Minoan Cushion Seals: Innovation in Form, Style, and Use in Bronze Age Glyptic (Studia Archaeologica, 196)

This book is about a single Minoan seal shape, the cushion seal - a rectangular stone with biconvex faces -- so called because its profile resembles a cushion. This shape is specific to Minoan culture. The first securely-dated cushions appear in Middle Minoan IIB but its floruit is Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IA, after which it essentially dies out. While, in its early days, the materials, style, and motifs were similar to those of other seal shapes, it later developed a recognizable, perhaps semi-independent style and iconography of its own. Some of the finest examples of Minoan glyptic art appear on cushions. Who crafted them? Had they any special meaning? Why did the shape so abruptly disppear? This book is the first to examine all aspects of cushion seals and to compare them with other contemporary forms of glyptic art. It aims to cast new light on style and form at the transition from the Protopalatial to early Neopalatial period on Crete.