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Author: * Demetrios Xanthippos -
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Date: Feb 25, 2005 - 07:50
An intriguing seal, Phryne, with plenty of fascinating imagery. The other figures (and I’ve just now noticed that there is a fourth apparently being held up by the figure on the right) are also interesting. The two on the right are wearing the same strange leg-coverings as the figure in the boat, while those in the center and on the left are not. The one in the center seems to have plucked something from the tree and may not be female (hard to tell at this resolution).
I wouldn’t read too much into the seahorse shape of the ship, though. I rather doubt the Minoans knew that the male carries the fertilized eggs and gives birth. That requires detailed study and long-term observation of seahorses and I think those details were unknown until modern times. More likely, the seahorse is a simpler metaphor: ships are the horses of the sea, carrying people and goods across the waters in the same way that horses do across the fields. The Vikings used similar metaphors in their poetry.
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