Along with the marine designs went naturalistic representations of flowers and grasses--the lily and the crocus, already familiar from earlier work, the Egyptian lotus in a form adapted to the taste of the Minoan artist, and ivy leaves and tendrils. A peculiarly graceful design on a vase from Zakro shows an adaptation of the Egyptian lotus, presenting that favourite Nilotic motive in a style more flexible and easy than that of the native representations of it. The design in this case is painted in white on a reddish-brown ground, and its peculiarity is that the white was laid on after the vase had been fired, and can be removed with the finger (Plate XXIX. 2). The three vases from Hagia Triada, the Boxer, the Harvester, and the Chieftain, belong to this period, as do also the frescoes of the Hunting Cat and the Climbing Plants, and probably the Royal Gaming Board from the palace at Knossos. At this time, too, we come upon the long bronze swords which had succeeded the daggers of the preceding ages. Hieroglyphic writing is now superseded by the linear script of Class A, which now comes into regular use, although at Knossos the documents in this script, according to Dr. Evans, are only to be found in the stratum belonging to the last period of Middle Minoan, their place being supplied by Class B, which occurs only at Knossos. At Hagia Triada and Gournia the older forms of vase are mingled with early specimens of the type variously known as 'Buegelkanne,' 'Vases a Etrier,' or 'Stirrup-vases.' These vases, named from the stirrup-like appearance of their curving handles, may more correctly be called 'false-necked vases,' from the fact that the neck to which the handles unite is closed, and another neck is formed, farther away from the handles, for convenience in pouring. The false-necked vase is the characteristic pottery type of Late Minoan III., and occurs very frequently on the Mycenaean sites of that period. The seals with fantastic forms of monsters, such as those found in such numbers at Zakro, date from the beginning of Late Minoan I., and to this period also belong the earlier of the Shaft- or Circle-Graves at Mycenae, so that now for the first time Minoan can be equated with Mycenaean. We are still without any system of dating that is absolutely certain, but this is the last period of which such a remark is true. The next period brings us into touch with Egyptian synchronisms whose date is certain to within a few years.