The City Siege and the Lion. The Fortetsa bronze Belt and Quiver between Near Eastern Models and heroic Ideology

The author re-examines two well-known Orientalizing bronzes found in Fortetsa tomb P at Knossos: the belt which represents a city siege and the quiver with lion-tamers. He analyses their find context and chronology (last decades of the 9th century BC), style and iconographies, ideological background. Their style shows close similarities with the North-Syrian prototypes and strenghtens the hypothesis that they were hammered by immigrant metal-workers, coming perhaps from Zincirli, or by Cretan apprentices. From the iconographic point of view, in the city siege on the belt the Near Eastern prototypes were changed by the introduction of Greek elements, among them the city as a palace (or as a temple) in order to reflect the models of the Cretan leaders: these basileis referred to the symbols of power of the Near Eastern kingdoms and mirror as well the Homeric ideology