Temple A at Prinias, Crete from the 7th century BC displays Egyptian and Egyptianizing features in its architecture and sculptural decoration. Direct Egyptian influence on Greek art and architecture in the 8th-7th centuries has been underestimated, as evidenced by Temple A. Herodotus recounts how Cretan sailors were blown off course to Libya and exposed to Egyptian buildings, encouraging the use of stone in Greek architecture instead of wood and mudbrick. Egyptian artistic motifs like the false door, clenched fist, and horsemen frieze are seen in the sculpture at Temple A.

1. Crete and Egypt in the
Seventh Century BC:
An Examination of Temple A at Prinias
with an Emphasis on Egyptian and
Egyptianizing Features

2. Prinias, Crete

3. Temple A, Prinias
“Temple A is a
monument of
sufficient scope
and preservation
to give an idea of
the relationship
of Cretan art and
architecture to
that of
contemporary
centers in Greece
and the Eastern
Mediterranean.”
-Lauren Adams
Luigi Pernier

4. Sculptural Decoration

5. Temple A Reconstructions
Luigi Pernier Immo Beyer L. Vance Watrous

6. “Direct Egyptian influence in Greece in the 8th and 7th centuries is
generally, and I think wrongly, minimized. Certainly many Egyptianizing
features are derived at second-hand from Phoenician art, but there is much
evidence too if the effect of purely Egyptian work.”
-John Boardman

7. “So, as there was no help for it, they
sent messengers to Crete, to inquire
whether any of the Cretans, or of the
strangers sojourning among them, had
ever traveled as far as Libya: and
these messengers of theirs, in their
wanderings about the island, among
other places, where they fell in with a
man, whose name was Corobius, a
dealer in purple. In answer to their
inquiries, he told them that contrary
winds had once carried him to Libya,
where he had gone ashore on a
certain island which was named
Platea…They themselves quitted the
island; and, anxious to reach Egypt, Herodotus iv 151, 2-3
made sail in that direction, but were
carried out of their course by a gale of
wind from the east.”

8. Naucratis
“They could not fail to
have been impressed
by the scale and
grandeur of the
existing Egyptian stone
buildings. This
encouraged architects
elsewhere to use more
stable materials than
mudbrick and wood,
and was the starting
point for Greek
architecture in stone.”
-John Griffiths Pedly

9. Egyptian False Door
Tomb at Saqqara
5th Dynasty

10. Mastaba of Tjetu, Giza

11. Horsemen Frieze

12. Post Dedalic Sculpture
Head of Schist, Berlin Museum
26th Dynasty

13. Clenched Fist Motif
Sennuwy
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
12th Dynasty

14. Mastaba
of
Tjetu