This is a detail of the griffin fresco (reproduction) from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, dated to 1700-1450 BC.
In this shortish article I would like to explain why I think that the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils...
To start, check my article "Minoan spring fresco" in which I showed that Minoans basically treated both the animals and plants they depicted together as calendar markers. For instance swallows nesting season overlaps with Madonna lily flowering season, as depicted on the so called "Spring Fresco" from the Akrotiri Site at Thera (Santorini), dated to 1550 – 1500 BC...
Then check my article "The origin of griffins" about this 3000 BC Proto-Elamite seal, in which I explained why I believe griffin is not a mythical animal, but actually a complex animal calendar marker for autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct)...
Now check this out: this is sea daffodil, a flower native to Crete. Compare it to the flowers depicted next to the griffin...Now the best bit is that sea daffodil flowers from Aug to Oct...Basically during autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct), the same period of the year marked by griffin...
Now of course we can't be 100% sure the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils, but there are no other similar flowers that bloom in Crete in August...So...
That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...
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