Bees from Malia
Bees from Malia ( Greek Χρυσό κόσμημα των μελισσών ) is the name of a golden pendant from the Minoan period , which was discovered in Malia on Crete and which is exhibited today in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion (Inv.-No .: AMI 559).
The bees of Malia were discovered in 1930 by the French archaeologists Fernand Chapouthier and Pierre Demargne in the necropolis of Chrysolakkos . The pendant has a width of 4.9 cm and a height of 4.6 cm. Two bees or wasps are shown sucking on a drop of honey. According to another interpretation, they place the honey drop in a honeycomb that is between them. The bodies of the insects are curved around the honeycomb so that together they form a circle. There is a gold ball in a wire cage above the bees' heads. A disc with a granulated edge hangs down from each of the two wings and where their spines touch . The gold globules of the granulation on the honeycomb and the abdomen of the insects are even finer and have a diameter of about 0.4 mm.
The piece of jewelry was made between 1800 and 1700 BC. At the end of the Old Palace period and is considered a masterpiece of Minoan art .
literature
- Antonis S. Vassilakis: Malia, Amnissos, Nirou Chani, Skotino, Chersonissos . Athens 1990, p. 72-75 .
- Jannis Sakellarakis : Heraklion - The Archaeological Museum - A picture guide . Athens 2006, ISBN 960-213-038-5 , pp. 70-71 .
- Nota Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki: The Archaeological Museum of Herakleion . Athens 2005, ISBN 960-86743-8-7 , pp. 308-309 ( digitized version ).
