¹ I am most grateful to Brian Cook, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, for his kind permission to study the objects discussed in this article. I should also like to thank Lesley Fitton and Veronica Tatton-Brown from the same department. Sue Bird executed the drawings most skilfully, and Don Evely kindly printed the plate from my negatives, Abbreviations:

Excav. in Cyp. = Murray, A. S., Smith, A. H., and Walters, H. B., Excavations in Cyprus (London, 1900).Google Scholar

Iv. Myc. = Poursat, J.-C., Les Ivoires mycéniens (Paris, 1977).Google Scholar

Iv. Phen. = Decamps de Mertzenfeld, C., Catalogue commenté des ivoires phéniciens et apparentés découverts dans le Proche-Orient (Paris, 1954).Google Scholar

² British Museum Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, inv. nos. 1897.4–1.402 (lions and bulls); 1897.4–1.872 (griffin-slayer). Excav. in Cyp. 31–2, pl. 2: Iv. Phen. nos. 791, 798: Iv. Myc. 159–60, 163–4, Pls. 16. 1 (no. 402), 16, 2–3 (no. 872). Numerous other comments and illustrations include Poulsen, F., ‘Zur Zeitbestimmung der Enkomifunde’, JdI 26 (1911), 215–48, esp. 222–5, Abb. 7–8Google Scholar; Kantor, H. J., ‘Ivory carving in the Mycenaean period’, Archaeology, 13 (1960), 14–25, esp. 22–3, fig. 21Google Scholar; Courtois, J.-C., Lagarce, J. and Lagarce, E., Enkomi et le bronze récent à Chypre (Nicosia, 1986), 132–3, pl. 24. 2.Google Scholar

³ Karageorghis, V., Treasures in the Cyprus Museum (Dept. of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1962), 25, pl. 41. 1Google Scholar; Catling, H. W., Cypriot Bronzework in the Mycenaean World (Oxford, 1964), 226, pl. 1 cGoogle Scholar; Iv. Myc. 159–60, 163–4, pl. 16. 4.

⁴ Excav. in Cyp. 32, pl. 2, no. 883 from tomb 24. Iv. Phen. no. 799; Iv. Myc. 159–60, pl. 16. 6. Also considered as a pyxis by Poulsen (n. 2) 224; Demargne, P., La Crète dédalique (Paris, 1947), 197Google Scholar; Kantor, H. J., The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium (Bloomington, 1947), 98–9Google Scholar; Åström, L., The Arts and Crafts of Late Bronze Age Cyprus: Swedish Cyprus Expedition, iv. 1 d (Lund, 1972), 554. no. 1; 614Google Scholar; Courtois et al. (n. 2) 47, 133. No. 883 is listed as a ‘plaque’ without further comment by Kantor, , ‘Syro-Palestinian ivories’, JNES 15 (1956), 153–74, p. 167.Google Scholar There is but a single published hint that no. 883 might have been recognized previously as a mirror handle: Dussaud, R., Les Civilisations préhelléniques (Paris, 1914), 313 n. 4Google Scholar, in an unwarranted attack on Poulsen's view that griffin combats were an Asiatic theme, says, ‘il (sc. Poulsen) faudrait dire sur deux manches de miroir d'Enkomi’ (my italics). Dussaud does not specify which is the second handle, but the only possible candidate is no. 883.

⁵ Fig. 1 b presents a schematic drawing of the transverse section of an elephant tusk, chiefly to clarify the terms ‘inner’ and ‘outer face’ of the ivory. Superimposed on this is the actual section (solid) of no. 883 and the suggested reconstruction of the original rectangular section of the handle. But it must be noted that elephant tusks are not perfectly circular in section; they tend to be ovoid. Further-more, there are considerable variations in the size and shape of tusks. It is quite impossible, therefore, to indicate from exactly what point in a tusk such an object was cut.

⁶ This characteristic ‘cone-in-cone’ splitting (sometimes called ‘delamination’) seems most likely to occur along the ‘lines of Owen’, which are growth rings approx. 1 cm apart, but may occur along any of the lamellae. For features of elephant ivory and the effects on it of deposition, see Krzyszkowska, O. H., Ivory and Related Materials: An Illustrated Guide (London, 1990), 33–7, 88–9, figs. 12–13, Pl. 5.Google Scholar

⁷ Thus on handle no. 402 face (b), the outer face, is even more worn than face (a).

⁸ Although there is no trace of the central mortise on no. 883, we may reasonably surmise that it introduced an area of weakness into the ivory, eventually giving rise to the loss of the right hand portion of the handle (split along the lamellae). No. 402 preserves its rim-piece (and lower knob) as does the Kouklia handle. The mortises on no. 872 show that this handle likewise originally had an added rim-piece and knob. For the differences between the forms of Cypriote and Mycenaean mirror handles, see: Schäfer, J., ‘Elfenbeinspiegelgriffe des zweiten Jahrtausends’, AM 73 (1958), 73–87, esp. 83–4Google Scholar; Catling (n. 3) 226–7; Courtois et al. (n. 2), 130–4, esp. 131.

⁹ That is, the loss of the left hand side of the handle — along the lamellae — from the warrior's elbow to the feet of the griffin. Cf. n. 8.

¹⁰ Inv. no. 1897. 4–1. 1343. The fragment is split length-wise and clearly represents the lower part of a shaft only, with traces of a square-cut mortise for attachment of a knob.

¹¹ A point noted by virtually all earlier commentators (above, n. 4), which makes the misinterpretation of the fragment's form and function all the more surprising.

¹² Sandars, N. K., The Sea Peoples (London, 1985), fig. 97.Google Scholar

¹³ Inv. no. 1897.4–1.996. Excav. in Cyp., 12–13, 31, fig. 19, pl. 1. Many subsequent illustrations have shown the box with feet; these were additions and have now been removed.

¹⁴ Åström (n. 4), 614, stated that no. 883 was ‘clearly from the same hand that made … 872 A’, and further attributes to the same workshop (if not to the same carver) a pyxis fragment (Excav. in Cyp. pl. 2, no. 1126) in which the shoulder of the human leading the sphinx is placed at an awkward angle. Poursat (Iv. Myc. 160) suggests that the Enkomi and Kouklia mirror handles, the ‘pyxis’ fragment (i.e. no. 883), the sphinx pyxis no. 1126, and the gaming-box should all be seen as the output of the same workshop.