Note 1253 — Chapter X · ORPHIC MYSTERIES.

Published and discussed by the discoverer Mr Evans in the Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. VII. 1900-1901, p. 29, fig. 9. The enlargement (3/1) here reproduced from the Annual is based on a restoration, but a perfectly certain one. A series of clay fragments impressed by the same seal, but not from the same impression, were found in a deposit of burnt wood. The various fragments overlapped sufficiently for certain reconstruction. When I first saw a drawing of the seal I was inclined to think it was ‘too good to be true,’ but by Mr Evans’ kindness I was allowed while at Crete to examine the original fragments and am satisfied that the reconstruction is correct. We owe the most important monument of Mycenaean religion to the highly trained eye and extraordinarily acute perception of the excavator.