THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE 
15 
which is a diaphanous chemise. Her left 
arm is bent, and her right stretched for- 
ward ; her features are piquant, if not 
beautiful, and a slight dimple shows at 
the corner of her lips. Her long black 
hair, elaborately waved and crimped, 
floats out on either side of her head as 
she turns in the movement of the dance. 
The fragments of decoration which 
have survived help us to realize a very 
beautiful room, gay with color, yet never 
garish because of the softness of the in- 
direct illumination, in which we may 
imagine the Minoan court ladies, in their 
modern gowns, reclining on the cushions 
of the long couch, discussing the inci- 
dents of the last bull-grappling enter- 
tainment, the skill of the young Athe- 
nian, Theseus, and the obvious infatua- 
tion of Princess Ariadne, or employing 
their time more usefully in some of the 
wonderful embroidery work in which 
the fashion of the period delighted. 
By night the scene in the palace would 
be even more picturesque. Great stone 
lamps, standing on tall bases and each 
bearing several wicks on the margin of 
its broad bowl of oil, flared in the rooms 
and corridors, lighting up the brightly 
colored walls and sending many-tinted 
reflections dancing from the bronze and 
copper vases and urns which decorated 
the passages and the landings of the 
stairways, while through the breadths of 
light and shadow moved in an always 
changing stream of color the gaily dressed 
figures of the Minoan court. 
THE) dre:ss of the: me;n was very 
simpIve;; of thf womfn most 
i:laborate and modern 
Judging from the surviving pictures, 
the Minoan men were bronzed, with 
dark hair and beardless faces, their fig- 
ures were slender, and their slenderness 
was made all the more conspicuous by 
the fashion which prevailed of drawing 
in the waist by a tightly fastened belt, 
which seems, in some cases at least, to 
have had metal edges ; but muscularly 
they were well developed, and the pic- 
tures suggest litheness and agility in a 
high degree. "One would say a small- 
boned race, relying more on quickness of 
limb and brain than on weight and 
size." 
The hair of the men was worn in a 
somewhat elaborate fashion, being done 
up in three coils on the top of the head, 
while the ends of it fell in three long 
curls upon the shoulders. On the other 
hand, their dress was extremely simple, 
consisting normally of nothing but a 
loin-cloth, girt by the broad belt already 
mentioned, the material of which the 
loin-cloth was made being frequently 
gaily colored or patterned, as in the case 
of the Cup-Bearer, whose garment is 
adorned with a dainty quatre-foil design. 
That more elaborate robes were worn 
on certain occasions of importance is 
shown by the sarchophagus at Hagia 
Triada, where the Lyre-Player wears a 
long robe coming down to the ankles 
and bordered with lines of color, while 
the other men in the scene wear tucked 
robes reaching a little below the knees 
(or possibly baggy Turkish trousers) ; 
and also by the Harvester Vase, where 
the chief figure in the procession is clad 
in a stiff garment, which has been vari- 
ously interpreted as a wadded cuirass, or 
as a cope of some stiff fabric. 
On their feet they wore sometimes 
shoes, with puttees twisted round the 
lower part of the leg, and sometimes 
half-boots, as shown on the Chieftain 
Vase and one of the Petsofa figurines. 
Indeed, the footgear of the Minoans 
seems to have been somewhat elaborate. 
In the representations of the Keftiu, on 
the walls of Rekh-ma-ra's tomb, the 
shoes are white, and have bindings of 
red and blue, and in some cases are 
delicately embroidered. Such examples 
as the shoe on an ivory figure found at 
Knossos and the terra-cotta model of a 
shoe found at Sitia show the daintiness 
with which the Minoans indulged them- 
selves in the matter of footwear. 
In personal adornment the men to 
some extent made up for their sim- 
plicity in the matter of dress. The Cup- 
Bearer wears a couple of thick bracelets 
on his upper arm and another, which 
bears an agate signet, on his wrist, and 
such decorations seem to have been in 
common use. The King, whose figure 
in low relief has been reconstructed 
from fragments found at Knossos, wears 
peacock plumes upon his head, while 
round his neck he has a collar of fleurs- 
