Minoan, Iron Age and modern Buddhist decoration
Artistic Styles: Minoan Crete, Iron Age Britain and 17th century Tibet
3rd–1st century BC | 16th century BC | 17th century AD.
The spiral decoration on British Iron Age metalwork and on pottery and frescoes dating to the Minoan era is similar to a 17th century decoration surrounding the picture of a Tibetan deity.
'Look, more interconnected spirals,' observed Quintin. 'This Iron Age design is part of the decoration on the topmost bronze hoop of the Aylesford Bucket, found in an Iron Age grave in Kent dating to the first century BC.'
Design redrawn from: Stead, Ian, 1985 reprinted 1996. Celtic Art: In Britain before the Roman Conquest. The British Museum Press. p 55.
‘And this is the decoration on a sword scabbard in the Yorkshire and Irish scabbard style, dating to the third century BC.'
Design redrawn from: Stead, Ian, 1985 reprinted 1996. Celtic Art: In Britain before the Roman Conquest. The British Museum Press. p 30.
‘And this,' Quintin stated with emphasis, as though wishing to make a fundamental observation, 'is a sarcophagus decorated with painted frescoes from the Minoan period, about 1600 BC, found at Agia Triadha in the south of Crete. If you look closely you can see dark spirals intertwined with the white ones that makes it just like the decoration on that Iron Age sword scabbard, which was fashioned more than a thousand years later.'
Sarcophagus decoration, Agia Traidha. Minoan Crete.
‘Spooky!’ exclaimed Miranda. 'But I'll show you something that is even more spooky. This spiral decoration on another piece of Minoan pottery...
Minoan pottery. Archaeological Museum of Herakleion, Crete.
'...is almost identical...'
Detail: seventeenth century Central Tibeten thanka of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra. Rubin Museum of Art, New York City.
'...to the decoration around a seventeenth century image of the Tibetan Buddhist deity Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra. And Buddhists believe in reincarnation.'
The Tibetan god Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra. 17th century. Rubin Museum of Art, New York City.