arching interior bands, with the corona stripes rendered as vertical lines between these; two tepals hug the coronas at the sides, but are distinctly separate, and there is a tepal in the centre. The two oval elements at the base of the corona represent the flower's depressed ovary, and one at the bottom the spathes. Crocus rosettes occupy the spaces between the fan-shaped flowers. The river signs in the form of bifurcated hooks on the underside of the wavy river bank band protrude into what should be understood as the water of the river.

       The papyrus question.

Warren's (1976, 91) idea that papyri (Cyperus papyrus), on which the papyri of Aegean art were modelled, could have grown in the Aegean, as they do in naturalised form today along a small river outside Syracuse in Sicily, is possible, especially since Sarpaki (this volume) confirms that marshy habitats favourable to papyrus could have existed in warmer, wetter conditions in Minoan times (contra Rackham (1978, 757) who sees no marshlands suitable for papyrus at that time).⁽⁴⁾ The plants in the House of the Ladies do not represent such papyri, however. As for the unnaturally large size and the blue instead of white flowers which Rackham objected to, these can be explained as manipulation of scale for the sake of importance and dramatic effect, on the one hand, and as in accordance with the dark-on-light rule of Minoan design, on the other, added to the naturally greyed appearance of white flowers against light backgrounds. The idea of botanist M. Negbi (quoted in O. Negbi 1978, 650) that the inspiration was sweet cyperus (galingale, Cyperus longus L.) is not supportable because, even though this cyperus has strap-shaped basal leaves, they are scrawny rather than robust like the leaves of our motif, and the V-shaped flower head is too sparse. Morgan (1988, 21ff.) also believes in the C. papyrus interpretation (though her illustration of this plant erroneously gives it long blade-like leaves), and/or a possible interpretation as C. longus. Betts (1978, 61-62), interpreting all so-called papyrus seal designs as actual papyrus, perpetuates the misconception that anthers in the form of dots are features of real papyrus, which they are not. There are actually no realistic papyrus depictions in Aegean art to support the idea that it grew in the Aegean.

There may have been some form of Egyptian influence to explain the largely superficial resemblance of these motifs to papyri. One might, for instance, imagine a scenario in which Aegean artists saw depictions of unfamiliar papyri and translated them into a version based on the sea lily, familiar from its importance in cult. The habit of seeing all so-called 'papyri' in the Aegean as Egyptian papyri is deeply entrenched; and artistic explanations are more difficult to grasp than surface resemblances. As this exploration of the plants from the House of the Ladies demonstrates, not all fan-shaped flower heads in Aegean imagery were intended as papyri.

CROCUSES 

The most frequently depicted flower on the Theran mural paintings is the endemic Aegean Crocus cartwrightianus (Fig. 7), an autumn flowering lowland species with a large scarlet triple-branched style. It also figured prominently in Theran pottery paintings. In addition to information on the three crocus species involved, I present study reconstructions of the fragmentary and elusive mural depictions of the girls, the goddess and the scene of presentation of stigmas by the monkey, in order better to grasp the details of these images. These reconstructions are based on a brief study of the original paintings and on tracings taken from the published reproductions. Field studies of the Aegean crocus species, the growing of the domesticate form of C. cartwrightianus, C. sativus, and advice from B. Mathew, the leading crocus expert (Mathew 1982), have contributed to my understanding of the botany of the two crocus species involved.

An overview of the crocus imagery shows us, in addition to images of harvesting, presentation of stigmas to the goddess, and crocus-decorated girls, other images which convey a sense of celebrating the flowering of the crocus. A typical rocky Aegean landscape bursts with blossoming crocuses, on which the long red stigmas are emphasised, and with images of animal and bird fertility: wild goat kids⁽⁵⁾ clatter over the rocks (Doumas 1992, fig. 91); two monkey participants in the crocus celebrations play with a sword and strum a lyre in imitation of humans (Doumas 1992, figs. 95-96); swallows nesting on cliffs feed their young (Doumas 1992, figs. 97-99; Marinatos 1984, 69, fig. 47); on a ritual strainer from Xeste 3 flying swallows drag their wings across the large stigmas of wide-opened crocuses, while white lilies display their large stamens below (Marthari this volume, fig. 1); and on two horizontal vessels (kymbai) wild goat bucks gambol through forests of giant crocuses, biting the stigmas (Marthari this volume, figs. 2, 4-5), on one of which the horns of the bucks are made to resemble the long floppy stigmas thrusting out of the crocuses (Marthari this volume, fig. 5).

Wild goats mate in the autumn when the saffron crocus flowers, kids arrive in spring, swallows breed and nest in early summer. Although the seasons are mixed together, the message of a fecund land is clear. The saffron crocus is a sign of the autumn, when the rains return to reinvigorate the parched land.

The long broad-topped (clavate) scarlet stigmas of Crocus cartwrightianus (Herb.) (Fig. 7) are clearly represented, as is generally agreed. In Crete, where this species has a limited distribution, at least in recent times, its close relative and near look-alike, C. oreocreticus Burtt 1949,⁽⁶⁾ which grows at high altitude, probably was exploited in Minoan times (a limited amount is picked today by the women of mountain villages), and perhaps served as an artist's model. Though it resembles C. cartwrightianus, it has a more pointed flower shape and its segments (petals) are also more pointed and narrower. Its stigmas are shorter than those of C. cartwrightianus, which indicates a lower yield of stigmas for same amount of labour. The Minoan crocus flower shape is too generalised to tell whether it was this species which was depicted or not (the Minoans probably did not differentiate them, and only since 1949 has C. oreocreticus been recognised as distinct from C. cartwrightianus). In their art, the stigmas are exaggerated in size and extension in relation to the flowers, indicating an impulse to overemphasise good things.

The distribution of C. cartwrightianus, which usually grows below 300 m., is mainly in the Cycladic islands, also in Attica (even on Mount Lykabettos in Athens above the American and British schools) and southern Euboea on the mainland, but on Crete only on the Akrotiri peninsula around Chania. C. oreocreticus inhabits most of the Cretan mountains between 900 and 2000 m.. The Cycladic centre of distribution of the former species suggests a motivation for the concentrated representations of crocuses in Theran art. Its probable relative abundance on Thera may indicate a luxury trade crop and small-scale saffron perfume production, as suggested by small flasks (askoi) decorated with crocuses⁽⁷⁾ found at Akrotiri. Pottery from Melos with detailed representations of saffron crocus, including the added detail of short stamens as well as stigmas, also suggests a familiarity with wild saffron crocus as a crop on that Cycladic island (for example, Möbius 1933, fig. 15).

Amigues (1988, 230) gives us evidence of small-scale commercial exploitation of the wild crocus on some of the Cycladic islands around AD 1900, when the crop was sold in markets at Smyrna in Turkey, suggesting similar exploitation in the Late Bronze Age or even earlier, as the women of the islands discovered the benefits of this Cycladic crocus, which has the largest stigmas of any crocus species, and originated the craze for saffron. Increased production probably began with the discovery, by clonal selection of C. cartwrightianus, of the large C. sativus.⁽⁸⁾

       Time of flowering.

The Xeste 3 scenes show the picking of crocuses, their transport to a central processing location and the presentation of separated stigmas to an enthroned deity. This takes place between the last two weeks of October and first two weeks in November, the peak of the flowering season of C. cartwrightianus which flowers from late October through November into December (none bloom in the Cretan mountains in July as Polunin and Huxley (1987, 223) mistakenly reported). This is the same time as the commercial C. sativus crop is gathered in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Kashmir, etc.. The autumn flowering season is a critical symbolic point.

Cycladic and Cretan spring-flowering crocuses, including the beautiful tricoloured C. sieberi subsp. sieberi of the Cretan alpine regions, with its white flower, yellow throat and single purple band, do not have conspicuously long or red stigmas. C. sieberi flowers from about June 10-15 through July, since spring arrives later in the mountains than in the lowlands. In normal years it can be seen around the Idaean cave, easily reached by car. However, on June 16, 1998, after an unusually warm winter with no snow, no sign of this species or of its earlier flowering could be found.

       Autumn 'rebirth' season.

Our crocus is one of the major effects of the return of the rains at the beginning of the rainy season in October when the parched summer landscape becomes enlivened with new vegetation in new leaf and flower, when seeds sprout, fields are ploughed, cereal crops sown, increased fodder for the herds is available, wild goats mate and many bulb plants flower. This lush season is often overlooked by archaeologists who go home to the twilight time of northern autumns. This is the season celebrated in the Theran wall paintings and in pottery paintings of crocuses, where we have the rocky landscape bursting with crocuses and rich in animals and birds (as noted above).

       Flower colour.

Those of us who have not seen the originals now know, with the publication of detailed reproductions of the murals, that some of the painted crocus flowers have survived burial in acidic volcanic ash, the fading of time, exposure to air and light and the effects of cleaning solvents. The flowers most clearly visible in the reproductions are those on the rocks on which the girl sits in the adyton scene and those immediately behind one of the monkeys in Room 4 of Xeste 3 (Doumas 1992, figs. 96, 100). When one looks closely, as I have done, what remains is either a dirty pale mauvish crust, a mauvish stain, or nothing at all to indicate the presence and position of flowers except the presence of the stigmas painted in iron oxide, a near indelible pigment.

Whatever the original organic pigment used to paint the flowers, what remains gives a general sense of the mauve which is within the range of the variable hued C. cartwrightianus, which varies between pale to deep lilac-purple and white with strong dark veining, sometimes stained dark purple at the base of the segments and/or the tube. Albinos are also frequent (see the white crocuses of MM pottery and the Knossos mural of monkeys picking white crocuses). Realistic striping is visible on the crocuses on a large clay receptacle with a perforated floor above a lower chamber with side door from Akrotiri (possibly an oven for curing stigmas rather than a beehive as Doumas posited) (Doumas 1983, fig. 19).⁽⁹⁾ C. oreocreticus is lilac with purple stripes and darker purple on the throat and upper part of the perianth tube.

The random spacing and size of the crocus clumps above the goddess are natural, though the configuration suggests a loose lattice pattern. The flowers and buds exceed the height of the leaves, as in nature, though the position of the leaves is more upright than that of the comparatively horizontal C. cartwrightianus leaves. This is most likely an oversight rather than a reference to the domestic saffron crocus with its erect leaves, as Mathew (1977, 93) has noted.

The crocus clumps in the Xeste 3 murals are individualised, and more naturalistically depicted than those on the murals in the House of the Frescoes at Knossos and at Ayia Triada, with their more formal design and fully opened fan shapes. In these latter the position of the buds is loosely regularised, placed in an arching row below and between the arched row of flowers. What is left of the crocus clump between the wild goat kids in Beta 6 at Akrotiri also appears to be more regularised, in accord with the more formal style of this particular artist (the flowers are blue with naturalistic red stamens, but they are outlined in yellow ochre and provided with calyxes and yellow stems which crocuses do not have).

       Flower shape.

The fortunately intact black crocuses on an Egyptian Blue band on the sleeves of the goddess's dress show us that the Theran painters recognised the real shape of the flowers: a wine goblet shape with a long tapered stem integral with the bowl of the segments (the six 'petals' are perianth segments, the integral long tube the perianth tube). As Fig. 7 shows, crocuses do not have green stems. Minoan painters either show carelessness over this feature or were unfamiliar with real crocuses: the crocuses on the mural from the House of the Frescoes erroneously have green stems rather than tubes, while the Ayia Triada crocuses have green stems and calyxes not found on crocuses (Warren here, vol. I, figs. 6-7). The Theran artists either had intimate knowledge of the crocus or the commissioners of the mural insisted on accuracy in this respect. In Aegean art generally the shape of the crocus flower is mostly rendered schematically in silhouette, with three points (three segments) and two notches from which the stigmas, longer than in life, protrude. In looser Theran pottery decoration, with its painterly effects, however, a sense of the wide opened three-dimensional flower is often conveyed (e.g.Marthari this volume, fig. 1).

       Safflower.

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is often confused with the saffron crocus. It is not a saffron crocus, but a thistle. Even Theophrastus grouped it with saffron crocuses because it produces a saffron-like yellow dye (though not nearly as brilliant). It is termed bastard or dyers' saffron, and the petals of its dried flowers are sold to the unwary in Greek and Middle Eastern markets as true saffron (the dried red stigmas, known as threads, of saffron are clearly distinguishable from these). The yellow dye extracted from dried safflowers was mixed with true saffron dye in antiquity, to make the costly saffron dye stretch further. Safflowers treated with an acidic substance, after the yellow dye is washed out, produce a famous but fugitive deep rose pigment (carthamine rose) which is used by dyers, artists and cosmetic makers (for rouge). The proverbial red tape used to bind legal documents in England is dyed with this.

Safflower seeds yield edible safflower oil. Whether ka-na-ko on the Linear B tablets represents safflower is uncertain (T. Palaima pers. comm.), so we do not know whether or not the inhabitants of the Aegean used it as an extender to mix with costly saffron dye for dyeing textiles (the date of arrival of this south-east Asian plant in the Near East is problematic). Textile dyeing with crocus stigmas has a long history. As noted by Sarpaki (this volume), the colouring, flavouring and aromatic agents contained in stigmas are water soluble, an advantage in freeing the useful properties easily. Treating wool with a mordant such as alum prior to dyeing fixes the dye.⁽¹⁰⁾

       Stigmas.

This is the female organ of the flower which when dried is called 'saffron'. The correct botanical term for this organ is style branch (the triple branches of this species). Stigmas are actually the female pollen receptor organ at the apex (distal end) of the wide-topped style branches. Stigmas is a usable abbreviation, though technically incorrect. Stigmata is also correct, but dated in usage. Stigmas are often wrongly called stamens. Greek saffron packages wrongly translate the Greek στίγματα  into English as stamens, a misnomer often picked up by archaeologists. Powdered saffron is the ground stigmas, not the yellow pollen (see Addendum).

In Aegean art, stigmas are carefully rendered with their wide tops and long stems. The number given to each flower varies between one each in each notch (on the mural from the House of the Frescoes), three consisting of one in one notch and a pair in the other notch (which is correct), and four arranged two to each notch. The crocuses above the goddess⁽¹¹⁾ have widely forked stigmas, one to each notch, which should be understood as two pairs overlapping. Four stigmas per flower is not incorrect, but is known to science (B. Mathew pers. comm.). At Saffron Walden near Cambridge in England, a crocus growing centre from the fourteenth to mid-nineteenth century AD, crocus corms producing four-stigma flowers were much prized. The same is possible in the Aegean. Indeed, research is underway in Spain to increase genetically the number and size of the stigmas of the Spanish saffron crocus, the world's best.

       Stamens.

Crocuses have three of these pollen producing male organs with lobed anthers; our species has yellow anthers set on white or purple filaments (stalks) (see Fig. 7). These are shorter than the stigmas, and the anthers are held vertically, parallel to the filaments. There are some Aegean representations of stamens on the examples of pottery from Melos mentioned above.

       Pollen.

Pollen is important. It is yellow in our species, abundant, and too heavy to be windblown, unlike olive pollen, so it is carried between flowers by insect pollinators. The granulated gold ball held by the bees on the Mallia pendant represents crocus or lily pollen, since pollen is bee food.

Pollen is very noticeable to crocus pickers and separators. During the separation of the stigmas and stamens from the flowers, the hands and fingers of the separators are stained yellow from both the stigmas and stamens they handle. Pollen is often depicted in Minoan and Theran pottery painting either as white or dark dots on flowers, or falling out of flowers in a stream (cf. the streams of white crocus pollen on the Knossos mural of monkeys picking crocuses: Immerwahr 1990, pl. 11; cf. also Marinatos 1969, pl. 11:1 (a cylindrical strainer with crocuses painted in a white wash on a light red-brown ground)). Knowledge of the fertilising role of crocus pollen is suggested by the probable red pollen dots decorating the transparent peplos of the girl in the adyton scene, where a metaphorical transference of the fertilising and health giving effects of the pollen onto the adolescent girl is suggested (Fig. 8) (Doumas 1992, figs. 107-108).

       Girl gathering crocuses (Fig. 9).

I have reconstructed one of the girls gathering crocuses in the rocky countryside to show that the Therans knew how to pick the flowers properly.⁽¹²⁾ The girl bends the flower over, holding it between her thumb and forefinger by the perianth tube before breaking it off (the technique used in Spain to obtain all three stigmas with part of the white style). The horizontal position of the extant stigmas indicates the flower's bent position. The other gatherer bends a flower in the same way (Doumas 1992, fig. 120). Picking is done each morning during the season, after the morning dew dries and as new flowers are just opening, at the stage when the stigmas are mature and longest. Harvest lasts about twenty days in Spain. On Thera today women pick the flowers as long as they continue blooming into December, as reported by Sarpaki (this volume).

       Presentation to the goddess and crocus gathering scene (Fig. 10).

Harvesting involves the picking of the whole flowers, placing them in baskets, transporting them to a central location and depositing them in a large basket from which they are taken to be processed. The stage of separating the stigmas and stamens from the flowers is not pictured (in Spain the separating (esbrine) is usually done at night after the daytime picking). The scene skips to the freshly separated stigmas in the basket from which the monkey takes his offering.

As I see this pivotal scene, it is not an ordinary crocus harvest, nor a festival, nor a first fruit offering to the goddess of the crocus stigma crop, but a symbolic ceremonial re-enactment of the crocus stigma harvest. The goddess, who taught the benefits of the stigmas, has come to receive the sampling of the stigmas of the crocuses she caused to grow and flower (the crocuses manifest her generative powers). She savours the aroma of the stigmas and the perfume of the flowers, as exemplified by the crocus tucked into her hair at her temple and the handful of stigmas she will bring to her nose to smell.⁽¹³⁾ She blesses the stigmas and empowers them with her divine energies and effects. The saffron crocus (along with the sea lilies in the House of the Ladies) was the principal floral symbol of her autumn rebirth season. She is the women's patroness and patroness of the crocus harvest.

Only four girls are involved with the gathering, transportation and disposition of the unseparated crocus flowers in the large basket placed before the goddess, like the two girl child attendants who tend the sacred fruit tree and the goddess in the famous 'Tree Goddess' image on a ring from Mycenae (Hampe and Simon 1981, pl. 276). Sacred space is defined by the four altars with incurved sides (eight in three-dimensional reality?) that support the ceremonial platform built by human worshippers to receive the goddess's visitation. Three symbolic levels are apparent: the mundane, on which the girl child and basket full of crocuses (in semi-raw state) rest; the transitional liminal level (threshold to the supernatural); and the upper, supernatural level on which the goddess sits, ensconced on three saffron hued cushions. The position of the feet of the attendant monkey and the goddess touch on the liminal middle level on which the basket of stigmas sits. The standing monkey has reached down to the basket of separated stigmas to pluck his offering of stigmas. The goddess holds a bunch of stigmas in her left hand, while taking more in her outstretched right hand.

Interactive facial expressions have emerged in the reconstruction of this scene. The goddess smiles benevolently, with her mouth half opened as if speaking in response to the smiling monkey's gift. She looks directly into the monkey's face, while he (she) reciprocates. The girl child, dumping her load of crocuses into the already overfull basket, looks up staring at the spectacle of the goddess and the griffin with his fabulous wings outstretched, her eyes wide, her mouth agape. The dominant blue and white colours of the goddess's costume and the griffin suggest colours associated with celestial deities.

The exotic African vervet monkey, standing bipedally, is acting, in presenting the stigmas to the goddess, like the standing demons bringing jugs of water to the enthroned goddess in the scene on the famous ring from Tiryns (in which a falcon on the conical wooden perch of a hunting falcon takes the place of the griffin here (Hampe and Simon 1981, pl. 299)). Whether such vervet monkeys actually assisted in crocus gathering, as depicted in the Knossos mural (something they are capable of doing with their human-like hands and their agility in climbing rocks), or whether this is imagined, remains an open question. That vervets were real rather than mythical animals (unlike the griffin), associated with priestesses and cult, appears assured. Animals, birds and humans adored and paid homage to the goddess  - animals more closely associated than humans with the supernatural world because of their wildness.

       The crocus decorations of the goddess and girls.

The now faded flowers have been repainted in the reconstructions in a greyed mauve suggested by what remains of the original pigment.

      The goddess (Fig. 11).

Aside from the large fragrant crocus tucked into her hair, with its long red stigmas exaggerated, the goddess's dress is emblazoned with crocuses. The well preserved Egyptian Blue bands edging the tops of her sleeves have rows of slanting black crocuses, with the correct flower shapes and small orange stigmas of almost natural size emerging from the flowers. Crocuses were scattered on the light blue body of her dress, with only the stigmas now indicating the directions in which they lay. On the inner band framing her naked breast, once probably saffron painted but now faded to a dirty white (Doumas 1992, fig. 125), are further rows of slanting crocuses. Faint silhouettes at the top of the band near her shoulder show where these originally were (visible in the reproduction). Parallels to these may be seen on the faience dress models decorated with crocuses from the Knossos Temple Repositories. The granulations on the goddess's large hoop-shaped earring may represent crocus pollen. Her intact necklaces of swimming ducks and flying dragonflies, her attributes, refer to the marshes, ponds, rivers and other bodies of water where life abounds.

       The girl with spotted peplos (Fig. 8).

The reference to crocus pollen suggested by the red dots has already been mentioned above. Clear impressions of the crocuses which originally decorated her dress, here repainted, are visible at her shoulder and midriff (Doumas 1992, figs. 107-108).

The young girl pickers, carrier and depositor do not have crocuses decorating their costumes or coiffures. The pigment of the headband of the girl facing left, now disappeared, may have been saffron, and I have repainted it thus. Saffron dye as an artist's staining pigment has a long history, although light fades it.

       The girl with garland of stigmas (Fig. 12).

The most important crocus 'ornament' of the girl carrying a necklace in the paintings on the adyton floor is the garland of fresh stigmas she wears over her shoulders. Rendered life size, with the broad end of each stigma clearly visible, small bundles of stigmas were tied at their narrow ends to form fan-shaped clusters. These were tied in a row to a cord, which is tied above her coiffure at her right shoulder. Fig. 13 shows a small bundle of C. sativus stigmas arranged in the same manner as one of the bundles. Garlands of fresh stigmas such as these are not unexpected in the circumstances of a crocus harvest (in Iran the fresh stigmas are tied in small bundles during the drying process). Large crocuses decorate the girl's transparent blue dress. Faint shapes at her right shoulder and at the bottom inside edge of her right sleeve near the cuff gave me the size of the blossoms; the extant stigmas show directions in which the blossoms lay (visible in the reproduction). The yellow ribbon which binds up her elaborate coiffure and the sacral knot at her forehead were perhaps saffron painted. Her girdle is also yellow (Doumas 1992, figs. 101-102 and frontispiece).

Another crocus garland is worn by one of the older women who wears a red wool mantle over her shoulder and carries a crocus collector's basket. This two-coloured garland consists of fresh red stigmas and yellow stamens laid side by side in two sections, with the tips pointing outward (Doumas 1992, figs. 131-132).⁽¹⁴⁾

IRIS 

The girl with wounded foot (Fig. 14) (Doumas 1992, fig. 106) has saffron dyed bands on her dress. Her large hairpin reproduces exactly the shape and size of the small iris which blooms in January to April (Iris unguicularis var. cretensis; Sfikas 1987, 280, 283 pl.). The iris flower is represented in silhouette: the two long outer falls (down-turned tepals), which are substituted for the three found in nature, arch out and down and then curve up at the tips (in life the position is more horizontal); the two instead of three short standards (erect central tepals) bow outwards in the middle, curve in and then curve out, lyre-like, at the tips; the stem (haft) 'leaf' represents a spathe (bud covering). The short petal-like styles, which overlie the tops of the falls, may be represented by the dark lines painted on the top surfaces of the falls, although this feature also may represent the striped pattern on the tops of the falls (a parallel to this may be found on the small irises in the mural from the House of the Frescoes, each clump of which is depicted in three separate colours with contrasting marks on the tops of the falls, as here). The natural colour of the flowers is blue-violet, with dark stripes radiating out from an orange spot surrounded by white on the falls.

This is an unbearded type of iris, unlike the irises on the large Amnissos mural which are a combination of bearded and unbearded type (beards are brush-like groups of short, erect yellow hairs on the tops of the falls). The general flower shape of the latter is like that of this small iris on the hairpin, while their height (1 m.), their branched main stems with multiple buds, and their yellow beards signify the tall bearded Iris germanica (Sfikas 1987, pl. 281).

Another potential candidate for the species represented by the hairpin iris is the small, low-growing, iris-like Gynandiris sisyrinchium (Barbary nut), which has long grass-like leaves extending beyond the many small flowers (which last only during the morning). It flowers in profusion, to everyone's delight, on rocks near the seaside and on low hills in the Cyclades and Crete in March-April. It has bluish lilac flowers with a yellow spot on the falls; its flowers are 3 cm., its stems 10-30 cm. (Sfikas 1987, 280, pl. 283).

The bough tucked into the hair of the girl with the iris hairpin, which has yellow and blue lanceolate leaves, most likely represents olive with its naturally bicoloured leaves. It is not, at any rate, a piece of jewellery.

IVY 

The elegant frieze of stylised fruited ivy (Doumas 1992, figs. 78, 83), that borders the tops of the murals of the 'Fighting Agrimi Bucks' (Porter 1996) and the 'Boxing Boys' in Room Beta 1, reproduces the Minoan sacred ivy motif, found in all media in Crete, including a carved stone votive column, pottery decorations, seals and jewellery. Here, against an airy white background and framed in narrow blue and red bands, the blue-painted heart-shaped leaves, outlined in black and overlain with black fan-shaped umbel elements, branch off a long horizontal red stem in the form of a series of thick-to-thin lenticular shapes. The leaves, with similar but more teardrop-shaped black stems (pedicels), are arranged opposite one another (in nature the leaves alternate) and angled in a 'V' shape branching off the main stem.

Parallels for this frieze can be found on a granulated gold relief necklace from Mycenae, with pairs of ivy leaves⁽¹⁵⁾ fixed in a 'V' shape without a main stem (Higgins 1967, pl. 205). The ivy design of the well known MM IIIB carved stone votive column from Knossos has the same leaf/umbel configuration with short teardrop pedicels, but only a single side of leaves. Deep diagonal grooves serve to represent the main stem.

A more common ivy motif is the ivy chain found especially on pottery, in which the cordate leaves abut in a row. In this version, rosettes representing ivy flowers often occupy the round lobes of the leaves while the fan-shaped umbel of berries with numerous stems fans out across the leaf up from the stem. Here, however, the overlapping umbel fan is solid (Marinatos 1974, pl. 73b).

       The natural source of the Ivy motif.

The motif is based on the mature heart-shaped leaves of the flowering/fruiting upper part of a Mediterranean variant of the prolific climbing evergreen vine Hedera helix L.. This part of the vine grows bush-like, with stiff stems. The juvenile leaves of the clinging part of the vine are three-or five-lobed, while short lateral rootlets attach the vine to supports such as trees, walls, rocks or soil. The fan-shaped element overlying the centre of each leaf in the Room Beta 1 frieze is based on a profile view of the fan-shaped fruit umbel laid over the leaf and imitates the way in which the fruit clusters, each berry with its own stem, hang over the heart-shaped leaves on live plants (Fig. 15). The small berries usually lined up in a row across the arched top of the fan in Minoan art (with the numerous stems sometimes rendered as a solid shape) are omitted here (see the ivies on the mural from the House of the Frescoes for a version with berries on stems at the tips of the vines: Hood 1978, 67, fig. 50 after Evans 1928, fig. 286).

       Fan-shaped berry umbel.

In nature, the berry umbel, like the flower umbel, is spherical. The Minoan version depicts it as fan-shaped in profile, making use of the fan shape with its arched top which Minoan artists liked so much and which reflects the natural shapes of many plant forms: trumpet-shaped flowers like lilies and sea lilies; the fan shapes of groups of lily anthers (converted into solid shapes in Evans's so-called 'waz' element); the fan-shaped profiles of palm tree heads, crocus clumps and other plants.

Möbius (1933, 33, fig. 22) noted the similarities between the mature ivy leaf and its berry umbel and the Minoan cordate leaved ivy motif.

       Blue leaf colour.

The blue, instead of green, colour which the ivy leaves are given here is not artificial. One of the attractive properties of the glossy dark green ivy leaves is the way in which they reflect blue light from the sky, resulting in some leaves taking on a blue appearance while others, at a different angle, remain green. This makes the blue-leafed Theran ivy and the mixed blue and green leaves of the ivies on the mural from the House of the Frescoes more natural and less arbitrarily decorative.

       Cretan wild ivy.

Small-leafed Cretan forms of the Cretan variant of Hedera helix var. poetarum can be found growing over rocks in the countryside, just as in the 'Hunting Wild Cats' mural from Ayia Triada, while larger-leaved forms occur in damp ravines. I found both the immature lobed and mature heart-shaped leaf forms at several locations in dry eastern Crete. On the south coast, high on the south face of Mount Dikte, at Syme Viannou, the site of an important mountain sanctuary in Minoan times and later, I found small-leafed ivies with mature cordate leaves growing attached to the rocks above the waterfall below the site, as well as on nearby tree trunks. Thera also must have had its local or imported ivy vines. Ivy is spread by birds, who relish the seeds.

Hedera helix is extremely variable in form. It flowers in autumn, and the fruit matures in spring. The flowers are small and whitish yellow-green in a spherical umbel. The berries are purplish black, though a rare form has yellow berries (e.g. Fig. 15).

Rackham's (1978, 756) interpretation of the Room Beta 1 ivy frieze on Thera as butcher's broom is unfounded. He neglected the cordate leaf form of Aegean ivy, and did not take into consideration the Minoan practice of transforming natural forms into decorative/symbolic designs. The butcher's broom (Ruscus sp.) is a prickly bush whose small branches are leaf shaped, some with a single centred red berry following flowering, but which is only vaguely like the Minoan ivy motif with its cordate leaves (for Ruscus see Sfikas 1987, fig. 275).

       The interpretation as Smilax aspera.

Cerceau (1985, 182), following Rackham, rejected the interpretation of the Room Beta 1 ivy frieze as Hedera helix, in the mistaken belief that Hedera helix var. poetarum (with cordiform leaves) does not grow spontaneously in the Aegean. She also mistook the overlying umbel fan for the veins of the leaves, which she maintained did not match those of ivy leaves. She opted instead for Smilax aspera L., which has cordiform leaves. This is a conspicuous thorny climbing shrub (a brier), deciduous unlike ivy (whose evergreen nature is one of its major symbolic features), and with small leaves, which finds support on other bushes. Its leaves are heart-shaped, but more like an elongated spearhead. Smilax flowers in the autumn, has tiny, fragrant white lily-shaped flowers in dusters, and belongs to the lily family. Its new growth is maroon, and it has large red berries in the spring. It is a traditional plant (Greek αρκουδόβατος).Its spring shoots are relished much as wild asparagus, and when combined with alum the red berries yield a red dye. The leaves and fruit were said by Dioscorides to be antidotes to poison.

Cerceau's mistake is understandable, for ivy and smilax were also confused in antiquity. Pliny the Elder (Natural History xvi 154-155) tells us: "This plant [smilax] is unlucky to use in sacred rites and for wreaths, because it has a mournful association [referring to the maiden Smilax who was transformed into the plant in mourning for her murdered lover Crocus]. The common people not knowing this usually pollute their festivals with it [smilax] because they think that it is ivy; just as in the case of poets or Father Liber or Silenus, who wear wreaths made of who in world knows what?" (translation Loeb edn.).

ADDENDUM

Saffron is not crocus pollen. Some mistaken ideas about what saffron is were heard at the Symposium. By way of correction, saffron is not the yellow pollen grains ('dust') of the saffron crocus's male stamens, but the female stigmas, which are orange-red in colour and shaped, when dry, like short shrivelled red 'threads'. The yellow pollen grains do not fall out of the freshly picked flowers, but by the time separating starts at night the maturing anthers have begun to open (dehisce) and expose the loose heavy grains of mature pollen. Pollen grains should not be confused with the powdered saffron sold in small packets. Currently, yellow stamens (with some pollen included) are sold in packets in the Herakleion market as cheap 'saffron' for flavouring soups, along with more costly red saffron threads. Greek growers also sell pollen for the manufacture of yellow paint, reviving an old practice. Sarpaki (this volume) reports that present day Theran women use the stigmas and pollen of wild Crocus cartwrightianus to flavour and colour food. Whole saffron threads and powdered ground saffron are both good, if bought from a reliable dealer (it must be red not yellow). The saffron threads require steeping in hot water, broth, milk or alcohol for longer than powdered saffron, or toasting in a skillet over the flame, in order to completely release the flavour and colour before use in cooking.

The dark yellowish buff dried stamens of the saffron crocus which are sold for flavouring in Herakleion have a surprisingly strong, almost pungent, floral aroma. However, this is not medicinal, as the aroma of saffron is.

       Confusion of turmeric with saffron.

The piles of golden yellow spice seen in Middle Eastern markets (in small plastic packets in Greece), often passed off as a 'less expensive' saffron, is instead turmeric, the powdered root of Curcuma longa. It is used in curries. It does dye food yellow (though the dye is less brilliant than that of saffron), and when fresh has a pleasant peppery taste. It also contains medicinal therapeutic agents.

       The most important uses of saffron.

Saffron has been used as a textile dye (cf. the women's yellow costumes in the Theran murals), an artist's pigment, a cosmetic, an antiseptic, a perfume, a spice to flavour and tint foods, and is a main ingredient in liqueurs, tonics, and aperitifs. Its many traditional medicinal uses are increasingly being corroborated and added to by current scientific investigations. These uses will be covered in a more detailed study now in progress.

       The importance of fragrance.

In addition to the uses of fragrant scents in religious ritual, in the form of flowers (including aromatic foliage) and incense, scent was considered (as in Egypt) as an attribute of the gods, and strong fragrance in a room could indicate the presence of a deity.

       Additional Aegean representations of stamens.

Aside from the representations of saffron stamens (together with stigmas) on the LC IA pottery from Melos mentioned above, two MM II examples should be recorded: (1) A small cup from Knossos (Evans 1930, col. pl. XXVII) which has crocuses outlined in white on a dark ground, with four red stigmas and two yellow stamens positioned between the stigmas (two stigmas and one stamen to each of the two notches). Also indicated are rows of pollen grains in the form of dots in white relief on each of the three petals. This represents the way in which crocus pollen dots the petals in nature, underlining awareness, and the importance, of crocus pollen. (2) A small MM II amphora from Phaistos with two men with hands raised facing giant crocus flowers which have two large yellow(?) stamens placed amidst the three red stigmas rising out of the centre of a two-petaled crocus of 'V' form (Walberg 1986, fig. 4).

(1).      For sea lilies growing nowadays on the sandy ash soil of inland Thera, see above. A recent television film also showed them growing inland in the rocky bed of a dry wadi in Israel.

(2).      These cats have the distinct black-ringed bushy tails, alternately spotted and striped pelage and small heads of Felis silvestris, a variable species widespread in Europe, western Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The persecuted Cretan form F. silvestris cretensis (which farmers poison nowadays) could well be the model for these cats, just as the model for the palms in the river scene in the West House at Akrotiri could have been the Cretan date-palm (Phoenix theophrasti) rather than an exotic species. As all the plants, with the exception of the controversial papyrus, existed in the Aegean, it is debatable whether an exotic locale was intended in these so-called 'Nilotic' scenes. Another realistic depiction of wild cats can be seen on the ivory comb from Routsi, where two wild cats pounce on and bite ducks.

(3).      This analysis is based on the original painting, not on Evans's inaccurate restorations.

(4).      Papyrus actually requires fresh flowing water, as opposed to the stagnant marshes favoured by the more plentiful and vigorous giant reed (Arundo donax). Both giant and smaller species of reeds, which tolerate brackish water, dominate wetlands today in the Aegean.

(5).      My recent study of agrimia verifies that these two young horned animals are wild goat (agrimi) kids of about four weeks old, as indicated by their gangly legs with large hooves, their small horns and their yellow-tan (painted in yellow ochre) and light grey body colours, both natural for kids. A broader black line on a fragment showing the tan kid's back denotes the dorsal stripe of the kid.

(6).      Precocious blooms of C. oreocreticus, growing in rain-wet soil under thorny barberry bushes where it is protected from grazers, were observed and collected at Zominthos (above Anoyia) and outside the Idaean cave on November 1, 1994 (the peak of blooming occurs in the middle to end of November). The plant's most striking features are its pointed segments, the silvery white cast over the outer three segments, the dark purple top of the perianth tube, its general pale lilac colour, its purple striping and the intense red of the stigmas (which contrasts with the lilac), some of which flop out between the segments. Local women gather the flowers for the stigmas from mid-November onwards, for use in colouring a local alcoholic beverage and some food (they do not associate these stigmas with store-bought saffron). Leaves are barely extended at the time of flowering. The Idaean cave is accessible by car and a good place to see this high altitude equivalent of the lowland C. cartwrightianus. The kinship of the latter to C. sativus is indicated by the fact that the flowers remain open at night and on grey days, unlike those of C. oreocreticus which, as I have observed, close in these circumstances.

(7).      E.g. Marinatos 1972, pl. 31b: small imported askoi, some decorated with crocuses, from Delta 16; 1971, pl. 80a: a local askos decorated with triple crocuses.

(8).      Iconographic evidence, such as the more upright posture of the leaves and the disposition of the crocuses painted over the goddess and gatherers, is tantalisingly reminiscent of photographs of fields of commercial C. sativus cultivation. However, both the wild field context and stylisation are arguments against this interpretation. This is a sacred scene, focusing on the wild saffron crocuses provided by the goddess. Protected stands of wild saffron crocuses, and even the bringing into small-scale production of select forms (those with the longest stigmas, from which the superior form C. sativus arose) in Minoan times, are very possible. But the exact date of the discovery of the larger C. sativus cannot be determined. The Linear B saffron ideogram and notations of very small quantities of saffron are ambiguous as far as the question of crocus cultivation is concerned. C. sativus is unknown in the wild, being a sterile triploid which cannot bear seeds and which reproduces vegetally by increase of corms (Mathew 1977, 92).

(9).      This striping, which is visible on the actual vessel, does not appear on the published drawing.

(10).     Evidence for the use of both C. cartwrightianus and C. tournefortii (another autumn crocus) in Greek domestic textile dyeing is provided by C.G. Macris (1964, 56).

(11).     Note especially the spearhead-shaped crocus buds and the ghosts of faded blossoms above the griffin's wings (Doumas 1992, figs. 127-128). The stigmas were painted first, then the mauve flower shape over them. Some leaves were painted over the flowers and buds, and where this occurs the leaves have disappeared.

(12).     More flower remains are visible on the actual painting than in the reproductions. For example, many of the flowers falling out of the girl's basket and contained in the large, flat basket are fairly intact (Doumas 1992, fig. 123), According to one of the restorers, these have been left uncleaned in order to preserve them.

(13).     The flowers and stamens have the same sweet, slightly grassy, floral scent; the stigmas (saffron) have a different, pungent and almost medicinal aroma, imparted by the volatile oil (safranol) which they contain.

(14).     Warren (1985, 204) noted the garland of stigmas, but described it as "comprising papyrus head beads" and cited the ring-shaped clay garlands of the female statues from the Kea temple with their paint traces as well as other examples of necklace garlands in Minoan and other ancient imagery. M.E. Caskey (1986, 136-137) has discussed the Kean examples in detail and noted other floral necklace garlands in Minoan iconography.

(15).     An indication of the blue colour of the leaves can be seen in the temains of blue glass inlay in the stem of a leaf.

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