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THE
MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT AND ITS MEDITERRANEAN RELATIONS
THE
MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT AND ITS MEDITERRANEAN RELATIONS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM RECENT CRETAN FINDS
BY
ARTHUR J. EVANS, M.A., F.S.A.
KEEPER OF THE
WITH A COLOURED PLATE AND SEVENTY FIGURES IN
THE TEXT
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
1901
All
rights reserved
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED
PREFATORY
NOTE
This work is reproduced by permission from the Journal of Hellenic Studies. It was communicated
in its present form to the Hellenic Society in November, 1900, but the views
here expressed regarding the character of Mycenaean worship and such external
features as the baetylic pillars within the shrines and the 'horns of
consecration' were, in their main outlines, first put forth by me in a paper on
'Pillar and Tree Worship in Mycenaean
Greece,' read in the Anthropological Section of the British Association at
Liverpool in 1896. A short abstract of this was published in the Annual Report
of the Association. In November, 1899, the part specially affecting Dr.
Reichel's theory of the 'Thronkultus'
was read to the Oxford Philological Society.
It had been my original intention to
incorporate the present study in a work, in course of preparation by me, on the
Mycenaean gems and signets, but the fresh evidence supplied by the Cretan
discoveries has induced me to put it forth in, a separate form. This seemed the
more desirable, since the most recently expressed views on the subject, as for
instance those contained in Dr. H. von Fritze's essay, 'Die Mykenischen Goldringe und ihre Bedeutung für das Sacralwesen'
(Strena Helbigiana, 1900, p. 73 seqq.), though in certain respects
supplying a welcome corrective to Dr. Reichel's system, still, as I venture to
think, betray a very imperfect recognition of
vi PREFATORY NOTE
some of the most essential features of the
cult. The Author moreover still maintains the now antiquated and wholly
untenable position that the engraved Signet-Rings found at
Great pains have been taken in this work to
secure adequate reproductions of the Mycenaean gems and signets, which are
here, in almost all cases, enlarged to three diameters. For this purpose
magnified photographs of the casts were first made, which (checked at the same
time by the casts) have formed the basis of drawings by Mr. F. Anderson and Mr.
C. J. Praetorius. In the case of the more convex intaglios photographic
reproductions by themselves yield imperfect representations of the designs,
owing to the deep shadow which, with a single light, is thrown over a large
part of the field. It is hoped however that, by the double process referred to,
the greatest possible measure of clearness and accuracy may have l)een
attained. A few drawings were executed by Monsieur E. Gilliéron at
TABLE
OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
§1. -
Fig. 1. - Gem from Vapheio Tomb, representing
Daemons watering nurseling palms 3
§2. - Sacred
Fig-Tree and Altar on a Pyxis from
Fig. 2. - Fragment of Steatite Pyxis -
§3. - The Dove
Cult of Primitive
§4. - The
Association of Sacred Tree and Pillar 7
§5. - The
'Labyrinth' and the Pillar Shrines of the God of the Double Axe 8
Fig. 3. - Double Axe with Horns of Consecration
between Bulls' Heads with similar Axes, on Mycenaean Vase from Old Salamis 9
Fig. 4. - Gold Signet from Akropolis Treasure,
Fig. 5. - Pillar of the Double Axes in Palace,
Fig. 6. - Pillar Shrines and Votaries on Vase
Fragment from Old
§6. - The %"\JL8@H [Baitylos] and Baetylic Tables of Offering 14
Fig. 7. - Baetylic Table of Offering from the
Fig. 8. - Baetylic Cones and Offering Slabs on
Hittite Seals 17
Fig. 9. - Small Baetylic Altar from
Fig. 10. - Baetylic Table used as a Base for
Sacral Lions on Cretan Gem 18
Fig. 11. - Baetylic Altar on Coin of Cretan
Community 18
viii TABLE OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 12. - Impressed Glass Plaque
from
Fig. 13. - Impressed Glass Plaque
from
Fig. 14. - Impressed Glass Plaque
from
§7. - Zeus
Kappôtes and the Meteoric Element in Baetylic Stones 20
§8. - Sepulchral
Stelae as Baetylic Habitations of Departed Spirits 21
§9. - The Tomb of
Zeus 21
§10. - Small
Dimensions of the Mycenean Shrines 24
§11. - Aniconic Cult Images supplemented by Pictorial
Representations of Divinities: Transitions to Anthropomorphism 25
Fig. 15. - Mycenaean Figurine of bronze from
Fig. 16. - Mycenaean Figurine of silver from
Nezero,
§12. -
Illustrative Survivals of Tree and Pillar Cult in Classical
§13. - The Ficus
Ruminalis 30
Fig. 17. - Infant and Horned Sheep from Clay
Impression of Gem, Palace,
§14. -
Illustrative Value of Semitic Religious Sources 32
§15. - The Horns
of Consecration 37
Fig. 18. - Horns of Consecration on
Sanctuary Wall, from Fresco of Palace,
Fig. 19. - Horned Cult Object of
painted Pottery: Idaean Cave 38
Fig. 20. - Altar with Horned Cult
Object above, from Stele of God Sahn 39
Fig. 21. - Cone of Astarte within
Horned Enclosure,
TABLE OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. ix
§16. - Trinities
and other Groups of Sacred Trees and Pillars 40
Fig. 22. - Carthaginian Pillar Shrine on Stele,
Nora,
Fig. 23. - Group of Sacred Pillars on Mycenaean
Vase from Haliki 41
Fig. 24. - Worship of Group of Pillars on
Cylinder,
Fig. 25. - Worship of Group of Trees: Crystal
Lentoid,
Fig. 26. - Tree Trinity of God Min 45
§17. - "The
Pillar of the House" 45
Fig. 27. - Sacred Column on Stele,
§18. - Egyptian
Influences and the Rayed Pillars of Mycenaean
Fig. 28. - Egyptian Palmette Pillars and the
Rayed Pillars of
Nos. 1-3. - Egyptian Pillars.
Nos. 4-7. - Cypro-Mycenaean
derivatives.
Fig. 29. - Hathoric Uraeus Pillar and
Cypro-Mycenaean and Oriental analogies 52
No. 1. - Egyptian Uraeus Pillar.
Nos. 2 and 3. - Cypro-Mycenaean
Comparisons.
No. 4. - Dual Uraeus Staff of Istar.
§19. - The Egyptian Element in the Animal Supporters of Mycenaean
Trees and Columns
54
§20. - Sacred
Trees and Foliated Pillars with Heraldically Posed Animals 55
Fig. 30. - Sacred Tree and Wild Goats on
Lentoid Gem, from
Fig. 31. - Sacred Palm and Wild Goat on Lentoid
Gem, Palaeokastro,
Fig. 32. - Tree Pillar and Animals like
Fig. 33. - Fleur-de-lys Pillar and Confronted
Sphinxes, on Gold Signet Ring,
Fig. 34. - Pillar Tree with Young Bulls
attached: on Crystal Signet Ring,
b
x TABLE OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
§21. -
Architectural Columns with Animal Supporters: the Lions' Gate Type 58
Fig. 35. - Tympanum Relief of Lions' Gate,
Fig. 36. - Pillar with
Fig. 37. - Double-bodied Kriosphinx with
Fore-feet on Base: Lentoid Gem,
Fig. 38. - Double-bodied Lion with Fore-feet on
Base: Lentoid Gem,
Fig. 39. - Lions' Gate Type on Gold Signet
Ring,
Fig. 40. - Lions' Gate Type on Lentoid Gem,
Zero,
Fig. 41. - Confronted Lions with Fore-feet on
Baetylic Base: Lentoid Gem,
Fig. 42 (a
and b) Lion Supporters of Egyptian
Solar Disk 64
§22. - Anthropomorphic Figures of Divinities substituted for the
Baetylic Column in the Lions' Gate Scheme 65
Fig. 43. - Male Divinity between Lions on
Lentoid Gem, Kydonia,
Fig. 44. - Female Divinity between Lions on
Amygdaloid Gem,
Fig. 45. - Seated Goddess between Lions on
Lentoid Ring-Stone (3/1) 67
§23. - Mycenaean
Daemons in Similar Heraldic Schemes 70
Fig. 46. - Daemon between Two Lions on Lentoid
Gem,
§24. - A
Mycenaean "Bethshemesh" 71
Fig. 47. - Dual Pillar Worship on
Cypro-Mycenaean Cylinder (2/1) 71
Fig. 48. - Dual Pillar Worship on Gold Signet
Ring from
Fig. 49. - Double Representation of Rayed
Pillars on Tabloid Bead-Seal, Old
Fig. 50. - Rayed Shield-bearing God on Painted
Sarcophagus, Milato,
§25. - Cult
Scenes relating to a Warrior God and his Consort 77
Fig. 51. - Armed God and Seated Goddess on
Electrum Signet Ring,
TABLE OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. xi
Fig. 52. - Religious Scene on Gold Signet Ring
from Vapheio Tomb (3/1) 78
Fig. 53. - Religious Scene on (Gold Signet Ring
from
Fig. 54. - Symbols derived from the Egyptian Ankh 80
1. - The Ankh.
2. - Two armed Egyptian Form
(XVIIIth Dyn.).
3 and 4. - Hittite Types.
5. - From Mycenaean Ring (Fig. 52).
6. - On Carthaginian Stele.
§26. - Sacred
Gateways or Portal Shrines, mostly associated with Sacred Trees 83
Fig. 55. - Portal Shrine on Gold Signet Ring
from
Fig. 56. - Cult Scene with Sacred Tree and
Portal on Gold Signet Ring,
Fig. 57. - Cult Scene with Sacred Tree and
Portal, within Temenos,
Fig. 58. - Sacral Gateway and Votaries on
Gold-plated Silver Ring,
Fig. 59. - Sacred Tree and Enclosure on
Steatite Lentoid, Ligortino,
§27. - The Dolmen
Shrines of Primitive Cult and the Dove Shrines of
Fig. 60. - Baetylic Stone in Dolmen Shrine,
Fig. 61. - Pillared Chamber of 'Nau,'
Fig. 62 (a and h). - Plan and Section of
'Cova,'
Fig. 63. - Female Votaries before Pillar
Shrine, Gold Signet Ring,
Fig. 64. - Goddess seated beside Pillar Shrine,
on Gold Signet Ring,
Fig. 65. - Gold Shrine with Doves,
Third Akropolis Grave,
§28. - Fresco
representing
Fig. 66. - Façade of
xii TABLE OF SECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
§29. - Parallels to the Baetylic Shrines of the Mycenaeans supplied
by the Megalithic Sanctuaries of the Maltese Islands 98
Fig. 67. - Pillar Cell of Hagiar Kim, Malta 99
Fig. 68. - Spiral Ornament on Threshold of
Baetylic Chapel, Giganteja, Gozo. 101
§30. - An
Oriental Pillar Shrine in
Fig. 69. - Sacred Pillar in Shrine,
Fig. 70. - Plan of Shrine,
COLOURED PLATE.
Façade of
THE
MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT AND ITS
MEDITERRANEAN RELATIONS
MYCENAEAN
TREE AND PILLAR CULT AND ITS MEDITERRANEAN RELATIONS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM RECENT CRETAN FINDS.
[Plate V.]
§1. - Cretan Caves and Hypaethral
Sanctuaries.
AMONG the greater monuments or actual
structural remains of the Mycenaean world hitherto made known, it is remarkable
how little there is to be found having a clear and obvious relation to
religious belief. The great wealth of many of the tombs, the rich contents of
the pit-graves of
In
1 F. Halbherr and P.
Orsi, Antro di Zeus Ideo, p. 3 and
Tav. xi.
2 J.H.S. xvii.
(1897), p. 350 seqq.
B 2
2 ARTHUR J EVANS [100
significance of which will be pointed out in a
succeeding section. 1 The thorough
exploration of this cave, now carried out by Mr. D. G. Hogarth, 2 on behalf of the
It is possible, as I have elsewhere suggested, 3 that in a small building which
occupies a most conspicuous position in the great prehistoric city of
1 See below, p. 15 seqq.
2 See Annual of the
3 See my letter to
the Academy, July 4, 1896, p. 18, and
'Goulas, the City of Zeus' (Annual of the
British School at Athens, 1896). The recent French excavations on this
site, conducted by M. De Margne, have shown that a part of it at least was
occupied by the inland Latô. But the fact remains incontestable that the
overwhelming mass of existing remains belongs to the prehistoric period.
4 See below, p. 83.
101] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 3
gem, representing two lion-headed daemons, who
have filled two high-spouted vases from the basin of a fountain, and raise them
above what appears to be a nurseling palm-tree 1 (Fig. 1). It may be noted that this religious cultivation of the
young palms - then no doubt being largely introduced on to Greek soil by the
cosmopolitan taste of the Mycenaean rulers - finds a later parallel in the
Assyrian representations, first explained by Dr. Tylor, of winged genii
fertilising the adult palm with the male cones. The parallelism is very
suggestive.
Fig. 1. - Gem from Vapheio
Tomb: Daemons Watering Nurseling Palm.
It is not necessary, indeed, to suppose that
the sacred tree enclosed ex hypothesi
in the Goulas shrine was a palm. A palm column, it is true, appears on a gem
from this site 2 with two deer as
supporters, in a scheme to be described below. But in
§2. - Sacred Fig-Tree and Altar on a Pyxis
from
The object in question (Fig. 2) is a portion of
a cylindrical vase or pyxis of dark steatite, decorated with reliefs, found on
the slope of the hill known as Gypsades,
which rises opposite to that on which the
1 Apparently in a
large pot: recalling the culture of nurseling palms at Bordighera, where they
are largely cultivated for religious purposes, owing to a special privilege
from the Pope.
2 See p. 56, Fig.
32.
3 It was obtained by
me on the spot in 1894.
4 ARTHUR J. EVANS [102
simply the translation into metal of the much
more ancient steatite reliefs representing the same ornamentation. We may well
believe that the steatite reliefs, like those of the fragment before us, gave
birth in the same way to the figured designs in repoussée work, such as
those that decorate the Vapheio vases, and that we here in fact see the
intermediate stage of soft-stone carving, originally coated with a thin gold
plate, which led up to more perfected art.
The design itself, so far as it is possible to
study it in its fragmentary condition, presents so much naturalism and spirit
that we may well believe that had the whole been preserved to us it would have afforded
the nearest parallel to the marvellous gold cups from the Spartan tomb.
In the lowest zone of the composition, or, as
we may call it, the foreground, appear parts of two male figures. The foremost
of the two is in violent action, his right arm raised and his left thrown
behind him. He is clad in the Mycenaean loin-clothing, and his feet were
apparently swathed in the usual manner. Under his left shoulder fall long
tresses of hair, recalling those that appear in the same position on the
figures of the Vapheio cups and those of the Kefti tributaries on the tomb of
Rekhmara. The prominent treatment of the sinews and muscles resembles that of
the leaden figure from Kampos. 1
Behind this is a second male figure, who
appears to be kneeling on one knee, and holding his right arm forwards, with
his fingers and thumb together, as if in the act of sprinkling grain.
Immediately behind him is a square block of isodomic masonry, with coping at
top, which, from the two-horned object above it, is evidently an altar. It will
be shown in the course of this study that this horned adjunct is a usual
article of Mycenaean altar furniture. 2
The altar, with its regular isodomic structure,
recalls the limestone walls of some of the better constructed parts of the Palace
at
In striking contrast to the isodomic
construction of the altar are the two low walls of the enclosure represented
above. Here we see a series of irregular, mostly more or less diamond-shaped,
blocks, which may be taken to represent the earlier roughly polygonal style of
wall building. It is not possible, however, to be sure whether we have here a
rustic survival of the older style, or whether the irregular character of the
masonry is intended to indicate that it is of more ancient date than the altar
outside. If, as I venture to believe, we have here to deal with the temenos of
a sacred grove, the latter hypothesis may appear the more probable.
The tree within is certainly a fig-tree, the
characteristic outline of the leaves being clearly defined. On a signet-ring,
to be described below, 3 also found
on the site of
1 Tsuntas, 9L6<"4 [Mykaenai], Pl.
XI.
2 See below, p. 37
seqq.
3 See p. 72.
103] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 5
Fig. 2. - Fragment of
Steatite Pyxis -
6 ARTHUR J. EVANS [104
may also with some probability be recognised as
fig-trees. This analogy, coupled with the walled enclosure and the altar in
front of it, leads to the conclusion that here too we see before us one of a
grove of sacred trees within its sanctuary wall. It is probable that the gold
plates in the shape of fig-leaves found in the Acropolis tomb at
The traditional sanctity of the fig-tree is
well marked in the later cult of
The post-like object to the right of the
fig-tree in the steatite relief fragment remains enigmatical. It may well be
some kind of sacred post or 'Ashera' - perhaps the sacral object which recurs
with religious subjects on several Mycenaean gems 6 - an upright post impaling a triangle. The attitude of the man
apparently engaged in sprinkling grain in front of the altar seems capable of a
very probable explanation. When we recall the fact that the altar, with the
same horn-like appendages, that surmounts the small gold shrines from the
shaft-graves at
1 Schliemann, Mycenae, pp. 191, 192, Figs. 290, 291.
These form part of a cruciform ornament. Schliemann did not notice that they
were fig-leaves, but their outline is quite naturalistically drawn.
2 Paus. i. 37.
3 Athenaeus, iii. 14: )4`<LF@H GL6\J0H [Dionysos
Sykitaes]. Cf. Bötticher, Baumkultus,
p. 437.
4 See
Bötticher, op. cit. p. 440.
5 See below, p. 30 seqq.
6 See below, p. 56,
Fig. 31.
105] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 7
§3. - The Dove, Cult of Primitive
It must not be forgotten that birds of various
kinds play an important part in this early cult of sacred trees and pillars.
Among primitive races at the present day the spiritual being constantly
descends on the tree or stone in the form of a bird, or passes from either of
them to the votary himself in the same bird form, as the agent of his
inspiration.
It is certain that much misconception as to the
part played by sacred birds in ancient religion has been produced by the
thoroughly unscientific habit of looking for the origin of the associated
phenomena through the vista of later highly specialised cults, instead of from
the standpoint of primitive ideas. Especially has this been the case with the
sacred doves of
§4. - The Association of Sacred Tree and
Pillar.
In succeeding sections attention will be called
to a whole series of Mycenaean cult scenes in which the sacred tree is
associated with the sacred pillar. This dual cult is indeed so widespread that
it may be said to mark a definite early stage of religious evolution. In
treating here of this primitive religious type the cult of trees and pillars,
or rude stones, has been regarded as an identical form of worship. 5 The group
1 Anthropologie, vi. pp. 562, 563.
2 Od. xii. 62, 63.
3 Paul Diac. De Gestis Langobardorum, v. 34.
4
Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, die Bibel und
Homer, p. 283, Figs. 181, 182, 186. Tombs of the early class in which these
vases occur go back, if we may judge from the discovery in one of them of a
cylinder of Sargon (3800 B.C.), as early as the fourth millennium before our
era.
5 For the ideas
underlying this widespread primitive cult I need only refer to Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. p. 160 seqq. and p. 215 seqq. The spirit is generally forced to enter the stone or pillar
by charms and incantations, and sometimes also passes into the body of the
priest or worshipper. The 'possession' itself of the material object is only in
its nature temporary. 'When the spirit departs the "idol" remains
only a sacred object. When a deity is thus brought down into a tree it blends
with the tree life.'
8 ARTHUR J. EVANS [106
is indeed inseparable, and a special feature of
the Mycenaean cult scenes with which we have to deal is the constant
combination of the sacred tree with pillar or dolmen. The same religious idea -
the possession of the material object by the numen of the divinity - is common to both. The two forms, moreover,
shade off into one another; the living tree, as will be seen, can be converted
into a column or a tree-pillar, retaining the sanctity of the original. No
doubt, as compared with the pillar-form, the living tree was in some way a more
realistic impersonation of the godhead, as a depositary of the divine life
manifested by its fruits and foliage. In the whispering of its leaves and the
melancholy soughing of the breeze was heard, as at
In
§5. - The 'Labyrinth' and the Pillar
Shrines of the God of the Double Axe.
It will be shown in the course of this study
that the cult objects of Mycenaean times almost exclusively consisted of sacred
stones, pillars, and trees. It appears, however, that certain symbolic objects,
like the double axe, also at times stood as the visible impersonation of the
divinity. A valuable illustration of this aspect of primitive cult, which has
hitherto escaped attention, is supplied by the subject of a painted Mycenaean
vase (Fig. 3), now in the
1 See my paper on
'The Rollright Stones and their Folklore,' p. 20, Folk-lore Journal, 1895.
2 It is worth noting
in this connexion the appearance of a Zeus Labranios in
107] MYCENAEAH TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 9
apparently set in the ground between pairs of
bulls, which also have double axes between their horns. But this representation
contains a still more interesting feature. At the foot of the handle of axe,
namely, appears in each case that distinctive piece of Mycenaean ritual
furniture elsewhere described as 'the horns of consecration.' It occupies the
same position in relation to the double axe as in other cases it does to the
pillar or tree forms of the divinity. We have here therefore an indication that
the double axe itself was an object of worship, and represented the material
form or indwelling-place of the divinity, in the same way as his aniconic image
of stone or wood. It is a form of worship very similar to that described by
Ammianus as still existing in his days among the Alans of the
Fig. 3. - Double Axe with
'Horns of Consecration' between Bulls' Heads with similar Axes, Mycenaean Vase,
Old Salamis.
The idea of the double axe as the actual
material shape of the divinity, the object into which his spiritual essence
might enter as it did into his sacred pillar or tree, throws a new light on the
scene represented on the large gold signet from the Akropolis treasure at
1 Amm. Marc. xxxi.
2, 21. 'Nec
templum apud eos visitur aut delubrum.... sed gladius barbarico ritu humi
figitur nudus eumque at Martem regionum quas circumcircant praesulem
verecundius colunt.' Prof. Ernest Gardner also calls my attention to a passage of the Schol.
A on Iliad A 264;
(5"4<,×H) BZ>"H •6`<J4@< ¦< J” :,F"4JVJå JH •(@DH 2,Î< J@ØJ@ BD@FXJ">,< •D42:,Ã<. [(Kaiveus) paexas
akontion en ta
mesaitato taes agoras theon touto prosetaxen arithmein].
2 Perrot et Chipiez,
L'Art dans l'Antiquité, t. iv.
p. 642 and p. 647, Fig. 320.
10 ARTHUR J. EVANS [108
something more than a mere symbol. It stands in
a natural relation to the small figure of the warrior God to the left, and
probably represents one of the cult forms under which he was worshipped. The
small, apparently descending, image of the God himself may be compared with a
similar armed figure on a ring from
Fig 4. - Gold Signet from
Akropolis Treasure,
With the evidence of this primitive cult of the
weapon itself before our eyes it seems natural to interpret names of Carian
sanctuaries like Labranda in the most literal sense as the place of the sacred labrys, which was the
1 Head, Historia Numorum, pp. 476, 477.
109] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 11
Lydian (or Carian) name for the Greek BX8,6LH [pelekys], or doubled-edged axe. 1 On Carian coins indeed of quite late
date the labrys, set up on its long
pillar-like handle, with two dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a
cult image. 2 The name itself
reappears in variant forms, and notably connects itself with Labranda near
Mylasa, which was a principal scene of the worship of the Carian Zeus. A
traditional connexion between the Carian and old Cretan worship is found in the
name Labrandos applied to one of the Curetes who was said to have migrated to
the neighbourhood of Tralles, 3 and
whose associate, moreover, Panamôros preserves another form of the name
of the Carian divinity. 4
The appearance of the divine double axe on the
vase between the two bulls finds a close parallel in the Mycenaean lentoid gem
from the Heraeum, 5 on which a
double axe is seen immediately above a bull's head. The connexion of the God of
the Double Axe with the animal is well brought out on the Anatolian side by the
figure of Jupiter Dolichenus, a Commagenian variant of the Carian god, who
stands, after the old Hittite manner, on the back of the bull. Once more we are
taken back to
1 Plutarch, Quaest. Graec. 45.
2 See especially the
reverse of a coin of Aphrodisias, struck under Augustus, B. M. Cat.
3 Et. Magn. s.v. +Ü*T<@H [Eudonos]. Cf. Roscher's Lexikon, Art. 'Kureten,' p. 1599.
4 A"<:"D@H [Panamaros] is the
more usual form. See Kretschmer, Einleitung
in d. Gesch. d. griech. Sprache, p. 303, n. 2.
5 Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 362, Fig. 541;
Furtwängler, Antike Gemmen, PI.
II. 42.
6 Jahrbuch
d. K. D. Inst. vii. (1892), p. 191. He derives 7"$bD4<2@H [Labyrinthos] from 7"$Db24@H [Labrynthios] (-,ØH) [(Zeus)], a possible adjectival
form of 7V$DLH [Labrys]. A
similar but somewhat variant
view is put forth by Kretschmer [Einleitung,
p. 404), to whom it had occurred independently. He makes 7"$bD4<2@H [Labyrinthos] a
Cretan corruption of the Carian 7"$D"L<*@H [Labraundos], or
its alternative form 7"$D"LL<*@H [Labrauundos]. Dr.
W. Spiegelberg, indeed, has lately (Orientalistische
Litteratur-Zeitung, Dec. 1900, pp. 447-449), revived the view, suggested by
Jablonsky, that the name 7"$bD4<2@H [Labyrinthos] took
its origin from the Egyptian building known to the Greeks by that name, the
Mortuary Temple, namely of Amenemhat III, whose more lasting monument is the
Fayum Province. The official form of Amenemhat's name N-m;'t-Re' was Grecised into 7"$"D\H [Labaris] and
Spiegelberg would derive 7"$bD4<2@H [Labyrinthos] from
this + the -4<2@H ending of place-names,
as 5`D-4<2@H [Kor-inthos]. But
the obvious objection to this is that this termination, which in related forms
can be traced through a large Anatolian region as well as
7 Max Mayer and
Kretschmer (locc. citt.) derive the
names of the places 7"$D"<*" [Labranda] and 7"$bD4<2@H [Labyrinthos] from
the names of the God, and thus indirectly
from the 8V$DLH [labrys]. But the numerous
terminations of local Carian names in -nda -ndos, on the one side, and of
prae-Hellenic sites in
12 ARTHUR J. EVANS [110
Fig. 5. - Pillar of the
Double Axes in Palace,
$$$ In the great prehistoric Palace at present
partially excavated by me at
111] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 13
building are two small contiguous chambers, in
the middle of each of which rises a square column, formed of a series of
blocks, on every side of each of which in one case and on three sides of the
other is engraved a double axe (Fig. 5). There can, I venture to think, be
little doubt that these chambers are shrines, probably belonging to the oldest
part of the building, and the pillars thus marked with the sign of the God are
in fact his aniconic images. The double axe is thus combined with the sacred
pillar.
This view is corroborated by the occurrence in
a Mycenaean building excavated by Mr. Hogarth on the opposite hill of Gypsades 1 of a small room with a pillar of the
same construction, on either side of which were more or less symmetrically
arranged rows of clay cups turned upside down, such as are otherwise so
abundantly associated with the votive deposits of the Cretan Cave sanctuaries.
In this case the blocks forming the central pillar are not incised with the
double axe symbol; but if the addition of any special religious attribute is
now wanting, it may originally have been supplied by means of the painted
coating of plaster so generally employed in Mycenaean Knossos.
These Cretan pillar shrines find an interesting
parallel in two contiguous chambers excavated by the
A useful commentary on these more or less
domestic pillar shrines of the Mycenaeans is supplied by a vase fragment from a
tomb at Enkomi (Old
The recent exploration of the inner sanctuary
of the
1 See Annual of the
2 Annual of the
3 A. S. Murray, etc.
Excavations in Cyprus, p. 73, Fig.
127.
14 ARTHUR J. EVANS [112
that in this case the natural columns of this Cavern
shrine were regarded as the baetylic forms of the divinity, just as the Cave
itself is here his temple. It may be observed, moreover, in this connexion that
some of the shorter stalagmitic formations of this 'Holy of Holies' are perfect
representations of the omphalos type, and perhaps supply the true explanation
of the origin of this form of sacred stone.
It will be shown in the succeeding section that
the inscribed libation table found in the upper sanctuary of the same Cave is
in a similar way associated with a baetylic form of the God as an artificial
column or cone.
§6. - The $"\JL8@H [baitylos] and Baetylic Talks of
Offering.
Fig. 6. - Pillar Shrines and
Votaries on Vase Fragment from Old
There will be repeated occasion for observing
the close correspondence of the Mycenaean and Semitic cult of sacred pillars.
The best known instance of the kind is the pillow set up by Jacob, which was
literally
1 Lenormant, Art.
'Baetylia' in Daremberg and Saglio, Dict.
des Antiquités, i. 642 seqq.;
Baudissin, Studien zur Semitischen
Religion, ii. 232 seqq.; Dr. H.
Lewy, Die Semitischen Fremdwörter im
Griechischen, pp. 255, 256, who prefers the derivation 'bet 'eloah.' The word was derived by the ancient grammarians from
the Cretan $"\J0 [baitae] = goat or
goat-skin, in
113] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 15
Cretan legend, was swallowed by Kronos under
the belief that it was his son. But this stone, as Lenormant has well pointed
out, is in fact nothing else than the material form of the Cretan Zeus himself.
The name was equally applied to the black cone representing the Sun God at
Baalbec. 1
In the stalactite pillars of the inner
sanctuary of the great
In the great upper hall of the Cave, near the
small temenos more recently explored by the late Director of the British
School, was found the fragment of a steatite table with cup-like receptacles
for libations, and bearing upon it part of a prehistoric inscription, described
by me in a previous publication. 2
The evidence of a triple libation was there compared with the old Arcadian
rite, the offering to the Dead before the
ADäJ" :,846DZJå, :,JXB,4J" *¥ º*X^ @Ç<å,
IÒ JD\J@< "Þ2' à*"J4.
The special appropriateness was pointed out of such
a rite in the case of the Cave shrine of the infant Zeus, where, according to
the legend, he had been fed by the Nymphs with mingled milk and honey. 4 But there remains another feature of
the Libation Table which brings it into still closer relation with the
primitive baetylic image of the God.
The slab of offering, in this case, with its
triple receptacle, is in fact a part of a table. Its angles on the under side
show projections which fitted on to four legs. But over and above these corner
supports, which for a table of such dimensions would have been amply
sufficient, the under surface of the offertory slab also displays a larger
circular prominence, which shows that it was set over a small central column.
The analysis of the original cult object now becomes clear. The Table of
Offerings itself is only a secondary feature. The slab with the cups for
libation was simply placed over the pillar, - here, perhaps, as shown in the
reconstruction of the whole in Fig. 7, of slightly conical outline, - which in
fact represents the aniconic image of the divinity, the actual baetylos of Zeus.
The corner posts of the libation table were
only added to afford additional security; they give to the whole the appearance
of a small shrine resembling the Mycenaean pillar shrines to be described in
succeeding
special allusion to the stone
substitute of Zeus swallowed by Kronos. This view has been revived by Svoronos,
Zeitschrift für Numismatik,
1888, p. 222, and is preferred by Maximilian Mayer, Art. 'Kronos,' in Roscher's
Lexikon, ii. p. 1,524. But it is not
explained how the word came to be applied (according to the Etymol. M.) to the stone of
1 Etymol. Mag. s.v.
2 'Further
Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script,' J.H.S.
xvii. (1897) p. 350 seqq.
3 Od. x. 519, 520.
4 Cf. Diod. v. 20.
C
16 ARTHUR J. EVANS [114
sections. 1
In a sense, too, the table here has a real analogy with these, the top slab of
such baetylic shrines being used either as a resting place for votive objects
or as the support of a Mycenaean altar. It is to be noted, however, that in
both cases the centre of the whole religious construction is the aniconic image
within. The term 'altar,' which has been so usually applied to these Mycenaean
structures, is quite inadequate, though, as we shall see, these baetylic tables
gave rise in later days, when the aniconic image itself had been superseded, to
a Cretan form of altar, and to certain types of tripod.
Fig. 7. - Baetylic Table of
Offering from the
In the most primitive form of this pillar cult
the offerings are simply placed on the holy stone. 2 In other cases a basket or some temporary receptacle is laid on
top of it, containing the offering. Thus, for example, in a Greco-Roman relief,
3 the shovel-shaped basket of
Bacchus - the Liknos or
1 The analogy
between these and the Diktaean Libation Table as reconstructed has been noted
by Dr. P. Wolters (Jahrbuch d. k. d. Inst.
1900, pp. 147, 148); but the explanation given by him, that both the Diktaean structure
and those represented on the signets are ' altars,' falls, as I venture to
believe, short of the truth. The view again and again put forward in the course
of the present study, is that they are in reality small shrines, the central
columnar support of which is the aniconic image of the divinity. They are only
'altars' in a secondary sense.
2 I have actually
seen egg offerings thus placed on the top of a sacred stone in Finnish Lapland.
The stone itself was so high that for the convenience of the votaries a
primitive form of ladder in the shape of a notched pine trunk was laid against
it.
3 Mon. Inediti, ii. Pl. 37;
Bötticher, Baumkultus, Pl. 56.
115] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 17
Fig. 8. - Baetylic Cones and
Offering Slabs on Hittite Seals.
Vannus - laden with grapes and other fruit, is
placed on the coniform summit of a divine pillar, which, as is so often the
case, is associated with a holy tree and sacral arch. It is interesting to note
that the most typical form of the Hittite altars represents the superposition
of a receptacle of the same shape as this offertory basket on what must
certainly be recognised as a baetylic cone (Fig. 8 a). In other cases the same conical base supports a small flat slab
with offerings upon it (Fig. 8 b), and
at times again it is simply surmounted by a rayed disk indicative of the
divinity of the stone (Fig. 8 c). 1 The cup-shaped receptacles of the
Diktaean slab represent, in a more developed form, the cup-like hollows worked
for the reception of offerings in the capstones of some of our Dolmens, which
themselves served as the shrines of departed human spirits.
Fig. 9. - Small Baetylic
Altar from
A very interesting parallel to the baetylic
libation table of the
1 Figs. 8 a,
and 8 b,
2 Now in the
C 2
18 ARTHUR J. EVANS [116
on one side, and in this respect resembling the
basket or Vannus placed on the sacred pillar already described.
It is possible that the cult object from the
Cyrenaica is of considerably later date than that from the
Two interesting pieces of evidence seem to show
that this baetylic table formed a special feature in the indigenous Cretan
cult, and even survived to Roman times. On a Mycenaean lentoid gem found in
Crete, and presenting in a variant form the Lions' Gate type, 1 the sacred object on which the
forefeet of the animals rest is neither the columnar image nor the usual
Mycenaean altar with incurving sides, but an object consisting of a short
central column, with a slab above it, further supported by side legs (Fig. 10).
Here once more we recognise the essential features of the offertory table
placed above the sacred pillar.
Fig. 10. - Baetylic Table
used as a Base for Sacral Lions on Cretan Gem.
Fig. 11. - Baetylic Altar on
Coin of Cretan Community.
In a much later shape, and with the original idea
of the pillar idol merged in the sanctity of the whole block as a vehicle of
offering, we find the same religious element surviving in a form of altar which
occurs on certain coins of the Cretan community 2 as a badge of their common worship. On these coins (Fig. 11),
struck under the Roman dominion, and bearing in an abbreviated form the legend 5?3;?; 5C/IS; [KOINON KRAETON], we still clearly
distinguish the central baetylic column and the offertory slab above, with the
legs at its angles. The table itself is here surmounted by a central
akroterion, and lateral excrescences which rej)resent here, as elsewhere, the
tradition of the typical cult object of Mycenaean times, 'the horns of
consecration.'
obtained it when Consul at
Bengazi, but no account exists of the exact place or circumstances of its
discovery.
1 More fully
described below. See p. 63.
2 Svoronos, Numismatique de la Crète ancienne,
Pl. XXXV. 36.
117] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 19
Fig. 12. - Impressed Glass
Plaque from
$$$ Some impressed glass plaques recently found
by Dr. Tsuntas in tombs of the
Fig. 13. - Impressed Glass
Plaque from
Fig. 14. - Impressed Glass
Plaque from
Here the ritual libation is poured into what
appears to be a kind of bowl, 7
resting on a column of the Mycenaean architectural type, decreasing in diameter
towards its base. The bowl has two further supports on either side, answering
to the legs of the offertory slab in the types above described. It
1 Thanks to the
kindness of Dr. Tsuntas I am able to reproduce these objects from drawings made
by M. Gilliéron.
2 See below, p. 70 seqq.
3 See Fig. 1, p. 3.
4 From a dromos
tomb, with rock-cut square chamber, some distance north of the Acropolis.
5 Found in a
plundered tholos tomb west of the ridge leading from the Acropolis to Charvati.
6 Found in the same
tomb as the preceding.
7 Dr. Tsuntas
interprets this feature in the same manner. It might be also regarded as a
capital of the column, but this would not explain the side supports. It is
obviously a receptacle
20 ARTHUR J. EVANS [118
is possible that in this case there were only
three legs, and that what we see before us is in fact a tripod with a central
stem. This religious type again supplies the prototype of a class of tripods
that survived to later times, where it also assumes an anthropomorphic form.
The interior baetylic pillar indeed could hardly be thus treated, and the
anthropomorphic element was transferred to the outer supports. A well known
example of this kind is supplied by the
§7. - Zeus Kappôtas and the Meteoric
Element in Baetylic Stones.
The sanctity of baetylic stones and pillars is
due to a variety of causes. It may be connected with some particular
manifestation supposed to be of a spiritual nature - to the interpretation of a
sign, or of a dream, as in the case of Jacob's pillar. Artificial pillars may
owe their indwelling spiritual being to the holiness of the spot where they are
set up, to religious symbols like the double axe carved on their surface, or to
some special rite of consecration, of which, in Mycenaean religion, the
two-horned cult object set before them is often the external symbol. Wooden
columns, as we shall see, often take over their sanctity from the sacred tree
out of which they are hewn.
There is also a good deal of evidence to show
that certain natural blocks derived their baetylic qualities from the fact that
they were of meteoric origin. According to Sanchoniathon 3 'Baetylos' is 'the son of Ouranos,' in other words sky-fallen.
The phenomena associated with aerolites seem indeed to a certain extent to have
attached themselves to the whole class of sacred stones. The early cults of the
Greek world supply a good illustration of this class of ideas in the 'rude
stone,' or •D(ÎH 8\2@H [
1 See Prof. P.
Gardner, J.H.S. xvi. (1896) Pl. XII.
and p. 275 seqq., where various
classical parallels to this type of tripod are given.
2 Herodotus (ix. 81)
speaks of the tripod as standing over the three-headed serpent.
3 P. 30, Ed. Orelli.
4 See Sam Wide, Lakonische Culte, p. 21. 'Zeus Kappotas
is der vom Himmel gefallene •D(ÎH 8\2@H 6"BBfJ"H [
5 Pliny, H.N. xxxvii. 9. Sotacus et alia duo genera fecit
cerauniae, nigrae rubentisque, ac similes eas esse securibus; iis quae nigrae
sunt et rotundae urbes expugnari et classes asque betulos vocari: quae vero
longae sunt ceraunias.' Betuli
are $"\JL8@4[batyloi]. On stone
axes or celts regarded as thunderbolts, cf. J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements (2nd ed.), p. 62 seqq.
6 )4ÎH 6,D"L<@ [Dios kerauno],
119] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 21
Zeus himself could be personified as such a
stone. The rude stone images of the Charites at Orchomenos were sky-fallen; and
a kindred form of the belief is found in the case of the still half aniconic
image of 'the Diana of the Ephesians,' 'that fell down from Jupiter.' It is
certain that the religious effect of the descent of a meteorite must have been
very great in primitive societies, 1
and may indeed be regarded as the actual origin of certain local cults. But the
idea of rude stones as the indwelling place of divinities or spirits was far
too universal to be traced to this single source. The meteoric element must
rather be regarded as a contributory influence, whence certain features in the
beliefs regarding baetylic stones were derived. The idea of their flying
through the air or falling from heaven, and their supposed power of burning
with inner fire and shining in the night-time, were probably suggested by the
phenomena associated with meteoric stones.
§8. - Sepulchral Stelae as Baetylic
Habitations of Departed Spirits.
The stage in aniconic worship in which the
pillar is of a purely artificial kind and the stone is, as it were, offered to
a spiritual being as a place of habitation, marks an advance on the more
primitive idea of a holy stone as one that has in some way manifested itself as
being in spiritual possession. Yet the rites by which the medicine men of primitive
races the world over are able to shut up Gods or Spirits in a material object,
show how easily the idea of attracting or compelling such spiritual occupation
must have arisen. A proof of this is found in the ideas attaching to the rude
stone monuments placed over graves. These have not merely a memorial
significance, but are actually a place of indwelling for the ghosts of the
occupant of the tomb or his followers and slaves. It is before the dead in his
stony form that due offerings of food and drink are placed; and when the
monument takes a human shape, such as in a grosser form is assumed by the
Kammennaye Babe that rise above the Kurgans of the Russian Steppes, or in a
more artistic guise is seen in the funereal reliefs of Sjiarta, the deceased himself
is often represented holding in his hands the cup for libations. The stelae of
the graves at
§9. - The Tomb of Zeus.
The two conceptions of the pillar image of
divinity and of the tombstone as the dwelling place of a departed spirit meet
in the idea of a mortal God.
1 See Prof. H. A.
Miers, 'The Fall of Meteorites in Ancient and Modern Times,' Science Progress, vol. vii. 1898.
22 ARTHUR J. EVANS [120
In some respects later traditions of this class
may be due to the mere attempt to explain the presence of an aniconic image of
divinity in days when anthropomorphic forms had triumphed. But the very ancient
religious elements with which traditions of this class are often bound up point
to a time when the God himself could be regarded as having run an earthly
course, and passed like an ordinary mortal through the gates of death.
We are tempted to believe that some of the
small cellular shrines, illustrated by the signet lings of the Mycenaeans, were
themselves derived from analogous forms of a primitive sepulchral architecture
such as we find in the megalithic dolmen chamber of Mycenae itself, and the
analogous structure belonging to the prae-Mycenaean or 'Amorgian' period of
Aegean culture lately excavated at Chalandrianê in Syra. 1
The survival of such sepulchral traditions in
connexion with divinities is very widespread on Greek, Syrian and Anatolian
ground. The tomb of Adonis was placed within the temple-court of
This solar aspect of Dionysos gives a special
value to the fact that at
At Amyklae, where, as we now know from
Tsuntas's excavations, the local cult goes back to Mycenaean antiquity, 8 the colossal image of Apollo, which
even in classical times had only partially lost its original aniconic form,
stood on its altar seat above the grave of his favourite Hyakinthos. But
Hyakinthos himself simply represents the local God of Amyklae in a reduplicated
form, and the Laconian colonists, who transferred his tomb and cult to
Tarentine soil, regarded Apollo and Hyakinthos as one and the same divinity. 9 In the days when the cult images of
the Gods had taken human forms the aniconic idol ceased to be generally
intelligible to the worshippers, and its occasional survival side by side with
the anthropomorphic impersonation of the divinity led to a revival of the
sepulchral tradition in another form. The sacred cone was supposed to mark the
burial place of some
1 Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1899, Pl. VII.
2 Clem. Rom. Recogn.
1. 24; Enmann, Kypros und der Ursprung
des Aphroditekultus, p. 34.
3 Clem. Alex. Protr. p. 40; see Enmann, op. cit. p. 33 and p. 27 seqq.
4 Tatian, adv. Graec. 8, 25. {? *¥ Ï:N"8ÎH J•N@H ¦FJÂ )4@<bF@L.
5 Philoch. fr. 22 in
Malala, §FJ4< Æ*,Ã< J< J"N¬< "ÛJ@Ø ¦< ),8N@ÃH B"D JÎ< !B`88T<" JÎ< PDLF@Ø<. $`2D@< *X J4 ,É<"4 ßB@<,ÃJ"4 º F@D`H, ¦< ø (DVN,J"4q W<2V*, 6,ÃJ"4 2"<ã< )4`<LF@H Ò ¦6 G,:X80H.
6 Paus. ii. 23, 7.
7 Plutarch, Theseus, 20.
8 W6 J@L U:L68"\@L. [WN0:. UDP"4@8. 1892, p. 1 seqq.]
9 Cf. Polybios, 1.
viii. c. 30, 2.
121] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 23
associated hero or mythical being, in reality
simply representing a dual type of the God himself.
But the conception of the mortal God and the
cult of his sepulchral monument is most familiar in the abiding traditions of
the Cretan Zeus. The 'tomb of Zeus' was shown in
ƒS*, 2"<ã< 6,ÃJ"4 -< Ô< )\" 6468ZF6@LF4<. 4
Lucian speaks of a tomb and stele 5 and the continued veneration of the
monument is attested by Christian writers down to Julius Firmicus, 6 who wrote in the first half of the
fourth century. After this there is a break in the written records till the eleventh
century, when Michael Psellos speaks of the legend as still living, and relates
that the Cretans show a cairn or heap of stones above the grave of Zeus. 7 This might be taken to show that the
older monument was then a heap of ruins. It is certain that later Cretan
tradition has persistently connected the tomb of Zeus with
1 Hymn i.: -
5DJ,H •, R,ØFJ"4, 6" (D JVN@<, ì –<", F,Ã@
5DJ,H ¦B,6JZ<"<J@q F× *' @Û 2V<,H, ¦FFÂ (D •,\.
2 De Falsa
Religione, lib. i. c. 11. 'Sepulchrum eius (sc. Jovis) est in oppido Gnoso....
inque sepulchro inscriptum antiquis literis Graecis Ò -,×H J@Ø 5D`<@L.'
3 Schol. in
Callimachum. Hymn. i. According to
this version the original description was 9\<T@H J@Ø )4ÎH JVN@H - then the name of
Minôs was omitted. This version may, of course, be set down to Euhemerism,
but it seems to record a true religious process by which the cult of
Minôs passed into that of Zeus. That this explanation should have
obtained currency is another indication that a tomb of Zeus was shown at or
near
4 Porphyr. v. Pyth. §17. Cf. Chrysostom in Ep. Pauli ad Tit. 3. Hoeck, Creta, iii. p. 36. The passages relating
to the tomb of Zeus are collected in Meursius, Creta, p. 80.
5 Jupit. Tragoed.
45: J"N@< J4< ¦6,Ã24 *,\6<LF2"4 6"Â FJZ80< ¦N,FJV<"4. Cf., too, De Sacrificiis, 13.
6 De Errore Profanarum Religionum, c. vii.
6. A vanis Creteimhus adhuc
mortai Jovis tumulus adoratur.
7 U<"(T(¬ ,ÆH JÎ< IV<J"8@<, cited by
Meursius, Creta: ¦BÂ Jð JVNå *,46b@LF4 6@8T<`<. Buondelmonti and other
later writers refer to the tomb as above a cavern.
8 Dr. Joseph
Hazzidakis, the President of the Cretan Syllogos at Candia, and now Ephor of
Antiquities, informs me that the remains on the top of
24 ARTHUR J. EVANS [122
large roughly oblong blocks, 1 and within this enclosure, especially
towards the summit, the ground is strewn with pottery dating from Mycenaean to Roman
times, and including a large number of small cups of pale clay exactly
resembling those which occur in votive deposits of Mycenaean date in the caves
of Dikta and of Ida, also intimately connected with the cult of the Cretan
Zeus. No remains of buildings are visible in this inner area, which tends to
show that the primitive enclosure was the temenos of a sanctuary, rather than a
walled city. On the uppermost platform of rock, however, are remains of a
building constructed with large mortarless blocks of which the ground-plan of
part of two small chambers can be roughly traced. A little further on the ridge
is the small
Attention will be called below to the scenes on
two of the signet rings from
§10. - Small Dimensions of the Mycenaean
Shrines.
The shrines of such a baetylic form of worship
as the Mycenaean are naturally small. In some cases we have seen a mere
offertory slab, with its
1 The spot was
visited by Pashley (Travels in Crete,
i. p. 252 seqq.) who gives a sketch
of a part of the outer temenos wall. He also found the spot locally known as
the 'Tomb of Zeus.' The best account of the circuit wall is that given by Dr.
Antonio Taramelli, 'Ricerche Archeologiche Cretesi,' p. 70 seqq. (Mon. Ant. vol. ix.
1899), accompanied by plans and illustrations. I cannot find, however, in
either writer any mention of the remains of the small building on the summit.
2 See Academy, June 20, 1896, p. 513. The
eastern and western ranges of Dikta, the sites respectively of the
3 See below, p. 79,
82.
4 This comparison
has been independently made by Mr. Warde Fowler. The Roman Festivals, p. 350. A similar shield, as Mr. G. F. Hill
points out, is carried by the Juno of Lanuviuni on Roman denarii.
5 Liv. Epit. lxviii.
123] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 25
corner props, placed above the stone. In a
succeeding section attention will be called to the sacred pillar placed beneath
an arch or doorway or beneath the capstone of a kind of dolmen cell. To such
primitive shrines, based on the megalithic chambers of a sepulchral cult,
parallels can be found in various parts of the world. It will be shown, for
instance, in the course of this study that the Indian dolmen cells with the
baetylic stones set up within them, and the ancient megalithic shrines, such as
those of Hagiar Kim and Giganteja in the
But even this, the most elaborate example of a Mycenaean
sanctuary, is of small dimensions, as is shown by the human figures beside it
and the horns within. The religious ideas indeed associated with this aniconic
cult were far removed from those that produced the spacious temples of later
times. The sepulchral chambers, the abode of departed spirits, supplied a much
nearer analogy, and the true germ of their development. Of anthropomorphic
temple images there is as yet no trace, and it was not necessary, as in later
times, to accommodate the God with a palatial dwelling, which was in fact the
glorified megaron of mortal kings. It
is doubtless owing to the small dimensions of the Mycenaean shrines that up to
the date of the recent Cretan discoveries so little trace has been found of
places of worship among the monumental records .of this period. A sacred tree
too, it must be remembered, leaves no mark; its sanctuary is hypaethral, and
the surrounding enclosure often of rustic construction.
§11. - Aniconic Cult Images Supplemented
by Pictorial Representations of Divinities: Transitions to Anthropomorphism.
It has been remarked above that there is as yet
no indication of temple images in human form. It is true that a certain number
of figures appear on the Mycenaean religious designs, which may with great
probability be taken to portray the divine personages themselves, rather than
their worshippers. But it may safely be said that we have here to do with
creations of religious fancy, rather than with the actual objects of cult. The
idols remained aniconic, but the Gods themselves were naturally pictured to the
mind of their worshippers under a more or less human aspect. It is probable
that if more
1 See p. 94 seqq.
26 ARTHUR J. EVANS [124
of the Mycenaean paintings had been preserved,
something like a complete view of this imaginative side of the religion might
have been unfolded to us. Apart from the minor relics, to which we shall
presently turn, the only real indication of a cult scene is supplied by the
painting on the stucco tablet found in a private house at
The coexistence of this more realistic imagery
side by side with the material objects of primitive cult certainly betrays elements
of transition. We discern already foreshadowings of the time, not far distant,
when the mental conception of individual divinities would leave its impress on
the rude stock or stone or more artistically shaped pillar which from time to
time was supposed to become possessed with its spiritual essence. It is true,
as already noticed, that the great mass of the small figurines of bronze and
clay found in votive deposits of Mycenaean age must probably be regarded as
representing the votary himself or his belongings, who were thus placed in the
hands of the divinity. But it is by no means impossible that some exceptions
exist to this rule, due perhaps in the first instance to the influence of
Egyptian or Oriental practice. There is, for
1 WN0:,DÂH UDP"4@8@(46Z [Ephaemeris
Archaiologikae], 1887, Pl. X. 2, and p. 162; Tsimtas ami Manatt, Myc. Age, Pl. XI., p. 299.
2 See below, p. 76.
3 WN0:,DÂH UDP"4@8@(46Z [Ephaemeris
Archaiologikae], 1887, PI X. 1.
4 See below, p. 72.
5 See below, p. 65 seqq.
125] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 27
Fig. 15. - Mycenaean Figurine
of Bronze from
example, a fair presumption in favour of the
view that certain specialised figures such as the bronze statuettes from
1 Both are in the
2 For specimens of
these Syrian bronzes see Parrot, &c., iii. p. 405, No. 277. Helbig, Question Mycénéenne, p. 15
seqq. Fig. 6-9. One is from Antaradus
(Tartûs), another from
3 See W, Max
Müller, Asien und Europa.
28 ARTHUR J. EVANS [126
of his Cave Sanctuary on
So many proofs have lately come to hand of the
advanced character of Mycenaean civilization that it would certainly be rash to
deny the possibility that even in the case of what may be called temple images
proper, the transition from the aniconic to the anthropomorphic shape may not
already have begun. According to the later Greek tradition 2 sculptors before Daedalos carved images without feet hands or
eyes, so that they cannot have been far removed at all events from the simple
pillar form. The great step in artistic advance was said to have been made by
the mythical craftsman whose activity in the service of Minôs seems to
represent a real reminiscence of the brilliant creations of Mycenaean art such
as we see revealed to us in the
Fig. 16. - Mycenaean Figurine
of Silver from Nezero,
It may safely be said that, whatever elements
of transition may have made themselves here and there perceptible, the
prevailing character of the Mycenaean worship was of the older aniconic kind.
§12. - Illustrative Survivals of Tree and
Pillar Cult in Classical
The most obvious and in some respects the most
valuable sources of comparison with the Mycenaean cult of trees and pillars are
the survivals of this ancient religious stage to be found on the soil of
1 D. G. Hogarth, Anmial of the
2 Tzetzes, Chil. i.
537. Themistius, Orationes, 15. p.
316 a. Cf. Farnell, 'Origins and Earliest Development of Greek Sculpture,' Archaeological Review, 1889, p. 169.
127] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 29
into a perfect work of art. 1 Isolated survivals indeed were to be
found, such as the stone that represented the Thespian Eros or the wooden
column of the Theban Dionysos, but for the most part even the most ancient xoana were already half human. The old
baetylic and pillar forms, and the sacred trees that overshadowed them, fall
into the background to make way for the anthropomorphic image of the divinity.
Apollo leans gracefully against the pillar or sits upon the omphalos that were
the earlier material representatives of his godhead. What had been already
pictorially set forth by the engravers of the Mycenaean signets now belongs to
the realities of cult.
Where, as in a few of the most ancient
sanctuaries of
In
1 On the survival of
this aniconic cult in historic
2 For the materials
bearing on this subject I need only refer to the exhaustive work of
Bötticher, Der Baumkultus der
Hellenen.
3 Called 9,<,8"ÄH, Paus. viii, 2,3,
3.
4 See below, p. 72.
5 Paus. viii. 38, 7.
M. Bérard, De l'Origine des Cultes
Arcadiens, p. 73 seqq. has
rightly seen that the pillars here, like those of the Phoenician Melkarth and
other Semitic examples, represent the God. But it is not necessary to accept
his conclusion that this shows Phoenician or Semitic influence.
6 Paus. viii. 48, 6.
30 ARTHUR J. EVANS [128
ancient holy grove of cypresses, 1 and a black poplar rose before the
mouth of the cave sanctuary of Zeus on
Among the indigenous populations of
§13. - The Ficus Buminalis.
There can be little doubt that on Greek soil
many examples of tree and pillar worship that are met with in classical times
may be regarded as local survivals of the Mycenaean cult. The early ethnic
elements, Pelasgian and Achaean, with which they are connected, the
associations with the House of Pelops and the Minyans, all point to an unbroken
tradition. In
1 Diod. v. 66.
2 Furtwängler, Antike Gemmen, Pl. L. 33. The gem is in
my own collection.
129] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT.
a direct relationship. But there is
nevertheless some interesting evidence of a cumulative nature, which shows that
There can be no reasonable doubt that the
ancilia represent the Mycenaean form of shield, which has, as we have seen, a
profound significance in relation to the cult of the Cretan Zeus. But the whole
group of legends that cluster about the Ficus Ruminalis take us back to the
same primitive religious cycle. The Sacred Fig-Tree in fact is in a very
different case from the beech of Fagutalis, the oak of Feretrius, or the cornel
of Quirinus, the cult of which may well have been brought with them by the
Latin immigrants from the north of the
Fig. 17. - Infant and Horned
Sheep from Clay Impression of Gem; Palace,
In the case of the Roman version a further
affinity with this primitive religious cycle seems to be indicated by the fact
that the twins suckled here by the she-wolf beneath the tree were the offspring
of Mars, who here appears in the aspect of a Sun God, 4 his meeting with Rhea Silvia in the cave being accompanied by an
eclipse. Mars here, in fact, is Apollo Lykeios, and, like the Cretan Sun God in
the case of Miletos, sends his chosen animal to suckle his offspring. His
sacred
1 G. Hoeck, Creta, i. 149 and 343.
2 For the coins of
Kydonia see B.M. Cat. 'Crete.' Pl.
VII.; Svoronos, Numismatique de la
Crète Ancienne, Pl. IX. 22-26.
3 Nikandros, in
Antoninus Liberalis, 30.
4 For the great
community between Mars and Apollo, see Furtwängler in Roscher's Lexikon, s.v. 'Apollo,' pp. 444, 445.
D
32 ARTHUR J. EVANS [130
shield, as we have already seen, is a
derivative of the Mycenaean type borne by the warrior Sun God of prehistoric
§14. - Illustrative Value of Semitic
Religious Sources.
In the preceding sections a few illustrative
examples have been given of the survival of the primitive religious phase with
which we are concerned in the Greek and Roman world. Some of these, such as the
worship of the oak of
To understand the full force and inwardness of
the old religion we have still to turn to the conservative East and notably to
the Semitic records. It has ever, indeed, been the essential power of the
conquering faiths that have proceeded from that side, that continuing to hold
to aniconic forms of worship they have never been tempted to sacrifice the awe
and dignity of spiritual conceptions to the human beauty of anthropomorphic
cult.
In comparing some of the characteristics of the
Mycenaean 'tree and pillar worship' with that revealed to us principally from
Semitic sources as having existed on the eastern shores of the
1 It is perhaps also
worth remarking that, whereas in the Ficus
Ruminalis Mars is represented by his sacred bird, the picus or woodpecker (Cf. Mon.
dell' Inst. xi. Tav. 3, 1, the Bolsena Mirror, and the gem in
Bötticher, Baumkultus, &c.
Fig. 37), Kedrênos calls the Cretan Zeus 'AÃ6@H' [Pikos].
2 Mr. Cecil Smith (Class. Rev. 1899, p. 87) has noted, in
relation to the recent discoveries, that the 'niger lapis' of Festus
represented a black baetylic stone, such as that of the 'Great Mother' brought
to Rome from Pessinus. He also aptly compares the lions beside the 'tombstone'
of
131] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 33
of religious evolution might naturally account.
It is possible that direct Semitic influences may here and there have left their
mark, as Egyptian certainly did, on the externals of Mycenaean worship. But in
dealing with the phenomena of this very ancient form of cult, the underlying
race connexion between the prae-Hellenic population of
The knowledge of the parallel cults of these
The undoubted parallelism observable between
the tree and pillar cult of the Mycenaean and that of the Semitic world should
be always regarded from this broad aspect. Even where, as will be shown, it
extends to details it does not necessarily imply a direct borrowing from
Semitic sources. Neither is it necessary to presuppose the existence in the
Aegean world of a 'proto-Semitic' element in very early times. The coincidences
that we find, so far as they are not sufficiently explained by the general
resemblance presented by a parallel stage of religious evolution, maybe
regarded as parallel survivals due to ethnic elements with European affinities
which on the east Mediter-
D 2
34 ARTHUR J. EVANS [132
ranean shores largely underlay the Semitic. 1 We must never overlook the fact that
the most primitive culture that has come to light in large parts of
But in any case it is the early religion of the
Semitic world which affords the most illuminating commentary on what we are
able to reconstruct from remaining records of the Mycenaean tree and pillar
cult. It is from this side that the clearest light is thrown on the true
inwardness of many of the cult scenes exhibited on the signet rings. It is
indeed especially from biblical sources that this form of worship receives its
grandest illustration. The Epiphanies and Visions of the Divine Presence beneath
sacred trees and beside holy stones and pillars are the most familiar means of
Old Testament revelation. It was in triple form beneath the terebinth of Mamre
and in the burning bush, that Jehovah first declared himself to Abraham and
Moses. So too it was beside the stone beneath his father's terebinth at Ophrah
that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon; and Joshua set up his Stone of
Witness 'under the great oak that was by the Sanctuary of the Lord at Shechem.'
Sometimes the tree is a terebinth or oak, sometimes the cypress, sometimes the
tamarisk, sometimes, as in Deborah's case, the palm. Trees and pillars of
Canaanitish Gods were overthrown, but others were planted and set up in honour
of the Lord. 2 It was only 'graven
images' that were condemned by the conservative precepts of the earlier
Israelite cult.
The worship of the sacred stone or pillar known
as Masseba or nosb is very characteristic of Semitic religion. The classical
record of this form of worship is supplied by the biblical account of Jacob's
dream with the stone for a pillow beneath his head. 'And Jacob rose up early in
the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up
for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it.' 3 The pouring oil on the stone was a regular part of the ritual in
the case of this pillar worship, and the name given by him to the spot, Beth-el
- 'the house of God,' - in reality attaches to the sacred stone itself, as
appears from Jacob's subsequent vow, 'this stone which I have set up for a
pillar shall be God's house.' 4 It
was in fact a place of indwelling of the
1 It is the more
necessary to bear in mind the above considerations that
2 Cf.
Bötticher, Baumkultus, p. 520.
3 Genesis, xxviii.
18.
4 Genesis xxviii.
22.
133] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 35
divinity, '
Such 'baetylic' stones among the Semitic
peoples might be either stationary or portable like the twelve stones carried
off by the representatives of the Twelve Tribes from the bed of Jordan which
Joshua afterwards set up at Gilgal. 2
Here we have simply the setting up of rude natural stones, like the stone at
But the later Semitic pillars are very
frequently of hewn stone in the shape of a cone, truncated obelisk or column,
and must therefore be regarded as the artificial equivalent of the rude stone
idols that had preceded them. In some cases they may doubtless have been hewn
from some sacred rock and thus stand to the more primitive class exactly in the
relation in which the sacred pole or stock stands to the tree from which it was
cut. But these later pillars seem in most cases to owe their sanctity to the
spot on which they were set up, or to some special rite of consecration as well
as to their shape or some holy sign carved on them.
The biblical records again and again attest the
cult of the Ashera, 3 either as a living tree or its
substitute the dead post or pole, before which the Canaanite altars were set. 4 The altar, regularly coupled with the
Ashera in the primitive Canaanite
worship, was doubtless often more than a mere table of offerings 5 and was itself in fact a 'bethel,' In
the case of the Ambrosial Stones which stood as the twin representatives of the
Tyrian Melkart we find artificially shaped pillars of the more developed cult
placed beneath the sacred olive tree of the God. 6
The sacred trees of the Semites are often
endued with a singular animistic vitality which takes us back to a very early
religious stage. The tree itself has the power to emit oracular sounds and
voices. It was the sound as of marching given forth by the tops of the mulberry
trees that was to serve as the divine signal to David for his onslaught on the
Philistines. 7 Beneath the palm that
bore her name Deborah the prophetess gave forth her soothsayings and drew the
inspiration of her judgments. 8 The
Arabian hero, Moslim Ben 'Ocba, heard the voice of the gharcad tree appointing
1 See above, p. 14.
2 Joshua, iv. 5-9,
20-23.
3 Wrongly translated
'grove' in the Authorised Version.
4 The opinion that
this was a Canaanite Goddess called Ashera is, as Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, pp. 188, 189)
has pointed out, not tenable. 'Every altar had its Ashera, even such altars as in the popular, pre-prophetic forms of
Hebrew religion were dedicated to Jehovah.' (Cf. Deut. xvi. 21.)
5 See Robertson
Smith, op. cit. pp. 204, 205.
6 The olive tree,
with the two pillars beneath it, is represented on colonial coins of
7 II. Samuel v. 24.
8 Judges iv, 4 seqq.
36 ARTHUR J. EVANS [134
him commander. 1 Holy fires play about the branches of such trees, without
consuming them, as in the case of 'the burning bush,' the terebinth of Mamre
and the sacred olive tree at
'Who can impress the forest; bid the
tree
Unfix his earth-bound root?' 4
suggests no difficulty to primitive
imagination. The saying of Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane, rationalised in
Shakespeare, receives a more literal fulfilment in
We are here no longer on Semitic ground, but
the Caucasian folk-tale is singularly illustrative of the old ideas touching
the spiritual life of sacred trees and groves, and the asylum given by them.
What gives the tree and pillar cult of the
Semitic world and its borderland such a special value as an illustration of the
distant records of the Mycenaean worship is its long continuous survival. While
the aesthetic sense of the Greeks transformed their rude aniconic idols into
graceful human shapes and veiled the realities of tree-worship under elegant allegories
of metamorphosis, the conservative East maintained the old cult in its pristine
severity. The pillar or cone, or mere shapeless block still stood within the
sacred grove as the material representative of the divinity. In the famous
black stone of Mecca Islam itself has adopted it, and the traditions of
prae-Islamic
In the foregoing pages it has simply been my
object to recall some of the characteristic features of the old Semitic cult,
many of them very
1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 133, who
compares 'the old Hebrew fable of trees that speak and act like human beings.'
2 Op. cit. p. 193.
3 Judges ix. 8 seqq.
4 Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1.
5 Svashcheniiya
roshdi i derevja u Kavkazkih narodov. (In Reports
of the Russian Geographical Society, Caucasian Section, t.v. p. 158 seqq.) Khetag is the legendary ancestor
of a peculiar dark-haired tribe among the Ossetes whose badge is the lime tree.
6 See p. 102 seqq.
135] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 37
familiar, in order to bring home something of
the inner spirit of what once equally existed on the Aegean side. But over and
above the more general points of comparison, such as those already indicated,
there are correspondences in the details of the Mycenaean cult which make it
necessary to bear in mind the fact already insisted on, that what has come down
to us on the other side in a Semitised guise may itself be largely due to the
former existence on the more
§15. - The Horns of Consecration.
The piece of ritual furniture already referred
to above, by anticipation, as ' the horns of consecration,' 1 plays a very important part in the
Mycenaean cult. It is a kind of impost or base terminating at the two ends in
two hornlike excrescences. At times these terminations have the appearance of
being actually horns of oxen, but more generally they seem to be a conventional
imitation of what must be regarded as unquestionably the original type This
cult object is evidently of a portable nature. Sometimes it is placed on an
altar. Upon the remarkable fragment of a steatite pyxis from
1 See p. 9.
2 See Fig. 3, p. 5.
3 See Fig. 65, p.
93.
4 See Figs. 56, 58.
5 See Fig. 25, p.
44.
6 See below, p. 56.
38 ARTHUR J. EVANS [136
at the foot of the double axe or labrys, which in this case is less a
symbol than a material impersonation of the divinity. It is equally associated
with sacred pillars. On a Mycenaean gold ring it is placed at the foot of such
a pillar, here seen within a shrine, 1
and it is unquestionably the same ritual object which is outlined beneath the
three pillar idols on the dove-shrines from the third Akropolis grave. 2 Its appearance in a reduplicated form
on the altar which forms the central prominence above has already been noted,
and in addition to this it is also repeated above the entablature of what may
be described as the lateral chapels, the doves here using the outermost horns
as a perch. It thus appears no less than seven times on each of the gold
shrines. In the remarkable fresco painting to be described below of the
façade of a small Mycenaean temple from the
Fig. 18. - Horns of
Consecration on Sanctuary Wall, from Fresco of Palace,
Fig. 19. - Horned Cult Object
of Painted Pottery:
An actual example of a similar article of cult
may with great probability be recognised in a hitherto unexplained relic 3 of painted terracotta (Fig. 19)
1 See below p. 92.
2 See p. 93.
3 Since this
paragraph was written, Dr. P. Wolters has made the same suggestion (Jahrbuch d. k. d. Arch. Inst. 1900, p.
148).
137] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 39
terminating in two horn like projections found
in the
In some cult scenes, as we shall see, only a
single horn is visible, but its presence probably implies the existence of
another. There can be little doubt that in all these cases we have to do with a
more or less conventionalised article of ritual furniture derived from the
actual horns of the sacrificial oxen. The setting of the horns of the
slaughtered animals before the cult image or upon the altar is a very familiar
usage of primitive worship.
These Mycenaean 'horns of consecration' suggest
at once the 'horns of the altar' of Hebrew ritual. These horns were no longer
the actual horns of the victims, being of the same wood as the altar itself, in
this respect standing to the original in the same secondary and symbolic
relation as those of their Mycenaean equivalent. In this case there were four
horns, one at each corner and these were of one piece with the altar. 2 But an absolute parallel with the
Mycenaean usage on the Semitic side is to be found in a representation on the
stele of the God Salm found at Teima in
Fig. 20. - Altar with Horned
Cult Object above, from Stele of God Salm.
A later illustration of a usage analogous to
the placing of the 'horns of consecration' before the baetylic idol is to be
found on a coin struck at Byblos under the Emperor Macrinus (Fig. 21),4 representing the temple of the local
1 F. Halbherr e P.
Orsi, Antichità dell' Antro di
Zeus Ideo, Tav. XIV. 3 and p. 227. Part of the horn of another similar
object was found. Both were presented by Mr. T. A. Triphylli to the Museum of
the Syllogos at
2 Exodus xxvii. 2.
3 Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art,
&c. t. iv. p. 392, Fig. 206, from which the above sketch is taken.
4 The figure in the
text has been specially drawn from a specimen of the coin in the
40 ARTHUR J. EVANS [138
Astarte. In the centre of the court is seen the
aniconic image of the Syrian Goddess in the form of a cone the base of which is
enclosed by what appears to be a square lattice-work fence. The front side of
this screen, which is all that is visible, shows two hornlike projections
rising at each end. As there was probably one at each corner this arrangement
shows a great resemblance to the 'horns of the altar' of biblical usage.
§16. - Trinities and other Groups of Trees
and Pillars.
Fig. 21. - Cone of Astarte in
Horned Enclosure,
A noteworthy feature in the Semitic versions of
the pillar cult is the setting up of more than one aniconic image of the
divinity at the same spot. At an earlier stage this is well illustrated by the
twelve stones of Gilgal; at a later period by the votive stelae of
Donaldson, Architectura Numismatica, No. 20. P. et
C. iii. p. 60, Fig. 19; Pietschmann, Geschichte
der Phönizier, pp. 200, 201.
1 Copied by me in
the Museum at
139] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 41
above the central stele seems to mark the
presence of Tanit, here represented in a triple form. On a votive monument from
Lilybaeum bearing a dedication to Baal Hammon a worshipper stands before an
incense altar accompanied by the symbol of divinity and a caduceus, while above
is abase with three pillars of the usual kind. 1 Here again the trinity of pillars is still the abode of a single
divinity, in this case Baal Hammon. Elsewhere we see two groups of three
pillars and the divine symbols above them, and on a monument from Hadrumetum as
many as nine pillars in a triple group of three occur on a single base. 2
Fig. 22. - Carthaginian
Pillar Shrine on Stele, Nora, Sardinia.
Fig. 23. - Group of Sacred
Pillars on Mycenaean Vase from Haliki.
In the votive niches of the ancient sanctuary
discovered by Doughty at Medain Sâlih in north-western
mann, Geschichte der Phönizier, p. 205) a single broad base, of the
same form as that of Fig. 22, supports two smaller bases, with separate panels,
each bearing a triple group of pillars. Above one panel is the orb and
crescent; above the other the Carthaginian sign of divinity, a development of
the Egyptian Ankh or life symbol.
1 Corpus. Inscrip. Semit. i. 1. No. 138; P.
Berger, Rev. Arch. 3rd s. iii. pp.
209-214; P. et C. iii. p. 308, Fig. 232; cf. Pietschmann, op. cit. p. 206.
2 Pietschmann, op. cit. p. 205.
3 See Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, i. p. 121 and
p. 187; Documents Épigraphiques
recueillis dans le Nord de l'Arabie, pp. 21-23, Pl. XLV. XLVI.; Ph. Berger,
L'Arabie avant Mahomet d'après les
Inscriptions, 1885, p. 19; P. et C. iv. p. 389-391.
42 ARTHUR J. EVANS [140
pillar, bears a Nabataean inscription
proclaiming the rock-shrine to be the Mesgeda (or Mosque) of 'Aouda the great
God of Bostra' who seems elsewhere, like Baal Hammon and Tauit, to be
represented in a dual or triple form.
It thus appears that throughout the Semitic
world a single spiritual being could infuse itself at one and the same time
into several material abodes. Groups of two or three pillars could be the
visible embodiment of a single divinity - a conception which readily lent
itself to such mystic dogmas as that of a triune God or Goddess, applied in the
above instances to Baal and Tanit. It may be observed that the primitive
conceptions underlying the adoration of the Cross have much in common with this
Semitic pillar worship, and the Armenians to this day set up groups of three
crosses, into which the Spirit of the Trinity in Unity is called upon to enter
by a solemn rite of consecration. 1
I venture to believe that a group of divine
pillars, closely analogous to those of the Carthaginian stelae and North
Arabian shrines, maybe recognised in the design on a Mycenaean painted vase
from Haliki near
An analogous Mycenaean example of a group of
sacred pillars is supplied by a recently discovered cylinder from
It is perhaps worth considering whether the
well-known dove shrines of
1 I am informed of
this usage by my friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare. The special consecration in the
case of the Armenian crosses is partly due to the necessity of previously
exorcising the evil spirits inherent in the material substance of the crosses.
2 Furtwängler
und Löschke, Mykenische Vasen,
p. 39, Fig. 23. Few, I imagine, will agree with Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter's view (Kypros die Bibel und Homer, p. 112),
that we have here fantastic representations of wooden poles 'with human heads,'
the middle one wearing a crown.
3 See below, p. 51.
4 I observe that Dr.
Ohnefalsch-Richter (Kypros die Bibel und
Homer, p. 183), though he has not understood the object of the foot of the
columns, has rightly recognised in them Mycenaean Massebas, and compared their triple form with the Semitic groups.
He saw in them 'Drei Chammanim ... die Abgessandten der Androgynen Gottheit
Moloch-Astarte.' It is hardly necessary to observe that this precise
attribution, and indeed the whole supposition, that they are purely and simply
Semitic pillar idols, goes far beyond the evidence at our disposal.
141] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 43
single altar, so that if we have not here a
single divinity in a triple form we have at least to do with Fb<$T:@4 [synbomoi]. The doves certainly
recall the Carthaginian and Libyan shrines of Tanit, whose pillar idol is so
often three times repeated - in that case, however, in a single shrine.
The trimorphic or triune conception of divinity
seems to represent a very early element in Greek religion, of which many
survivals, such as the triple Hekate, may be noted in later times. The most
interesting of these survivals is to be found in the later cult of Minyan
Orchomenos, where, down to Pausanias's time, the images of the Graces, which
were contained in the most ancient sanctuary of the place and received the
greatest veneration, were three natural stones, which were said to have fallen
from heaven. It was only in his own time that this group of primitive baetylic
pillars was supplemented by artistically carved images. 2
Fig. 24. - Worship of Group
of Pillars on Cylinder,
On one of the more recently discovered gold
signets from
A good example of the worship of a trinity of
sacred trees is supplied by a rock crystal lentoid found in the
1 Paus. ix. 38, 1.
2 See below p. 85.
3 L. Mariani,
'Antichità Cretesi' (Mon. Ant. vi. 1895, p. 178, Fig. 12); Furtw.
44 ARTHUR J. EVANS [142
secration.' To the right of the altar is a
rayed symbol, to the left is apparently another altar base, with a conical
excrescence, and behind the votary another tree. From this gem it appears that
the conch-shell trumpet performed a ritual function in summoning the divinity.
It may be observed that triton shells have been found in the Mycenaean beehive
tombs in Crete, and are still in common use in the island, especially among the
village guards (PTD@Nb8"6,H [chopophylakes]), as a means of
raising an alarm or calling for help.
A triple group of trees, with their trunks
closely drawn together, and having indeed the appearance of a single tree with
a tripartite trunk, is presented by the gold signet ring from
Fig. 25. - Worship of Group
of Trees Crystal Lentoid,
The equation of sacred tree and pillar makes it
equally natural for the divinity to find a multiple impersonation in the
arboreal as the stony shape. Of this too parallels are abundant on Semitic
ground. The divinity may have a grove or group of trees as a place for
indwelling, as well as a single tree. On a Babylonian cylinder, 3 a pair of trees rises behind a God
apparently defined as Sin by a crescent symbol. The fact that when Jehovah
first revealed Himself to Abraham beneath 'the terebinths of Mamre,' He took
the form of three persons, seems to point to the conclusion that there was here
a special group of three holy trees.
In Egyptian cult, which in some of its most
ancient elements shows a deep affinity with that of the Semitic world, we find
evidences of groups of trees representing a single divinity. The god Min, whose
worship, as is shown by the remains of his Koptos sanctuary, goes back into
pre-historic times, is seen with two, 4
three, 5 or five 6 cypresses, representing his arboreal
1 See p. 84.
2 See Fig. 4, p. 10.
3 Lajard, Culte de Mithra, xxvii. 6; Culte du Cyprès, ix. 3.
4 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians
(1878 ed.), iii. p. 24, Fig. 504.
5 On a stele
excavated by Prof. Petrie at Koptos, now in the
6 Wilkinson, op. cit. i. p. 404, Fig. 173, iii. PI.
LX. E.; Rosellini, Monumenti dell' Egitto,
iii. LVI. 3, and cf. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros,
&c. Taf. cliii. 1, and p. 461, who compares the votive cypresses of the
Cypriote sanctuaries.
143] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 45
shape placed behind him, either on a small
shrine, on a base resembling a series of doorways (Fig. 26), or on a stand, the
upper part of which has the characteristic moulding of an Egyptian house or
shrine. In one case a king stands in front of the God, offering two miniature
models of the same tree. At times the stand or shrine supporting the group of
trees is carried by priests, like the Ark of the Covenant. 1 It will be seen that an Egyptian stand, similar to that which
supports the tree equivalents of Min, sewed as the prototype of the bases on
which are placed the baetylic pillars of the Carthaginian cult (see Fig. 22).
On the same stelae, and again on the Cypro-Phoenician bowls, 2 it also serves as a pedestal for
figures of the Gods themselves. It is true that Egyptian bases and stands with
this characteristic profile and square moulding were also of more general
usage, 3 but the application of this
form of support, in the one case for the sacred trees, in the other for the
pillar idols, and again for the divinities themselves, is at least a suggestive
coincidence.
Fig 26. - Tree Trinity of
Min.
It is interesting to note that the alternative
appearance of the tree impersonation of the God Min above either a shrine or a
sacral base presents the closest parallels to the Mycenaean types in which the
trees are placed immediately above the altar as in Fig. 25, or behind a sacred
doorway as in Fig. 57. On the other hand the superposition of the Semitic and
Libyan sacred pillars on the Egyptian base shows a perfect analogy with the
placing of the column on the Mycenaean base or altar-block in the Lions' Gate
scheme.
§17. - 'The Pillar of the House.'
Another feature in the Aegean cult of baetylic
pillars which finds a close analogy in the Semitic world is not only the
frequent appearance of such pillars in an architectonic form, but their actual
performance of a structural function A very ancient parallel to such a usage
may also be found in the Hathoric columns of Egyptian temples and, in another
form, in the sacred Dad or Tat pillar with its fourfold capital that was
supposed to support the four quarters of the heavens. In the Lions' Gate at
1 Wilkinson, op. cit. iii. PI. LX. E.
2 On the patera of
Amathus, for instance (P. and C. iii. p. 774, Fig. 547), bases of this type
serve as pedestals for hawk-headed divinities, and for the scarabaeus that they
adore.
3 E.g. as a table (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, i. p. 418,
Fig. 194, 2); as the plinth of a building (op.
cit. i. p. 346, Fig. 114, 1).
46 ARTHUR J. EVANS [144
painting has been preserved in the
Fig. 27. - Sacred Column on
Stele,
Many of the baetylic pillars of Semitic cult
can be shown to have had the same architectonic form or even to have performed
structural functions as supporting the architrave of a building. We are indeed
expressly told of the brazen pillars set up by Solomon at the porch of the
The names of the two columns in the front of
Solomon's temple - 'the Stablisher,' and 'in Him is Strength,' which show that
they were there placed as symbolic forms of Jehovah, 8 would derive additional force if we might believe
1 See below, p. 94 seqq.
2 1 Kings vii. 15 seqq.; cf. Jeremiah li. 21 seqq. The Capitals are described as of
'Lily Work' (1 Kings vii. 19). An elaborate restoration of these columns has
been made by Chipiez (P. and C. t. iv. Pl. VI. and cf. p. 314 seqq.). But the lotus form is better
given by De Vogüé, Le Temple,
Pl. XIV.
3 Menander of Tyre,
cited by Josephus, Antiq. viii. 5. It
is called the temple of 'Zeus.'
4 Copied by me in
the
5 Gazette Archéologique, iv. 1884
Pietschmann, Geschichte der
Phönizier, p. 210. (Votive stone from Hadrumetum.)
6 In the Louvre,
Musée Napoleon III Pietschmann, op.
cit. p. 274.
7 Three in the
Louvre are given in P. et C. iii. p. 116, Figs. 51, 52, 53. Cf. Pietschmann op. cit. p. 277. Four more capitals of
the same kind, from votive stelae in the sanctuary of Aphroditê at
Idalion, are figured by Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros,
die Bibel und Homer, Taf. lviii. lix.
8 Cf. Robertson
Smith, Religion of the Semites, p.
208, n. 1.
145] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 47
that they actually performed a structural
function in supporting the roof beams of the porch. 1 The duality of the columns in this case as in that of the bronze
pillars of Melkart, in the sanctuary at Gades, at least points to the
possibility of their having served a purpose of this kind, and the twin
columnar forms of the divinity on either side of some of the Carthaginian
shrines actually support an entablature, 2
By the 'two pillars of the house' of Dagon, which Samson is said to have
overthrown at
Whether or not the two columns of Solomon's
porch, or those of Melkart's temple actually themselves performed structural
functions, it is certain that these Semitic types of the divine pillar were
based on architectural models. Their columnar shape represents the divinity as
'a pillar of the house.' In the case of the Mycenaean examples of the same
class their origin from wooden columns is clearly indicated by the round ends
of the cross beams above the entablature as shown on the Lions' Gate and
elsewhere. But this leads us to the obvious explanation as to at least one way
in which the actual supporting pillars of a building could be regarded as
having themselves a divine character. It would appear that the indwelling might
of a tutelary God was secured by using in the principal supports of important
buildings the wood of sacred trees. On the Mycenaean signets we shall see the
columnar idol alternating in a similar position between the heraldic guardians,
such as sphinxes and griffins, with the sacred tree. 3 A curious instance is recorded of an unsuccessful attempt to
convert a sacred tree to similar usage for a Christian temple. A wonder-working
cedar, that had been transported from Lebanon to the King's garden at Mtsket,
was cut down by King Miriam, to be used in the construction of the church,
which he there founded. But in spite of all their efforts the workmen were
unable to set up the trunk that was to support the roof. St. Nin then prayed
for the scattering of the evil spirits, and in the night a youth with a fiery
garment was seen to carry back the trunk to the height on which the tree had
stood, and set it on its roots, whereupon it grew together again, and
sweet-scented myrrh oozed forth from it as of old. It was only later that
bishop John seeing the miraculous cures worked by the tree, and the idolatrous
worship offered to it, made a more successful effort at its conversion, and
with the aid of a hundred men brought it down once more and hewed it into a
cross, in which shape it prolonged its wonder-working powers. 4 A conspicuous instance of the
employment of the
1 The free-standing
pillars shown outside the
2 Cf. a Carthaginian
stela from Sulcis in
3 Compare below, p.
57 seqq.
4 'Svashcheniiya
roshdi i derevja u Kavkazkih narodov,' op.
cit. t. v. (Tiflis, 1877-1878).
E
48 ARTHUR J. EVANS [146
trunk of a sacred tree as a 'pillar of the
house ' is afforded by a Byblian legend preserved by Plutarch. 1 The divine tamarisk, whose trunk had
grown about the chest of Osiris, was cut down by the King 'Malkandros,' of
Byblos the husband of 'Queen Astarte,' who had been amazed at its size, and
made the principal support of his roof, 2
- in other words it was 'the pillar of the house' of Melkart. Removed at Isis'
request to enable her to cut out the concealed chest of Osiris, the rest of the
wooden pillar was transferred to the
In all this we see the columnar idol of the
architectonic type taking its rise in the most natural way from the hewn trunk
of a sacred tree made use of as 'a pillar of the house,' with the object of
securing the presence of the divine 'Stablisher' inherent in the material. The
character of the columnar divinity being thus fixed by its structural function
in a wooden building can be taken over into stone or metal work, the
conventional shape as in the case of Christian crosses supplying here the
consecration no longer inherent in the material itself. In this secondary
stage, however, the sanctity of such tutelary columns is generally further
marked as at
§18. - Egyptian Influences, and the Rayed
Pillars of Mycenaean
The extreme antiquity of the anthropomorphic
and here often zoomorphic form of cult image in
1 De Iside et Osiride, c. 15, 16.
2 C. 15, §D,4F:" JH FJX(0H; c. 16, J¬< 6\@<" JH FJX(0H.
3 Robertson-Smith, op. cit. p. 191.
4 See above, p. 45.
147] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 49
$$$ The vegetable columns of
These palmette capitals are not apparently
found in Egyptian art earlier than the eighteenth Dynasty, and they now seem to
supersede the simple lily-like flower of
1 Flinders Petrie, Egyptian Decorative Art, pp. 68, 69.
2 L. Borchardt, Die AEgyptische Pflanzensäule, p.
18 seqq.; Die 'Lilien'säulen. In the Old and Middle Kingdom a simple
'lily' type appears. It is only from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty,
however, that the type appears described by Borchardt as 'the lily with
pendants,' and above as the iris or fleur-de-lys.
E 2
50 ARTHUR J. EVANS [148
influence 1
as to the strength of which the monuments of Tell-el-Amarna afford such remarkable
evidence? The holy character of the iris on Hellenic soil is bound up, as is
well known, with the legends of one of the most ancient indigenous divinities,
Apollo Hyakinthos. 2 It seems,
however, to have escaped notice that of the two kinds of flowers, evidently
bearing a sacred character, offered by an attendant votary to the seated
Goddess on the great signet ring from
Whether or not, however, we are to recognise in
the appearance of the palmette capital on eighteenth Dynasty monuments an
Egyptian adaptation of a Mycenaean religious motive, the essential fact with
which we have to deal is that this fleur-de-lys type now takes its place beside
the sacred lotus.
These palmette, or iris, columns, often provided
with fantastic side sprays, form a common device of the glazed rings and moulds
for such found in the Palace of Tell-el-Amarna. 4 The incurving side sprays, seen on many of these composite
vegetable forms, often recall those that rest on either side of the head-piece
- the house of Horus - on the head of the Goddess Hathor. Closely allied,
moreover, to this symbolic group are actual Hathoric posts or pillars with
uraei curving up on either side of their base. 5
These palmette pillars, and the more fantastic
symbolic attachments into which they merge, have a great interest in their
bearing on a whole series of derivative designs on a class of cylinders to
which the name Cypro-Mycenaean can be appropriately given. These religious
types, which are characteristic of the period of Mycenaean colonisation in
The Cypro-Mycenaean cylinder types unfold a
series of religious scenes in which the central object appears in three
inter-related forms.
It may be described thus: -
(a)
A palmette column;
(b)
A fantastic vegetable pillar with a rayed summit;
(c)
A rayed pillar or obelisk.
1 This is Mr. F. LI.
Griffith's suggestion. He considers that the adoption of the iris type in
eighteenth dynasty times may be due to Mycenaean influence.
2 The literature
regarding the flower ßV64<2@H [huakinthos] has
been summarised by Greve (Roscher's Lexikon,
s. v. 'Hyakinthos.') The conclusion is 'es ist jedenfalls eine Irisart, aber
unbestimmt welche.'
3 Fig. 4, p. 10.
4 Petrie, Tell-el-Amarna, 199 seqq. Similar designs are seen on the moulds for glazed wall
flowers from the same site, Pl. XVIII. 369 seqq.
At times these are crossed with elements taken from the lotus.
5 See below, p. 52.
149] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 51
$$$ Examples of the two former classes are
given on Fig. 28, 4-7, and the dependence of the two first on the contemporary
Egyptian prototypes, illustrated in the same figure (Nos. 1-3), becomes self
evident. The rays of the Cypriote pillar are, in fact, directly suggested by
the radiating leaflets of the palmetto type.
Fig. 28. - Egyptian Palmette
Pillars and the Rayed Pillars of
1-3. Egyptian Pillars. 4-7.
Cypro-Mycenaean Derivatives.
But the radiation itself, though its pictorial
representation was thus facilitated by certain features in the symbolic
Egyptian pillar, has also a distinct religious value. The rays indeed as the
natural concomitant of divinities of light are a very ancient oriental
tradition. Samas the Babylonian Sun-God is habitually represented with rays
issuing from his shoulders and radiate divinities of the same class are not
infrequent in the neighbouring Syrian and Anatolian regions 1 which show a certain analogy with
these Cypro-Mycenaean pillars. The luminous baetylic pillars of Melkart at
In the radiation of the Cypriote pillars we see
an adaptation of the radiating leaflets on the original palmetto to a very
widespread and primitive idea connected with solar pillars and images. The
monsters associated with these columns as guardians and adorants are quite in
keeping with this solar attribution. The griffins, sphinxes and lions that we
see here before the sacred pillar or pillar tree are all taken from the
Egyptian solar cycle. Of the Hathoric sprays attached to some of the more
fantastic columns we have already spoken. In several cases, however, an adapted
version of Hathor herself appears in long robes with a cow's head, and on one
cylinder this figure is followed by a griffin adorant whose head is surmounted
by the head-piece of the Goddess, the house of Horus, between two incurving
sprays. On the important bearing of these designs on the cult of Mycenaean
Cyprus this
1 See especially
Pietschmann, Geschichte der
Phönizier, p. 225, who gives a good example of a rayed divinity with a
pillar-shaped body, from the marble basin found at
2 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians p. 184.
52 ARTHUR J. EVANS [150
is not the place to enlarge. It may be
sufficient to observe that in this period of Cypriote history the "golden
Aphroditê" of the Egyptians seems to play a much more important part
than any form of Astarte or Mylitta.
These Cypriote examples are of special interest
in their bearing on certain religious types and associations from the Aegean
area of the Mycenaean world. The more specialised forms of the rayed,
fantastic, tree pillar are peculiar to
It is reasonable to believe that in the Aegean
area as well as in
Fig. 29. - Hathoric Uraeus
Pillar and Cypro-Mycenaean and Oriental Analogies.
1. Egyptian Uraeus Pillar. 2
aud 3. Cypro-Mycenaeau Comparisons. 4. Dual Uraeus Staff of Istar.
It is further noteworthy that a certain mystic
duality visible in the Hathoric pillars was taken over in a simpler form by
Cypriote religion. The head-piece of Hathor represents the meaning of her name
as the 'House of Horus,' and may therefore be considered as at the same time
implying the internal presence of her divine son. It is sufficient to compare
the annexed figure (Fig. 29, 1) of a Hathoric pillar with an uraeus snake
curving up and confronting it on either side, taken from an Egyptian signet 1 of seventeenth or eighteenth Dynasty
date with the two following designs of the Cypro-Mycenaean class, 2 the latter, to make complete the
comparison, on a flat rectangular bead-seal of the same form as the Egyptian.
In both of these derivative designs we see a double column. In Fig. 29, 2, the
incurving Hathoric sprays become two snakes whose coils on another
Cypro-Mycenaean
1 Found in an
intrusive burial at Kahun, Petrie, Kahun,
Gurob, and Hawara, Pl. X. 79, and p. 32.
2 Fig. 29, 2 is from
a cylinder, Cesnola, Salaminia, Pl.
XII. 7. Fig. 29, 3 op. cit. p. 145,
Fig. 128. Both are from
151] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 53
cylinder are prolonged down the lower member of
the column. In Fig. 29, 3 the pillar becomes quite symmetrical in its duality
with an intervening slab to divide its two portions. Both of these
Cypro-Mycenaean pillars are surmounted by a halo of rays, the original
suggestion of which has been already noted. The radiation in itself connects
them with divinities of light, a guardian griffin indeed sits before the pillar
on the cylinder from which Fig. 29, 2 is taken. In some cases the double pillar
is surmounted by a double halo of rays 1
emphasising the dual aspect of the divinity.
The Egyptian religious element in some of these
Cypriote double columns is clear. But there is sufficient evidence to show that
there was also an oriental class of dual pillars which may have influenced the
cult forms of the island at an even earlier period. There occurs, for instance,
a type consisting of double cones in reversed positions, their apexes separated
by a cross-piece, 2 which is also
found on Babylonian cylinders. Another oriental type of divided pillar must be
regarded as in part at least of Egyptian origin. This is the staff or small
pillar with a globular break in the middle of the stem and two uraeus snakes
curving up on either side which so frequently occurs in the hands of Istar on
late Babylonian cylinders 3 (Fig.
29, 4). The uraei are here a certain indication of borrowing from the Egyptian
side. Their symmetrical grouping recalls the snakes of the Hathoric staff or
pillar already cited and forms a recurring feature in the derivative Cypriote
types. The pillar stem of the Assyrian sacred tree frequently shows the same
central division. But the Assyrian tree itself is in its origin a palmetto
column belonging to the same family as the eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian, and the
earlier Cypro-Mycenaean class.
The pillar image of divinity as will be shown
in connexion with the column in the Lions' Gate scheme has this distinct
advantage over the anthropomorphic type that the same pillar can represent a
divinity either in a male or female aspect, or can become the material resting
place of either member of a divine pair. Still more obvious facilities were
offered by divided columns like the above for the needs of a dual cult. It gave
easy expression to the Semitic religious conception of bi-sexual godhead. So
too in
1 A Cypro-Mycenaean
cylinder in the
2 Dr.
Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, &c.
p. 182, has perhaps rightly recognised this type in the pairs of double
axe-like figures grouped on either side of a serpent on a Cypriote cylinder
(Cesnola, Salaminia, p. 128. Fig.
118). He uses the word 'Chammanini' in connection with these double cones.
3 C. Menant, Glyptique Orientale, i. p. iii. Fig. 99,
p. 165, Fig. 102; Cat. De Clercq. Pl.
XVI. Fig. 160. This class of haematite cylinders is common in
54 ARTHUR J. EVANS [152
To the bi-sexual Hermaphroditos indeed the
pillar form clung down to much later times.
§19. - The Egyptian Element in the Animal
Supporters of Mycenaean Trees and Columns.
Nothing is itself more contrary to the native
genius of Mycenaean art, so free and naturalistic in its home-born impulses,
than the constrained and schematic pose of the animals and mythical monsters
that in this group of designs appear as guardians or supporters of the sacred
trees and columns. But it is precisely because these attendant animals are here
conceived of as performing a religious function that they take this heraldic
and traditional form. It is usual to regard the pairs of opposed animals as due
to oriental influence. It can be shown, indeed, that the reduplicated forms of
mythical monsters are in some cases the natural result of the process of
cylinder engraving as practised in Chaldaea at a very remote period. Certain
types of the same class that appear on Mycenaean gems, such as the bulls with
crossed bodies, the hero holding two lions in reverse positions, or the lions
by themselves similarly grouped must unquestionably be due to Babylonian
prototypes. But it must not be forgotten that in
1 Lepsius, Denkmäler, iv. Taf. 108, 111; cited
by Riegl, Stilfragen, p. 40.
2 B.M. Gem Cat. No. 144.
3 Ib. No. 142. The animals are there
described as wolves; to me they seem clearly oxen, though roughly drawn; Myk.
4 See below Fig. 42.
153] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 55
the Tat pillar between two symmetrically
grouped uraeus snakes, and a scarab 1
with this design was found in one of the group of Mycenaean graves at Ialysos, from
another of which a lentoid gem representing the column between two lions was
brought to light. At Tel-el-Amarna, where Egyptian and Mycenaean culture find
more than one point of contact, scarabs with similar designs of the Tat and
Uraei also occurred.
It is further to be noted that the distribution
of the guardian animals as regards the trees and foliate pillars on the one
hand and the architectural columns and bases on the other seems to follow a
division already perceptible among their Egyptian prototypes. Setting aside the
mythical monsters which to a certain extent at all events seem common to both
groups we find the heraldic grouping of oxen and goats confined to the trees or
tree pillars. The lions alone are associated with the structural columns and
altar bases just as in Egyptian religious art we find them exclusively acting
as supporters of the symbol of the sun on the horizon.
The general conclusion to which we are led is
that the animals symmetrically posed and paired before trees and pillars in
these Mycenaean schemes represent a tradition borrowed from Egyptian sources.
The conventional scheme had certain religious associations and was therefore
adopted for animals performing sacral functions as guardians of holy trees and
baetylic columns. It has been already noted that several of the monstrous forms
represented in the Mycenaean series like the Sphinx, the Kriosphinx, and the
§20. - Sacred Trees and Foliated Pillars
with Heraldically Posed Animals.
The sacred tree, when it occurs on Mycenaean
designs of the heraldic class at present under consideration, is generally more
or less conventionalised in form and often shades off into the foliated pillar.
A somewhat naturalistic example (Fig. 30) may be cited from a lentoid gem found
in a tomb of the Lower Town of Mycenae in 1895. 2 The tree here rises from a kind of base and on either side with
their heads turned towards it are two wild goats or agrimia back to back, who
in each case rest their fore feet on a structure rising in two high steps.
In Fig. 31 from a lentoid gem found at
Palaeokastro on the easternmost point of Crete 3 we see a single wild goat in a similar heraldic attitude before a
tree of conventional type with side sprays and trefoil crest. Behind the agrimi
is a smaller animal with the feet and hindquarters of an ape which seems to be
in the act of springing on it. It suggests the Cynocephalus that appears in the
field of some Babylonian cylinders. To the
1 Myk. Vasen, Taf. E, 2.
2 A banded agate.
3 A striated
chalcedony. I obtained it on the site in 1898.
56 ARTHUR J. EVANS [154
right of this is an object like an impaled
triangle which has probably some religious significance and occurs elsewhere in
sacral subjects. 1 The two-horned
object placed at the foot of the tree pillar will be seen to be the
characteristic concomitant of Mycenaean cult referred to above as 'the horns of
consecration.' Its appearance in this place is of considerable importance as
affording a proof that we have here to deal with a conventional representative
of a sacred tree. It indicates the holy character of the tree before which it
is placed as in other cases its occurrence at the foot of the pillars in
Mycenaean shrines declare them to be the aniconic images of divinity.
Fig. 30. - Sacred Tree and
Wild Goats on Lentoid Gem from
Fig. 31. - Sacred Palm and
Wild Goat, Lentoid, Palaeokastro,
Fig. 32. - Tree Pillar and
Animals like
1 See below, p. 61.
155] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 57
$$$ Had this design been fully carried out it would
have doubtless included a second wild goat as a supporter on the other side of
the tree. From its schematic attitude this belongs to the same class as the
opposed pairs of sacral animals.
Fig. 32 1
presents an example of a tree or tree-pillar with conventional, palm-like
foliage, and a fluted columnar shaft supported by what to judge from their
horns are a pair of
Fig. 33. - Fleur-de-lys
Pillar and Confronted Sphinxes, on Gold Signet Ring,
A good illustration of the fleur-de-lys type of
foliated pillar akin to those of Mycenaean Cyprus and contemporary
1 It was found at
Goulàs in Crete (cf. Goulàs,
the City of
2 Gozzadini, Di alcuni Sepolcri della Necropoli Felsinea,
p. 20; Undset, Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie, B. xv. p. 214. S. Reinach, Anthropologie,
1893, p. 707, and Les Celtes dans les
Vallées du Pô et du Danube, pp. 165, 166, gives a conjectural
restoration (Fig. 93) of the monument as inserted in the tympanum of a gate of
prehistoric Felsina. A comparison of the stone with other sepulchral stelae in
the Museum at
3 Cf. Perrot et
Chipiez, L'Art, &c. vi. Fig. 428,
22; Furtwängler, Ant. Gemmen,
iii. p. 42, Fig. 17.
58 ARTHUR J. EVANS [156
and is undoubtedly a feature taken over from
the hawk of the Egyptian Sun-God Horus. The Sphinx itself belongs, of course,
to the same solar cycle, though in
A very similar type of foliated pillar with two
young bulls or oxen symmetrically attached on either side, occurs on another
gold signet ring from
Fig. 34. - Pillar Tree with
Young Bulls attached: Crystal Signet Ring,
§21. - Architectural Columns with Animal
Supporters: the Lions' Gate Type.
The most conspicuous example of purely
architectural columns with animal supporters is the tympanum relief of the
Lions' Gate at
1 From Tomb 25 of
the
2 In my own collection;
hitherto unpublished.
3 Of agate, from
Tomb 10 of the Lower Town Mycenae. Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1888, Pl. X. 7
and p. 140; Furtwängler, Ant. Gemmen,
iii. 27.
4 M. Salomon
Reinach, however, has shown himself alive to its true significance, and in his
'Mirage Orientale' (Anthropologie,
iv.
157] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 59
Fig. 35. - Tympanum Relief of
Lions' Gate,
have not been recognised as the sacred animals and
companions of a tutelary divinity, but merely as symbolic figures of the
military might of those who held the walls of the citadel, and as a challenge
to their foes. 1 The column itself
and the architrave and beam-ends that it supports have been taken, with the
altars below, to stand for the Palace of the Mycenaean Kings. 2 Some of the earlier writers, indeed,
advanced views on the subject of this relief, which in certain respects very
nearly approximated to the true explanation. Colonel Mure 3 and after him Gerhard, 4 and Curtius, 5 saw in the column between the Lions a 'symbol' of Apollo Agyieus,
and Göttling regarded it as Herm. 6
But such comparisons have been wholly set aside by most later critics.
1893, p. 705 and p. 730) not
only rightly describes the column as an aniconic image, but uses the fact of
the appearance of the Goddess in its place on the monument of Arslan Kaya as an
argument for the later date of the Phrygian relief.
1 Perrot et Chipiez,
Grèce Primitive, p. 800.
2 Brunn, Griechische Kunstgeschichte (1893) pp.
26-28; Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. p.
801.
3 Ueber die königlichen Grabmäler
des heroischen Zeitalters, Rhein. Museum, vi. (1838), p. 256. Col. Mure
thought the lions were wolves, and brought Apollo Lykeios into connexion with
them.
4 Mykenische Alterthümer (10ter
Programm, Berliner Winckelmannsfest, Berlin, 1850) p. 10.
5 Peloponnesos (
6 N. Rhein. Museum, i. (1842) p. 161.
Göttling notes the correspondence between the Mycenaean column growing
smaller towards its base and the Hermae pillars - a pregnant observation.
60 ARTHUR J. EVANS [158
The fact that the column had a capital, and in
this case actually supported a roof, was pronounced by Dr. Adler to be fatal to
the view that any aniconic form of a divinity could be here represented, 'all
such idols having a free ending as a cone, a meta or a phallus.' 1 It has been shown above, however,
that the idea of the divine column as a 'Pillar of the House,' and actually
per- forming a structural function is deeply rooted in this early religion, and
finds parallels both on the Semitic and the Egyptian side. In the succeeding
sections a series of Mycenaean shrines will be described in which the stone
pillar which is the aniconic form of the divinity is represented as actually
contributing to prop up the capstone or lintel. In the Lions' Gate and kindred
types where the column stands for the support of a building, the capital and
impost are in fact required to bring out the full idea of the upholding
spiritual power. The divinity here is the 'pillar of
The Lions' Gate scheme is found, sometimes in
an abbreviated form, on a series of Mycenaean engraved stones and rings, some
examples of which are given below, associated with the same sacred animals. In
other cases we find the pillar, or simply the altar base, guarded by Sphinxes,
Griffins, or Kriosphinxes.
On the ivory plaque from the Tholos tomb, at
Menidi, two Sphinxes stand 3 on
either side of a Mycenaean column. A small figure of ivory from
Fig. 36. - Pillar with
A lentoid gem from
1 Arch. Zeitung, 1865, p. 6, 'Alle solche Idole niemals
in der Form einer mit einem Capitell geschmückten Säule (welche hier
sogar eine Decke trägt) sondern stets frei beendigt als Conus, Meta,
Phallus erscheinen.'
2 Ol. ii. 145, ID@\"H –:"P@< •FJD"$ 6\@<".
3 Lolling, Kuppelgrab von Menidi, p. 20. Perrot et
Chipiez, L'Art, &c., p. 528, Fig.
208.
4 Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1887, Pl. XIII.
B, and p. 171. P. et C. vi. p. 833, Fig. 417, where however it is erroneously
described as 'from the Acropolis of Athens.'
5 Tsuntas, 9L6<"4 [Mykaenai], PI. V.
6; Ts. and Manatt, Myc. Age, p. 254,
Fig. 131. Furtw.
159] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 61
The Griffins, with their heads turned back, are
attached to the upper part of the column like watch dogs by a thong or chain, a
constantly recurring feature in these designs.
Fig. 37. - Double-bodied
Kriosphinx with Four-feet on Base: Lentoid Gem,
Fig. 38. - Double-bodied Lion
with Fore-feet on Base: Lentoid Gem,
Fig. 39. - Lions' Gate Type on
Gold Signet Ring,
A scheme closely allied to the above, in which,
however, the altar-base appears without the column, is supplied by a jasper
lentoid from Tomb 42 of the
1 Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1888, Pl. X. 30,
and p. 178; P. et C. Fig. 428, 17; Furtw.
62 ARTHUR J. EVANS [160
reduplicated form, is, in fact, the Egyptian
Kriosphinx, here, however, fitted with wings according to the Mycenaean practice.
At
Fig. 40. - Lions' Gate Type
on Lentoid Gem, Zêro,
On rings and gems, indeed, the more usual
guardians of the sacred pillar are lions. A gold signet-ring from
A cornelian lentoid from grave 33 of the
1 From tomb 8 of the
lower town of
2 Formerly in the
Tyszkiewicz Collection, at present in my own. Fröhner, Coll. Tyszk., Pl. I. 3.
3 Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 242, Fig. 352.
4 See above p. 11.
5 B. M. Gem Cat. Pl. A. 106; Curtius, Wappengebrauch nnd Wappenstil, p. 111;
Furtw. u. Löschke, Myk. Vas. Pl.
E. 6, pp. 15 and 75; Furtw.
161] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 63
back with their heads turned towards the column
above which arc some traces of the round beam ends of the entablature.
The base on which the two lions rest their
forelegs on the lentoid gem represented in Fig. 41 1 must not be confounded with the usual altar base seen in Figs. 37
and 38 above, the typical feature of which is the incurving sides. It is essentially
columnar, and its true meaning has been shown in an earlier section of this
work. 2 It represents, in fact, one
of the baetylic tables of offering, which seem to be a special characteristic
of this early cult in
Fig. 41. - Confronted Lions
with Fore-feet on Baetylic Base, Lentoid,
Like the tree pillar with its heraldic
supporters, the Lions' Gate scheme with its central architectural column or
altar base shows very distinct analogies to some of the Cypriote types, the
central feature of which is the rayed symbolic column. The parallelism becomes
still closer when we find, in both cases, lions, Griffins and Sphinxes among
the most frequent guardians or supporters of the divine pillar, though in
Mycenaean Cyprus they are also depicted as actually adoring the aniconic image.
It has been shown above that in the case of the Cypriote cylinders the
attendant
1 Furtwängler
u. Löschke, Myk. Vasen, Pl. E,
11; Furtw., Geschnittene Steine (
2 See above p. 18 seqq.
F
64 ARTHUR J. EVANS [162
monsters and, to a certain extent, the symbolic
column itself, are taken from an Egyptian solar cycle, and the inference has
been drawn that the aniconic pillars among the Mycenaeans of Cyprus were
identified with divinities having some points in common with the Sun-Gods Ra,
or Horus, and Hathor, the Great Mother.
Fig. 42a, b. - Lion Supporters
of Egyptian Solar Disk.
The rayed sun which in Fig. 41 appears in the
field above the confronted lions, certainly corroborates the view that in the
Aegean countries the aniconic pillars, which appear in a similar conjunction,
were also connected with solar divinities. The pillar here indeed is, as
already noted, of a purely indigenous shape, and cannot itself, like the
symbolic Cyprian types with their reminiscences of palmette capitals and
Hathoric scrolls, be directly traced to an Egyptian prototype. The Nilotic
connexion has nevertheless left its traces in these Mycenaean types. We recall
the frequent appearance in Egyptian religious art of opposed figures in special
association with the solar symbols and pillars of the sun. Thus we see the
squatting, confronted figures of Ra with his hawk's head and Ma with her
feather crest on either side of the Sun-God's obelisk, and in other cases the
figure of the sun's disk on the horizon is supported by two lions seated back
to back (Fig. 42 a and b). To a certain extent the Lions' Gate
scheme may itself be regarded as a combination of these two types. The column
on the altar is a free indigenous translation of the obelisk rising on its base
which really represents the 'Mastaba' or sepulchral chapel. The back to back
position of the two lions is literally reproduced in Figs, 89 and 40, and
where, as in Figs. 37 and 41, the bodies of the lions are turned towards the
central pillar, their heads are averted as if in deference to the same
religious tradition. The monsters here are not so much simply adorants as on
the Cyprian cylinders, and therefore regarding the sacred pillar, but are
guardians looking out and away from it for possible enemies. On the Lions' Gate
itself they naturally look forward along the avenue of approach.
It must, in fact, be clearly recognised that
the scheme of the pillar and guardian monsters as it appears in Mycenaean art
on the Lions' Gate and in other kindred designs is, like the Griffins and
Sphinxes that often form part of it, essentially of Egyptian derivation, It is
translated into
163] MYCENAEAN TREE ANT) PILLAR CULT. 65
indigenous terms and applies, doubtless, to
indigenous divinities, but it is reasonable to suspect in the latter some
points of resemblance to the divinities of light with which the parallel
religious types seem to have been specially associated in the
§22. - Anthropomorphic Figures of
Divinities substituted for the Dactylic Column in the Lions' Gate Scheme.
Attention has been called above to the
Mycenaean practice, in depicting religious scenes, of supplementing the design
of the sacred tree or pillar that formed the material object of the cult by
placing beside it a figure of the divinity itself as visible to the mind's eye
of the worshippers. The God or Goddess is seen in actual converse beneath the
holy tree, seated beside or even on the shrine, or even at times in the act of
descending beside the altar block, or in front of the pillar image. It has been
remarked above that this pictorial expedient of religious art must be regarded
as symptomatic of a process of transition in the rendering of the aniconic idol
itself, which in the succeeding historic period was gradually moulded into
anthropomorphic form.
Fig. 43. - Male Divinity
Between Lions on Lentoid Gem, Kydonia,
But besides this supplementary representation
of the divinity side by side with its tree or pillar shape there is evidence of
another method of satisfying the realistic cravings of a more advanced
religious stage. This is the actual substitution of the God or Goddess in human
guise in the place of the aniconic image. It is possible, for instance in the
case of the Lions' Gate scheme, to give a series of examples in which a
divinity is introduced
F2
66 ARTHUR J. EVANS [164
between the lion supporters in place of the
column. We have here in fact, pictorially anticipated, a religious grouping
which later, as will be seen from certain types of Apollo, Kybelê and the
Asiatic Artemis, attached itself to the cult images.
These religious schemes in which the divinity
simply replaces the pillar must be distinguished from some other designs, also
exemplified by Mycenaean signets, bearing a certain superficial resemblance to
them, in which a male hero is seen in the act of grappling with a pair of
lions. These have another origin and should more probably be regarded as
adaptations of the familiar Chaldaean type of Gilgames. Sometimes as in the
design on a gold signet ring we see two heroes engaged in the same struggle, 1 a scene also taken from the
Babylonian repertory.
Fig. 44. - Female Divinity
between Lions on Amygdaloid Gem,
But a very different impression is given by the
type on an unpublished Mycenaean gem (Fig. 43), 2 discovered in the immediate neighbourhood of Canea, on or near
the site of the ancient Kydonia. Here we see a male figure, his arms
symmetrically extended, with two lions heraldically opposed on either side. The
stiff upright figure here with the legs together is an almost perfect substitute
for the central column, and the horizontally extended arms directly suggest the
entablature of the Lions' Gate scheme. It is in fact the literal translation of
the pillar image into human shape.
A variant of this design in which the standing
figure grasps the two lion supporters by the necks is seen on a serpentine
lentoid, unfortunately much damaged by fire, which was found in one of the
Greek islands. 3 In this case
1 In the Museum at
Péronne.
2 A white agate
lentoid; in my collection. Found in 1894.
3 In the
165] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 67
the forelegs of the lions rest on two bases, a
feature which brings the scheme into the closest relation with that of the
Lions' Gate.
The central figure also appears in female form.
On a fine agate gem recently found at
Fig. 45. - Seated Goddess
between Lions on Lentoid Ring-Stone (3/1).
It will be noticed that these figures of the
Goddess between her lion supporters supply almost exact parallels, though of a
considerably earlier date, and in a purely Mycenaean style, to a well-known
Phrygian monument which has hitherto afforded the best illustration of the
religions conception underlying the original tympanum relief.
In
1 In my collection.
2 From the
collection of the late Sir Wollaston Franks, to whose kindness was due the cast
from which Fig. 45 was drawn. The ring is now with the rest of his collection
in the
68 ARTHUR J. EVANS [166
the frequent design of the lions on either side
of a column 1 is replaced inside a
sepulchral chamber described by Professor Ramsay at Arslan Kaia by two lions or
lionesses in the usual heraldic attitude on either side of a rude image of
Kybelê. 2 It is, in fact,
little more than the earlier columnar form of the Goddess slightly hewn, 3 and we here see the cult image coming
as it were to life and first putting on a human shape.
A distinction must indeed be observed between
the two cases. The Phrygian image belongs to a much later date and represents
the partial anthropomorphization of the actual cult pillar, a stage of which in
still later, Greco-Roman days the Syrian and Anatolian shrines supply so many
examples. The figures on the Mycenaean gems, on the other hand, must be rather
regarded as the purely pictorial impersonation of the Goddess as seen by the
eye of faith. It may be, as suggested above, that the columnar cult shape had,
to a certain extent, influenced the pictorial representation in the last
mentioned design with the seated Goddess, On the whole, however the figure is
distinctly human, the feet are given as well as the head, the curves of the
seated body and the flounced raiment below. There is nothing here resembling
the very imperfect anthropomorphization of the pillar idol that we find in the
relief of Arslan Kaia. The one is an anthropomorphic figure of the Goddess
slightly affected by the columnar cult image, the other is a pillar image
slightly modified by the anthropomorphic ideal form. With the Mycenaeans, as
clearly pointed out, all the evidence goes to show that the cult-image itself
was still a simple pillar or sacred stone.
The divine figure on these Mycenaean gems is
truly a Lion Goddess, closely analogous, at any rate, to the Mother
Kybelê - Matar Kubile - of the
Phrygian monument. The attitude of the lions indeed in the last example placing
their forepaws upon the seated figure of the Goddess corresponds with that
which at a much later date than the Arslan Kaia monument continued to be
associated with Kybelê and Rhea.
On the cylinder seals of the Cypro-Mycenaean
class there is also evidence of a Lion Goddess. On an example from
1 See W. M. Ramsay, Journ. Hellen. Stud. vol. iii. p. 18 seqq. and Plates XVIII., XIX. One group is
thus described loc. cit. p. 19. 'Over
the door is carved an obelisk. On each side of the obelisk a large lion is
carved in low relief rampant with its fore-paw on the top of the door.' In this
case there was a little cub below each of the lions.
2 Journ. Hellen. Stud. vol. v. (1884), pp.
244, 245.
3 The true import of
this figure was first pointed out by M. Salomon Reinach, 'Mirage Orientale' (Anthropologie, iv. 1893, p. 705). M.
Reinach justly observes 'cette déesse tient la place de la colonne de Mycènes
qui appartient au stage aniconique de
la civilisation grecque: le monument où l'anthropomorphisme se fait jour
est certainement plus récent des deux.'
167] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 69
be taken to represent the same Goddess. In the
case of these Cypriote types we are led from the associated symbols to seek a
celestial divinity who, if on the Hellenic side of her being she approaches
Dionê, has certain attributes in common with the Egyptian Hathor. It is
possible that both in
But, as we have seen, the pillar image between
the lions also takes a male form. Moreover, the lion guardians of Egyptian
religious art, which, as has already been shown, in reality supplied the
starting-point for this very scheme, are bound up with the cult of the male
solar divinities Ra and Horus.
The alternative substitution of a male and
female divinity for the pillar image of the Lions' Gate scheme recalls a
feature in this early aniconic cult to which attention has already been drawn.
It is highly probable that the same pillar could in fact become by turns the
material dwelling-place of either member of a divine pair. At Paphos, for
instance, it could represent either Aphroditê or Aphroditos. The Semitic
religious notions, - which may well have had a much wider extension - according
to which what is practically the same divine being can present either a male or
a female aspect, fitted in admirably with this ancient pillar cult. But in the
case of the Lions' Gate itself and of one of the engraved seal-stones cited
above, there is a feature which strongly confirms the idea that the column in
this case served as the
1 Diodôros, I. iii. c. 57.
2 Pausanias (iii.
22, 4) mentions a temple and image of Mother Goddess at Akriae in Lakonia, said
to be the most ancient shrine of the kind in the Peloponnese, though he adds
that the Magnesians, to the north of Sipylos, claim that on 5@**\<@L BXJD" [Koddinou petra]
to be the oldest of all and the work of Broteas the son of Tantalos. The
special connexion of the cult with the Tantalidae makes its appearance at
70 ARTHUR J. EVANS [168
common baetylic materialisation of a pair of
divinities. The column of the tympanum is supported by two altar bases,
suggestive of a double dedication. Again, on the engraved stone from one of the
Greek islands, described above, each of the lions on either side of the male
figure places his feet on a separate base, which may be taken to show that they
too were the sacred animals of a divine pair. If the lion belonged to
Kybelê and Rhea, it is also the sacred animal of the Sun-God with which,
under variant names and in various relations, these two divinities are coupled.
It is probable that in Mycenaean religion, as in the later Phrygian, the female
aspect of divinity predominated, fitting on as it seems to have done to the
primitive matriarchal system. The male divinity is not so much the consort as
the son or youthful favourite. The relationship is rather that of Rhea than of
Hera to Zeus, of Adonis rather than of Ares to Aphroditê. In this
connexion it is a noteworthy fact that the great majority of the votaries and
adorants in the Mycenaean cult scenes are female figures, and in some cases the
Goddess that they attend or worship is visible in anthropomorphic form. In
other scenes of a similar nature, where apparently divinities of both sexes are
represented, the God is either in the background as on the great Akropolis
ring, 1 or holds a secondary place
as when he approaches a seated Goddess. 2
§23. - The Mycenaean Daemons in similar
Heraldic Schemes.
Fig. 46. - Daemon between
Lions, Lentoid,
An interesting parallel to the substitution of
anthropomorphic figures of divinities for the baetylic column between its
animal supporters is supplied by a gem recently discovered by Dr. Tsuntas in a
tomb of the Lower Town of Mycenae. 3
In this design (Fig. 46) a Mycenaean daemon of the usual type takes the place
of the divinity between two lions whose front legs rest on what appear to be
two altar bases with incurving sides. On the well known lentoid stone said
(probably erroneously) to have been found at Corneto or Orvieto 4 we see the converse of this design,
in which an anthropomorphic figure stands between two ewer holding daemons. On
the glass paste reliefs, of which illus-
1 Fig. 4 above, p.
10.
2 See Fig. 51 below.
3 Thanks to the
kindness of Dr. Tsuntas I am able here to reproduce this interesting and
hitherto unpublished type.
4 Annali dell' Instituto, 1885, Pl. GH.;
Cook, 'Animal Worship,' J.H.S. xiv.
(1894) p. 120; Helbig, Question
Mycénienne, p. 37 (325) Fig. 24; Furtwängler, Ant. Gemmen, iii. p. 37 Fig. 16 and p.
38 note, where the alleged provenience is with reason called in question.
169] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 71
trations are given above, 1 we see this anthropomorphic figure replaced between the same
daemonic attendants, in the one case by a square pillar in the other by a
columnar tripod. We have here an additional example of the alternation of the
divinity and the pillar image.
It is impossible in this place to enter on a
detailed discussion as to the true interpretation of these strange Mycenaean
daemons. It must be sufficient here to give strong expression to the belief
that the explanation first suggested by Dr. Winter, is in the main the true
one, and that they represent a Mycenaean adaptation of an Egyptian hippopotamus
Goddess. 2 The head of the river
horse has been assimilated to that of the lion, and the whole design including
the dorsal mane and appendage has been crossed with the type of the
hippocampus, already familiar in
§24. - A Mycenaean 'Bethshemesh.'
Fig. 47. - Dual Pillar
Worship on Cypro-Mycenaean Cylinder (2/1)
Among the scenes of adoration of pillars, rayed
or otherwise, on Cypro-Mycenaean cylinders, referred to in section 18, we not
unfrequently find two such pillars introduced, indicating the dual cult of two
associated divinities. A good example of this dual cult from
in this case the rays seem clearly to
distinguish the solar member of this
1 P. 19. Figs. 13,
14.
2 Dr. Winter
compares Thueris. As noticed below, her counterpart or double the stellar Ririt
has perhaps a better claim.
3 See Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation (Engl. Ed.), p. 94.
4 Cesnola, Salaminia, Pl. XIII. No. 29. The
material is haematite.
72 ARTHUR J. EVANS [170
divine pair. An interesting parallel to this
dual cult is presented by a gold signet ring, procured by me some years since
from the site of
Fig. 48. - Dual Pillar
Worship on Gold Signet Ring from
The signet ring from the site of
The female figure who stands here raises her
hand in the familiar attitude of adoration before an obelisk-like pillar, in
front of which descends another small figure, the male sex of which is clearly
indicated. This male divinity - for so we may venture to call it - holds forth
what appears to be a spear in an attitude which recalls the small figure that
hovers above the group on the gold ring, already referred to, from the
Akropolis Treasure of
171] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 73
rather than wings. To the significance of this
feature there will be occasion to return.
Behind the tall obelisk, which shows four rings
towards its base, is the gate of a walled enclosure or hypaethral sanctuary,
beneath which is seen a second smaller column, consisting of a shaft with a
central division, and a capital and base. Above the cornice of the walls rise
the branches of a group of sacred trees, with what appear to be triply divided
leaves like those of a fig-tree, and perhaps fruit. The little dots on the
walls of the shrine, arranged in alternating rows, indicate an attempt to
represent isodomic masonry.
Apart from the narrower field of comparisons
into which this interesting design leads us, its broader anthropological
aspects stand clearly revealed. It is a scene of stone or 'baetyl' worship,
also partly associated with the cult of trees. We are here already past that
more primitive stage of the religion so well illustrated, for example, among
the Melanesians, in which any stone or rock that strikes a man's fancy may
become the local habitation of a ghost or spirit. On the Knossian ring we see
stone pillars of an artificial kind, and belonging to a more formalised
worship, though still essentially of the same class. The obelisk, here, is
literally, as in the case of the Beth-el set up by Jacob, ' God's house,' and
the God is seen actually in the act of being brought down by the ritual
incantation of his votary to his earthly tenement of stone.
The obelisk with the God descending before it
is only one of a pair of sacred pillars contained in the same cult scene. It
represents the male form of the aniconic image, and to the character of its
divine attributes we shall have occasion to return. The second and lower
column, standing apparently in the doorway of the hypaethral shrine, possibly,
however, intended to be looked on as set up within its enclosure, may with
great probability be regarded as a female form of divinity, or, at any rate, a
deity in which the female aspect preponderated.
We are struck, in the first place, by the
interesting parallel between the position of the pillar under the gate, and
that of the aniconic image of the Paphian Aphroditê on much later
monuments. Considering the many centuries that had elapsed between the date
when this Mycenaean ring was engraved, and the earliest representations of the
Paphian shrine that have come down to us, some divergence in the outline of the
stone might naturally be expected. The columnar form of the Mycenaean type has
been softened perhaps by the contamination of oriental examples, into a conical
outline. But Cypriote cylinders of Mycenaean date show that in fact a form of
aniconic image was at that time in vogue in the island, absolutely identical
with that on our ring.
The distinguishing features of the pillar
visible in the doorway on the Knossian ring are the broad base and capital, and
a double swelling at the centre, which divides the shaft into two. In this
respect we have before us a close parallel to the double pillars, rayed, or
otherwise, on the Cypro-Mycenaean cylinders described in the preceding section.
74 ARTHUR J. EVANS [172
$$$ A further highly interesting point of
comparison is supplied by the fact that in the Mycenaean seals of
It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that in the
case of the Cypriote examples the female divinity, thus represented in aniconic
form, is to be identified with the Goddess whose cult was in later times
specially connected with Paphos. The various associations in which the stone
pillar and the votaries associated with it appear on the cylinders clearly
betray her true character. The star and crescent, 1 the rays which generally issue from the stone itself, point to
her in her character of a luminary of the heavens, Aphroditê Urania. In
one case the same figure of a lion in the attitude of adoration that is seen on
other cylinders before the rayed pillar 2
stands behind the Goddess herself, who is here seated on a throne in her
character of Fanassa, and holds a dove in her hand. 3 The cult of Aphroditê under the name of Ariadnê was
also known in
On another Cyprian stone - a rectangular bead
or 'tabloid' of steatite 4 - we find
the same conjunction of the double form of the stone pillar (Fig. 49). On one
side is a divided column, in this case rayed above, which evidently corresponds
to the female divinity. On the other side is a more obelisk-like column on a
double pedestal with rays issuing on every side, which shows distinct points of
affinity with the obelisk on the Knossian ring, and here, too, we may infer
that it answers to the male member of a divine pair. On a parallel bead-seal
the double rayed column of the female divinity is coupled on the reverse side
with a rayed orb in place of the obelisk. The solar attribution could not be
more clearly indicated.
In the Cypro-Mycenaean versions of the male
pillar we see it surmounted by a halo of rays. On the Cretan signet ring the
same element is supplied by the rays that issue from the shoulders of the
descending God. There can be little doubt that this method of expressing the
luminous character of the divinity was borrowed from an oriental source. Samas,
the Babylonian Sun-God, the Canaanite form of whose name appears as Shemesh,
was habitually represented with rays issuing from his shoulders. In the
1 In the cylinder
given in Salaminia, Pl. XII. No. 8
the star and crescent are seen above the luminous pillar.
2 Salaminia, Pl. XII. Nos. 7 and 8.
Sometimes the adoring animal is a griffin (op.
cit. Pl. XII. No. 5); in one case it has a horse's mane (Pl. XII. No. 6).
3 Op. cit. Pl. XII. No. 14.
4 Salaminia, p. 145, Fig. 138.
173] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 75
obeliskoid pillar of the Cretan ring we have,
in fact, a Mycenaean Bethshemesh, the material place of indwelling for the
solar deity that we sec here descending upon it, as Beth-el was of the God of
Jacob.
The obeliskoid form may itself be regarded as
another trace of Egyptian influence on the externals of Mycenaean cult. It is
worth remarking that this earlier aspect of the Sun-God as a pyramidal pillar
clung in later
Fig. 49. - Double
Representation of Rayed Pillars, on Tabloid Bead-Seal, old
The ancient Light-God of Crete and
1 See ' Further
Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script; with Proto-Egyptian and Libyan
Comparisons,' J.H.S. xvii., 1897.
76 ARTHUR J. EVANS [174
Hellenic Zeus with a divinity representing
Mentu Ra, the warrior Sun-God of
Fig. 50. - Rayed
Shield-bearing God on Painted Sarcophagus, Milato,
On the ring from
175] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 77
by me in 1899, was a painted clay ossuary chest
or larnax of the usual Cretan type, - copied, it may be observed, from the
wooden chests of con- temporary
§25. - Cult Scenes relating to a Warrior
God and his Consort.
Fig. 51. - Armed God and
Seated Goddess on Electrum Signet Ring,
The alternative appearances of the rayed solar
God of the Knossian ring or the Milato sarcophagus holding out in the one case
a spear, in the other the Mycenaean body-shield, render almost inevitable the
comparison of these Cretan types with the descending armed figure on the great
signet-ring of
1 See above, p. 9 seqq.
2 The Aphrodite of
Kanachos at Sikyon held poppies in one hand and an apple in the other, Paus.
ii. 10, 5. Cf. Furtwängler, Myk.
Vasen, p. 79, and Antike Gemmen,
p. 36.
3 Hesych. •*4`< (<`<, 5DJ,H. The form
78 ARTHUR J. EVANS [176
$$$ On an electrum signet ring from a tomb of
the Lower Town of Mycenae, 1 opened
by Dr. Tsuntas in 1893, we may also with great probability recognise the same
divine pair (Fig. 51). The Goddess is here seated with her back to a bush upon
what may be variously interpreted as a simple seat or a small shrine. The male
divinity here stands naked, except for his girdle and anklets, and armed with a
spear or javelin. His left 2 forearm
is bent forward and crosses that of the Goddess in the same position, 3 and the figures of both divinities
express the same significant gesture in which a forefinger and thumb are
pressed together. This is a very widespread expedient of sign-language for
indicating agreement, and to the modern Neapolitan still conveys the idea of plighted
troth. 4
Two other signet rings remain to be described
which afford some striking points of comparison with that from the Akropolis
Treasure of
Fig. 52. - Religious Scene on
Gold Signet Ring from Vapheio Tomb (3/1).
On the Vapheio ring (Fig. 52) we see a female
figure, here probably to be identified with the seated Goddess on Schlie-
UD4V(<0 [Ariagnaea] also
appears on vases, O. Jahn, Einl. in d.
Vasenkunde, etc.; C.I.G. 7441,
7692. Cf. Stoll, Art. 'Ariadne' in Roscher's Lexikon.
1 Fig. 51 is drawn
from a cast kindly supplied me by Dr. Tsuntas shortly after its discovery. The
ring is described in Tsuntas and Manatt, Mycenaean
Age, p. 172. It has since been reproduced by Furtwängler, Antike Gemmen, iii. p. 36, Fig. 14 and
by H. von Fritze, Strena Helbigiana,
p. 73, 6.
2 Here as elsewhere
the designs are described as they appear in the impression.
3 As far as I am
able to judge from a minute examination of the engraving, the hand of the male
figure is not, as interpreted by Dr. Furtwängler (Antike Gemmen, p. 36), grasping the Goddess's wrist but simply
repeats the same gesture. According to Dr. Furtwängler's interpretation of
the action it is the well known symbolic gesture (P,4DÎH ¦BÂ 6"DBè [cheiros epi
karpo]) for the leading home of a bride. It will be seen that the alternative
explanation offered below does not essentially differ in its general
significance.
4 See Garrick
Mallery, 'Sign Language among the North American Indians compared with that
among other peoples and with Deaf Mutes' (Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, i. 1881), p. 286, Figs. 61
and 62, and Fig. 81 from De Jorio, La
Mimica degli Antichi investigata nel Gestire Napoletano (Naples, 1832).
5 Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1889, Pl. X. 39,
and p. 170: Tsuntas and Manatt, Myc. Age,
p. 225; Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art etc.
vi. p. 847, Fig. 431. Reichel, Hom.
Waffen, p. 6, Fig. 4; Furtwängler, Ant.
Gemmen, Pl. II. 19, and vol. ii. 9; Fritze, Strena Helbigiana, p. 73, Fig. 7.
6 Furtwängler,
177] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 79
mann's ring, who stands beneath the overhanging
branches of a fruit tree at the foot of which appears to be a stone pillar, 1 the reduplicated version of divinity.
Rocks below indicate that this is on a height, and a male figure, naked except
for his sandals and gaiter-like foot gear and the usual loin-cloth and girdle,
is seen in an energetic attitude either plucking the fruit for the Goddess from
her own tree or pulling down the branch for her to gather it from. On
Schliemann's ring a small female attendant behind the tree is seen engaged in
plucking fruit for the same purpose.
Fig. 53. - Religious Scene on
Gold Signet Ring from
On the recently discovered ring from
1 This tree has been
described by Tsuntas, WN. UDP., 1890, p. 170, as
growing out of a large vessel (ñF, •BÎ •((,\@L ¦B4:Z6@LH ¦6NL`:,<@<), but a comparison
with the parallel
ring from
2 Garrick Mallery,
'Pictographs of the North American Indians,' Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1886, p. 236, and
cf. Fig. 155, p. 235, representing the celebrated rock-painting on the Tule
River, California.
G
80 ARTHUR J. EVANS [178
the tree. The designs on both rings, which have
been hitherto described as scenes of an orgiastic dance, are in fact full of
meaning and depict an act of divine communion - the partaking by the Goddess of
the fruit of her sacred tree. In this case as in the other the tree is in
immediate association with a sacred pillar, here seen in its shrine. The tree
seems to spread from the top of a small sanctuary raised on a high base and
displaying an entablature supported by two columns, in the opening between
which, but not reaching as far as the impost, is seen the pillar form of the
divinity. Probably as in the case of the Knossian ring which supplies a
somewhat similar effect the tree must really be regarded as also standing
within the shrine or temenos.
In the field above to the right of the central
figure on the Vapheio ring, together with two uncertain objects, one of which
may be a spray or an ear of barley, there appears a device of symbolic
significance.
Fig. 54. - Symbols derived
from the Egyptian Ankh. 1. The Ankh. 2. Two-armed Egyptian Form. 3 and
4. Hittite Types. 5. From Mycenaean Ring. 6. On Carthaginian Stele.
This object (Fig. 54, 5) is described by Dr.
Tsuntas as a cross-like axe with two appendages while Dr. Max Meyer speaks of
it simply as a double-axe. 1 It
will, however, be observed that the lower extremity terminates in the same way
as the two side limbs and that in neither case is there any true delineation of
an axe - though the curving edges may not improbably be due to some cross
influence from the double-axe symbol.
For the true meaning and derivation of the
present figure we must look on the Hittite side. It is in fact unquestionably
allied to a modification of the Egyptian Ankh
or symbol of life and divinity (Fig. 54, 1) which effected itself in the
'Hittite' regions of Anatolia and
1 Jahrhuch d. k. d. Inst. 7 (1892), p.
191. So too Fritze, op. cit.
2 Lajarde, Culte de Mithra, Pl. XXXVI. Fig. 13.
3 Cf. Lajarde, op. cit. Pl. XXXIV. Fig. 6; Pl. XXXV.
Figs. 2 and 1; Pl. XXXVI. Figs. 8, 9, 10 and 11.
4 On objects
belonging to the first Dynasties found by M. Amélineau at
179] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 81
early Egyptian tradition, the symbol now shows
a tendency to acquire two legs and even at times a head. On the
In the present case the curved ends of three of
the limbs suggest as already noted that this ancient symbol has been crossed by
that of the double axe, and its substitution in the place of the axe and armed
figure on the ring from the
The discoverer of the Vapheio ring failed to
recognise the character of the representation on this side of the field and
even described it as 'an object like an insect, but of disproportionate size.' 3 Max Mayer, Furtwängler, H. von
Fritze and others have since seen in it a helmet with a long crest resting on a
shield. A close examination had long convinced me that the representation in
question really consisted of a small female figure in the usual flounced dress,
with one arm bent under her and the other stretched forward, prostrate on a large
Mycenaean shield. On the more recently discovered ring from
1 Cf. Thomas Tyler, Babylonian and Oriental Record, 1887,
pp. 150, 151, and 'The Nature of Hittite Writing,' Trans. Congress of Orientalists, London, 1892, p. 261 seqq. As
2 Lajarde, op. cit. Pl. XVIII. Fig. 7.
3 Tsuntas, WN. UDP. 1890, p. 170 '•<J46,\:,<`< J4 ñF, §<J@:@< ßB,D:X(,2,H.' Max Mayer (Jahrbuch d. Arch. Inst. 1892, p. 189),
recognised the shield but took the figure above it for a helmet with a high
crest. He regards the shield and the imaginary helmet as having been laid aside
by the male figure. But the analogy of the parallel ring Fig. 53 shows that the
figure is simply an attendant.
G 2
82 ARTHUR J. EVANS [180
to be a small columnar shrine like that which
encloses the sacred tree and pillar on the opposite side of the field. With
down-turned face, she seems to contemplate the contents of this little
sanctuary, which is divided by a central column into two compartments. The
first of these, hung with two festoons, contains a short baetylic pillar like
that on the analogous ring from Vapheio. In the second is what on minute
examination appears to be a miniature but clearly defined Mycenaean shield.
Here then with additional accompaniments we find the theme of the outermost
design of the Vapheio ring also reproduced on the example from
It is true that in the last pair of scenes on
the extreme right of the field there is a great difference in the size of the
body-shields. But this disproportion is really conditioned by the character of
the two representations. In the one case we have only to do with the .shield
itself and the recumbent votary. In the other, the female figure leans on a
shrine containing the shield, and the size of the shield itself is naturally
reduced. The shrine itself, we may imagine, was really much larger in
proportion to the leaning figure, and the whole composition is analogous to
others of the same glyptic cycle in which, as in the ring shown in Fig. 64, the
seated Goddess is seen seated against the shrine containing her aniconic image,
or, as in the case of Cypriote cylinders, using the sanctuary itself as a
throne. It does not necessarily follow from this that the shrine itself was
quite so diminutive.
The scene to the right of the first ring, the
female figure prostrate on the body-shield, is evidently one of mourning for a
dead warrior. We recall the large body-shield covering the body of the slain
combatant beneath the horses of the chariot on the funeral stela of
There are, however, indications that the
mourning scene on the ring does not refer to the decease of a human warrior.
The emblem of male divinity above must reasonably be taken in connexion with
it. Moreover, on Schliemann's ring from the Akropolis treasure at
The religious intent of the representation is
further brought out by the
1 See p. 24.
181] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 83
companion scene on the more recently discovered
ring. The shrine, in which the shield is here apparently hung up, and the
baetylic column contained in it, gives the whole an aspect of consecration. At
the same time, the attitude of the female figure leaning on the balustrade,
like that of the votary prone on the shield itself on the other signet, is
strongly suggestive of mourning. The baetylic column, as has been already
shown, can be also a sepulchral monument, not necessarily of a departed human
being. We seem to be in the presence of the tomb of a divine hero, or rather of
a warrior God.
We have already ventured to detect one
surviving offshoot of the cult of an armed Mycenaean divinity in that of the
Amyklaean Apollo, common both to
But this identification of the armed divinity
of this dual cult, of whom the Mycenaean body-shield might be regarded as a
special attribute, with the 'Cretan Zeus' of later religious tradition,
supplies an interesting commentary on what appears to be the sepulchral shrine
and suspended shield on our ring. We have here, it may be, a prehistoric
representation of the 'Tomb of Zeus.'
§26. - Sacral Gateways or Portal Shrines,
mostly associated with Sacred Trees.
The sanctity of the portal or doorway in
primitive cult is very general, 1
and its association with the sacred tree is well brought out by some of the
Pompeian wall-paintings. To this day the traveller in the
In the gold ring (Fig. 55) from the Lower Town
of Mycenae, a man in the usual Mycenaean garb, who perhaps answers to the male
attendant of the Goddess in other religious scenes, is seen reaching out his
hand towards the
1 For the triliths
of primitive cult we need go no further than
84 ARTHUR J. EVANS [182
topmost bough of what is perhaps also intended
for a fruit tree. Behind him with the branches of another tree visible above
the back, stands a large agrimi or Cretan wild goat - an animal seen elsewhere
in connexion with female votaries. This goat may represent the sacred animal of
either the male or female member of the divine pair referred to in the
preceding- sections. As an attribute of Aphroditê it is well known in
later cult; on the other hand the votive remains of the
Fig. 55. - Portal Shrine on
Gold Signet Ring from
Fig. 56. - Cult Scene with
Sacred Tree and Portal on Gold Signet Ring,
The 'portal shrine' here seems to be supported
on either side by double columns. The same type of shrine recurs on an
unpublished gold ring from
1 In my own
collection.
183] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 85
head and the upper part of her body are turned
backwards, so that she gazes on the rock shrine, towards which, moreover, her
right hand is raised in the attitude of adoration.
The shrine itself consists of what are
apparently two pairs of slender pillars supporting an entablature consisting of
three members - an architrave, a frieze with vertical lines, which seem to
represent the continuation of the lines of the columns below, and a wider
cornice above. The whole forms a kind of archway, and between the double
columns is visible a small object which has the appearance of a flying bird.
Resting on the entablature is seen one of the usual two-horned appendages of
Mycenaean cult, from behind which rises a spray. Two other small sprays shoot
from the rocks immediately on either side of the shrine. These connecting
sprays and the divided attitude of the Goddess link together the sanctity of
the triple tree and the shrine.
Fig. 57. - Cult Scene with
Sacred Tree and Portal; Gold Signet Ring,
On another signet ring of gold found by Dr.
Tsuntas, in 1895, in a tomb of the Lower Town of Mycenae, 1 occurs a cult-scene, somewhat enigmatic in its details, which
requires careful analysis (Fig. 57). Two female votaries of the usual type
stand on a stone terrace, on either side of a central tree shrine, which is
raised on- a graduated base. The summit sanctuary consists of a group of the
three trees, the heads of which appear above, two the trunks within an arch,
which consists of an entablature supported dy anb pillars built of a series of
separate blocks. From the centre of this, a line of dots, perhaps representing
a path - the via sacra to the shrine
- descends to the terrace below. At this point, on either side, are what appear
to be two doors, with an interval between, as if they had been thrown open, and
somewhat recalling the Gates of Heaven, opened wide by the attendant genii for
the passage of Samas, as seen on Chaldaean cylinders. We may, perhaps, suppose
that the whole represents a shrine on a peak surrounded by a temenos
1 I also owe the
impression from which Fig. 57 has been drawn to Dr. Tsuntas's kindness. The
signet has since been figured by Furtwängler,
86 ARTHUR J. EVANS [184
wall, which is here made to descend in regular
steps. On the lower step of this is seen, on either side, a cypress-like tree,
and a tree of the same kind may be recognised behind the adorant to the right,
surrounded with a dotted oval, which, perhaps, may be taken to indicate a kind
of sacred halo like that round the Cypriote obelisks and pillars. Behind the
other female worshipper is a bush-covered rock.
Attention has already been called to the
significance of the tree trinity in the central sanctuary of this design, which
also seems to find a parallel in the last described signet ring.
Fig. 58. - Sacral Gateway and
Votaries on Gold-plated Silver Ring,
An illustration of a holy gateway or shrine
without a sacred tree is supplied by a gold-plated silver ring (Fig. 58), 1 found by Dr. Tsuntas, in a tomb of
the lower town of
On a steatite bead seal of somewhat rude
execution, found in a Mycenaean beehive tomb at Ligortino, in
1 From an impression
taken with Dr. Tsuntas's kind permission. The signet is also reproduced by
Furtwängler, Ant. Gemmen, Pl.
VI. 4, and by H. von Fritze, Strena
Helbigiana, p. 72, 4.
2 The greater part
of the contents of this tomb were acquired by the Louvre; unfortunately, however,
the lentoid intaglio in question is wanting. Fig. 59 above is from a sketch of
the stone made by me when it was in the finder's possession shortly after the
discovery of the tomb.
185] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 87
enclosure within the great court of the
temenos. Behind this rises a horned prominence which either represents a part
of the usual two-horned cult object or a single horn having the same sacral
import. It supplies an interesting parallel to the single horn on the capstone
of the cellular shrine, to be described in the next section, the
misinterpretation of which as the back of a throne led Dr Reichel so far
astray. 1
Fig. 59. - Sacred Tree and
Enclosure on Steatite Lentoid, Ligortino,
A female votary stands before the enclosure
with the hand raised in the usual attitude of adoration. But the most
significant feature of the design remains to be described. Behind the doorway
and beneath the platform on which the tree rests is engraved a large crescent
which clearly connects this cult scene with a lunar divinity. The position of
this crescent, which apparently brings it into relation with a sanctuary below
this, suggests the explanation that the gateway and outer temenos may have led
to the mouth of a cave sacred to the Moon Goddess, above which again was a holy
tree.
§27. - The Dolmen Shrines of Primitive
Cult and Dove Shrines of
It is possible that some of the objects
described in the preceding section as sacral doorways or portal shrines really
represent slabs supported by four pillars, and that we have here to do with
holy 'table-stones,' or to adopt the well-known Celtic word for this religious
structure, with 'dolmens.' The double pillars on either side of some of the
examples given might bear out
1 See below p. 91.
88 ARTHUR J. EVANS [186
this idea, but on the other hand the elaborate
entablature of two stages, which they support, weighs in favour of the sacral
gateway.
In considering the pillar cult of the
Mycenaeans we are continually brought face to face with an aspect of this
ancient worship, which can never be lost sight of - its connexion namely with
the monumental forms of primitive sepulchral ritual. In
Fig. 60. - Baetylic Stone in
Dolmen Shrine, Shiarai Hills, India.
In other cases it will be seen that the
baetylic pillar itself performs a structural function and helps to support the
capstone of its dolmen shrine.
The Mycenaean column in its developed
architectural form, as can be seen from its entablature, essentially belongs to
woodwork structure. The fundamental idea of its sanctity as a 'pillar of the
house,' may at times, as in the instances quoted above, 2 have been derived from the original sanctity of the tree trunk
whence it was hewn, and a form, in this way possessing religious associations,
have been taken over into stone-work. But there is also what seems to be
conclusive evidence that among the Mycenaeans pillar supports of a very
primitive form of stone construction have left their trace on the Mycenaean
column in its perfected shape, and explain indeed its most characteristic
feature, namely the downward tapering outline which
1 M. J. Wallhouse,
'Non-Sepulchral Rude Stone Monuments,' Journ.
Anthr. Inst. vii. p. 21 seqq.
2 See p. 47.
187] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 89
distinguishes it alike from the columns of
There exists a well-marked type of primitive
and originally sepulchral structures, consisting of megalithic blocks, in
which, in addition to the massive side walls, stone pillars are also introduced
into the dolmen chamber to give a central support to the roof slabs.
Fig. 61. - Pillared Chamber
of 'Nau,'
This form of construction seems to be quite
typical in the Iberic West. In some of the great Spanish megalithic structures,
like that of Antequera, stone pillars are seen at intervals along the centre of
the gallery which serve as central supports for its great capping slabs, the
ends of which rest on the upright blocks that form the side-walls. In more than
one type of prehistoric buildings found in the
In many caves, however, the Balearic monuments,
and notably the so-called Talyots, show an upright block with almost
perpendicular sides, on the top of which one or more 'capital' slabs are laid.
Several pillars of this kind which are in fact huge biliths have survived,
while the walls of the surrounding
1 Cartailhac, Monuments Primitifs des îles
Baléares. Fig. 61 is taken from a monument of the kind known as
'Nau' (op. cit. Pl. 46) Fig. 62 from
an underground chamber of the known as 'Cova'
(op. cit. p. 18).
90 ARTHUR J. EVANS [188
chamber built of smaller blocks have been
entirely ruined, and they are popularly known as 'altars' in the island. The
buildings in which they originally stood do not seem to have been ordinary
dwelling houses since, as M. Cartailhac has pointed out, only a single
structure of this kind is to be found in each of the prehistoric settlements of
Fig. 62a. - Plan of 'Cova,'
Fig. 62b. - Section of 'Cova,'
We shall see the same type of primitive pillar
as that of the
The dolmen-like character of many of the
Mycenaean shrines upon the rings, and the reminiscences they present of such
primitive forms as the trilith in connexion with the sacred tree much as we see
it on the Pompeian frescoes, make it natural to turn to the same class of
primitive structures for further comparisons. When, then, upon two of the gold
signet rings, 3 we see through the
simple trilithic opening of a small shrine a pillar with flat capping stones
1 See below, p. 99.
2 WN. UDP. 1899, Pl. VII. 4.
See above, p. 22.
3 See below. Figs.
63, 64. These designs have been already independently compared by Max. Mayer,
'Myk. Beitr.' ii. Jahrbuch, 1893, p.
190, 5.
189] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 91
laid on it capital-wise standing beneath the
middle of the lintel or roof stone there can be no reasonable doubt that we
have to do with a survival - modified no doubt in several ways - of the same
kind of columnar cell that we see in the Talyots and other similar structures.
A good example of the cellular shrine, the
lintel of which is supported by a pillar with capping stones increasing in
size, will be seen in Fig. 63 from a gold ring from
Fig. 63. - Female Votaries
before Pillar Shrine; Gold Signet Ring,
The character of the worship and of the objects
represented is abundantly clear from the examples already reproduced. Yet the
comparative materials at his disposal did not save Dr. Reichel from a capital
error in describing the cult scene on this ring.
The ingenious author of 'pre-Hellenic cults'
has taken the remaining horn of the 'horns of consecration' for the back of a
seat and the base for its arm. The double-outlined side blocks of the shrine
become four legs naively represented with the further pair just seen inside the
nearer, and the baetylic pillar becomes a fifth leg or central prop, a little
superfluous, it might be thought, for an incorporeal sitter. For the whole,
according to Dr. Reichel's theory, is a throne of a Mycenaean divinity who is
himself invisible to his worshippers. 2
Upon this strangely fantastic base, for there
is no other, has
1 Tsuntas, 9L6<"4, Pl. V. 3; Perrot
et Chipiez, vi. Fig. 428, 23. Reichel, Vorhellenische
Götterkulte, p. 3; Furtwängler, Ant. Gemmen, iii. p. 44, Fig. 21. H. von Fritze, Strena Helbigiana, p. 73, 3.
2 W. Reichel, Ueber vorhellenische Götterkulte,
p. 5: 'Das
Gebäude ist ganz deutlich ein Thron.
Vier Beine die naiv so gezeichnet sind dass man das jenseitige Paar innerhalb
des vorderen erkennt, zusammt einer Säule, tragen das Sitzbrett: über
diesem eine niedere Armlehne und eine steile Rückenlehne, streng in Profil.'
92 ARTHUR J. EVANS [190
been built up the whole theory of a Mycenaean
cult of Sacred Thrones. All that has been said in these pages is certainly in
favour of the view that the cult objects of the Mycenaeans were of the aniconic
class. The thing actually worshipped was the tree or pillar possessed by the
divinity. But, as pointed out above in the case of the pictorial
representations seen on the signet rings, the anthropomorphic figures of
divinities are introduced beside their aniconic equivalents. Sometimes the
divinity is placed beneath the sacred tree. On the fellow ring to that on which
this theory of throne-cult has been based, the Goddess sits beside her shrine.
On a Cypro-Mycenaean cylinder she sits upon it. Were the present representation
a throne we should expect to see, as in fact we find on another signet, the
divinity upon it. 1 But in truth the
idea of a divine throne belongs to a period of more advanced anthropomorphic
cult. The ideas that underly the cult of baetylic stones and sacred trees show
that these material objects did not so much serve as a resting place for airy
spiritual forms, but themselves absorbed and incorporated their essence; they
are §:RLP@4 8\2@4 [empsychoi lithoi]. As the idea of
the visible anthropomorphic divinity encroaches on the earlier notions, it is these
pre-existing baetylic shapes that serve at first as scats and supports for it.
Among these the throne has no place. It is rather the omphalos, the altar, the
tomb, or the shrine itself, that became the seat.
Fig. 64. - Goddess seated
before Pillar Shrine, on Gold Signet Ring,
A gold signet-ring now in the
1 See the signet
ring, Fig. 51 above.
191] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 93
porting pillar within the cell, for at its foot
the familiar 'horns of consecration' stand clearly defined.
These single baetylic cells with the sacred
object at the foot of the pillar, or upon the roof-stone lead us naturally to
what is really only a more elaborate example of the same religious structures -
namely the triple sanctuaries with the doves, of which models in thin gold
plate were found in the third Akropolis grave at
Fig. 65. - Gold Shrine with
Doves; Third Akropolis Grave,
The parallelism between the triple dove shrines
and the single baetylic cells on the rings must set all doubts at rest as to
the true character of the miniature temples with which we have to deal. How far
astray the ingenuity of commentators could go in the absence of comparative
materials is shown by the theory which saw in the dove shrine the front of a
large basilican building and in the Mycenaean altar of the ordinary type, which
crowns the central "cell, a window with 'semicircles introduced either to
fill up the space or as ornaments on the shutters.' 1
1 Schuchhardt
(Sellers' Translation), p. 200. 'The carved lines under the columns of the
niches should be interpreted in the same manner: they merely cover the empty
space
94 ARTHUR J. EVANS [192
$$$ It has been already noticed that the
comparative size of the doves on the gold shrines and of the 'horns of
consecration' both on these and the analogous pillar-cells upon the rings, are
themselves indications that we have here to do with quite small structures. We
see before us, in fact, cellular chapels which still bear traces of their
origin from the simple structural forms akin to the pillared galleries of
§28. - Fresco representing a small
The dove shrines of
This is supplied by some fragments of fresco,
part of a series in a curious miniature style, found in a room to the north of
the great Eastern Court of the Palace. The associated fragments show large
crowds of people of both sexes, groups of elaborately dressed Mycenaean ladies
engaged in animated conversation, warriors armed with spears and javelins, part
of the city walls and the other buildings. A fragment of the wall of a
sanctuary belonging to this series with a row of 'horns of consecration' on the
top, has been already given in Fig. 18. 1
A coloured reproduction of the pieces of fresco representing the Mycenaean
shrine will be seen on Plate V.
The open space in front of this small temple is
crowded with men and women, the sexes being distinguished according to the
Egyptian convention by their being respectively coloured reddish brown and
white. To facilitate this effect the artist has availed himself of a kind of
pictorial shorthand, giving the outlines of the men on a red ground and of the
women on a white. A seated female figure is also depicted with her back to the
right outer wall of the .shrine itself, a useful indication of its comparative
dimensions.
The small temple here delineated is essentially
an outgrowth of the same type as that of the dove-shrines. As to the question
whether it, too, had an altar on the roof we have no evidence, but otherwise
the fresco has preserved enough of its construction to enable us to
reconstitute the façade
or else they are patterns
decorating the doors.' Still, Dr. Schuchhardt admitted 'the position of the
columns themselves in the centre of the openings remains a problem.
1 P. 38.
[95]
Fig. 66 - Façade of
H
96 ARTHUR J. EVANS [194
in its entirety (Fig. 66). The building rests
on a base consisting of large white blocks, which apparently continue beyond it.
As to the character of these the existing remains of the Palace supply a
sufficient indication. They are the great gypsum blocks, such as in large parts
of the building, and notably along its western side, form the lower part of the
walls, which above this massive layer seem largely to have consisted of clay
strengthened by a wooden framework, and coated with plaster often brilliantly
painted with polychrome designs. Analogy, as well as the varied colouring on
the face of the building, would lead us to suppose that the same structural
method had also been largely resorted to in the shrine reproduced in the
fresco. The mortise and tenon motive of the upright posts which divide the
cells and mark the outer walls of the building are certainly taken from woodwork,
and seem to imply a succession of vertical and horizontal beams.
There can, of course, be no doubt that the
white and black chequer-work is taken from stone-work construction, though the
builders of the Palace - who were surprisingly modern in some of their
procedures - were quite capable of producing stucco imitation of masonry. In
the south-west porch of the building is a clay and rubble wall faced with
painted plaster, the lower part of which imitates blocks of variously coloured
marble. As in the case of the
Of peculiar interest is the appearance,
immediately below the central opening, of two elongated half rosettes,
separated by a threefold division, which present a most striking analogy to the
frieze 2 found in the vestibule of
the Palace at
1 Compare for
instance the chequer decoration over a house from a Sixth Dynasty Tomb.
2 See Dorpfeld in
Schliemann's
3 Dörpfeld, in
Schliemann's
195] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 97
as well as those beneath the metopes, are
coloured with the same brown hue as the pillars on either side of them - in
other words, they are of wood-work. It is evident that this is the earlier
form, and that the original Mycenaean triglyph that supplied the prototype for
the Doric, was of the same material as the guttae below them, which are well
known to be the translation into stone of wooden rivets. Here, in fact, we have
wood-work bars so fitted as to lock the edges of two alabaster plaques. Had the
'metope' fields been of plaster there would have been no occasion for a
separate wooden triglyph.
The white horizontal coping
immediately above the triglyph and metopes, on which the bases of the uppermost
pairs of columns rest, is probably of gypsum, like the larger blocks of the
plinth below, from which the columns of the side chapels rise.
The columns themselves, of which there are a
pair in the central shrine, and one in each of the wings, are undoubtedly of
wood. Except for some square pillars made of separate blocks, no trace of stone
shafts or capitals was found in the
It is possible that those in the wings of the
present design, the shafts of which are coloured black, were of different
materials from the central pair, which are brown, though of a somewhat redder
hue than the woodwork of the front of the building. But the variations in hue -
especially noteworthy in the capital of the right-hand column - where blue,
reddish-brown, black and white succeed one another - show that whatever the
underlying material the surface of the wood was painted over.
Certain black markings on the echinus of the
capital above referred to perhaps indicate the existence of a fluted foliation
like that of the half capital from the 'Treasury of Atreus,' which also recurs
in the metopes already described. Both this foliation, and the inlaid work that
goes with it, are derived from contemporary
On the other hand, the shafts of the columns
have the downward taper characteristic of the Mycenaean order. This, it may be
noted, is specially appropriate in a building which ex hypothesi represents the translation of the primitive stone
cells with their Talyot-like supporting pillars into a more roomy structure,
the framework of which is of wood.
1 See Dörpfeld
in Schliemann's
2 Homer, Od. xvii. 340.
H 2
98 ARTHUR J. EVANS [196
$$$ Here, too, as in the case of the dove
shrines, and the smaller baetylic cells already described, the sacred character
of the pillars is indicated by the horns in front of them, and beside them. The
clear way in which this cult object is indicated in the fresco before us, must,
in fact, remove all remaining doubt as to the true meaning of the curved design
at the foot of the pillars of the dove shrines and the so-called altars of the
signet rings which has been so variously explained. The columns of the Knossian
shrine apparently approach the outer edge of the openings, leaving room,
however, in front of them for the 'horns of consecration.'
The word cell, or chapel, has been used to
express the three compartments of the sanctuary, for it is impossible to regard
it merely as a triple archway open to the day. Had this been the case the
ground colour seen through each opening would have been the same. But, as a
matter of fact, the background of these is painted successively a
reddish-brown, azure blue, and yellow. They must be regarded, therefore, as
closed chambers. The evidence before us, moreover, leads to the conclusion that
the whole structure, though somewhat larger than the dove shrines, is still of
small dimensions. The horned objects are in height over a third that of the
columns. The heads of the crowd in the space in front of the building, and
still more the female figure seated with her back to the right wall, afford a
still nearer guide to the size of the whole. If the building is proportionately
rendered, it would appear that the height of its central part from the ground
level to the summit was not more than nine feet.
§29. - Parallels to the Baetylic Shrines
of the Mycenaeans, supplied by the Megalithic Sanctuaries of the
From the evidence already put together it will
be seen that the Mycenaean cult of trees and pillars, in common with the whole
Mycenaean civilisation, must be regarded as in
situ in its Aegean homes. It fits on to a parallel system of primitive
worship on the Anatolian and Syrian side. In its external aspects it shows
signs of adaptation from Egyptian, to a less extent from Semitic sources, and
it has also been possible to cite a striking analogy from Libyan soil. It
receives illustration from the early elements of Italian religion and some
interesting materials for comparison with the Mycenaean pillar shrines are
supplied by the sepulchral structures of the Iberic West.
It is possible to point out in some respects a
nearer and at the same time a contemporary comparison in the
In the side chapels of the megalithic
sanctuaries of Hagiar Kim and the Giganteja aniconic pillar idols are still to
be seen either standing in
197] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 99
their original place or lying near it. The
ground scheme of these great megalithic buildings recalls the internal
structure of a chambered barrow with lateral and terminal apse-like cells, but
in this case it is by no means certain that the whole was roofed over. The
baetylic pillars stood, and in some cases still stand, within the side cells or
chapels, at times with an altar block in front of them and shut off originally
by separate stone door-ways from the main gallery, the opening of these cells
where preserved recalling those of rock tombs such as those of Chaoaach in
Fig. 67. - Pillar Cell of
In other cases the baetylic column still stands
within a dolmen-like cell, of which it helps to support the roof slabs. An
example of these cellular shrines is given in Fig. 67. 1 It will be seen that the top of the pillar is surmounted by two
slabs, and there is a small interval between
1 From a photograph
taken by me in 1897.
100 ARTHUR J. EVANS [198
them filled with earth, and most probably due to
a slight subsidence of the pillar, a subsidence not shared by the upper or
roof-slab, the two ends of which rested on the side walls of the chamber. It is
further interesting to note that these pillars, the appearance of which through
the opening presents such a striking resemblance to those of some of the
Mycenaean shrines, have the same characteristic outline tapering towards the
base, which has been shown to owe its origin to the necessities of such
primitive stone structures. We have here in their typical aspect the 'Pillars
of the House,' similar to those of the prehistoric chambered tombs and the
primitive monuments of the Balearic Islands, 1 though the shaft in this case is in one piece - a transition to
the Mycenaean form.
It is impossible in this place to enter into
details as to the character of these Maltese monuments. It must be sufficient
here to observe that the view, still widely held, that they were temples built
by the Phoenicians, 2 is quite
opposed to the archaeological evidence. The Phoenician letters engraved on the
rock-floor of the Giganteja might (if they are genuine), give some grounds for
supposing that the later Phoenician colonists in the island accepted and
adopted a local pillar cult, which in many respects was parallel with their
own. But the remains as a whole point to a much more remote period. The
bucchero vase fragments, which abound within and around these Maltese
monuments, 3 show both in their
paste and incised and punctuated decoration a distinct analogy with those of
the Second Sikel Period of Orsi, from the opposite coast of
1 See p. 89.
2 This view is
repeated in Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art,
&c. iii. p. 306. 'Enfin (ces monuments) nous fournissent des types authentiques sinon
élegants et beaux de cette architecture réligieuse des
Phéniciens, dont nous savons si peu de chose.'
3 During a careful
exploration of these monuments in 1897 I observed quantities of fragments of
this class of pottery in and around the megalithic buildings of
4 Compare especially
some bucchero pottery of this class from the
5 Orsi, Bulletino di Paletnologia Italiana,
1889, p. 206 Tav. vii. 5, 9: 1891, p. 121; 'Necropoli sicula presso Siracusa
con vasi e bronzi Micenei' (Mon. Antichi,
ii. 1883), &c.
6 Orsi, 'La
Necropoli sicula di Castellucio, Bullettino
di Paletnologia Italiana, 1892, pp. 69, 70, Tav. vi.
199] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 101
idol, in this case of conical form. In the
section of the Giganteja, drawn for La Marmara, 1 the bactylic cone is still shown in its place within a small
dolmen-like cell; at present both the cell and cone are overthrown, 2 though the ornamental blocks in front
remain in their places. The two side-blocks which look like altar stones are
decorated with a tongue and double volute design, recalling the terminal
ornamentation on one of the door-slabs of Castelluccio. The threshold blocks on
the other hand are covered with returning spirals with lozenge-shaped
interspaces (Fig 68), which point even more clearly than the Sicilian parallels
to
Fig. 68. - Spiral Ornament on
Threshold or Baetylic Chapel, Giganteja, Gozo.
These sculptured blocks of the Maltese
monuments must be reckoned among the later elements contained in them, yet some
of them, like the altar with its foliated sides from Hagiar Kim, suggest
parallels belonging to the earliest Mycenaean period, as represented by the
vegetable motives on a gold cup from the fourth acropolis tomb at
1 Nouvelles Annalen de l'Institut de
Correspondance Archéologique i. (1832); Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. iii. p. 299, Fig. 222.
2 The cone is broken
in two.
3 It is possible
that the Egyptian influence here arrived by a Libyan channel, but it is more
reasonable to refer it to the same Mycenaean agency that was undoubtedly at
work on the opposite Sicilian coast.
102 ARTHUR J. EVANS [200
fragments of Thera and Therasia. 1 The remarkable steatopygous female
images found in the latter building, and absurdly called 'Cabiri,' 2 find a certain parallelism in the
adipose marble figures from the prae-Mycenaean sepultures of the Aegean world, 3 but their even more striking
conformity with the figures from Naqada 4
belonging to the prehistoric race of
We have here then unquestionably in situ in the Maltese islands the megalithic
sanctuaries of an aniconic cult parallel to that of the Aegean world and of the
Semitic lands to the east of it. But the parallel gains additional interest
from the fact that we see the actual shrines of this primitive pillar-worship
invaded with decorative motives apparently from a Mycenaean source. How far the
externals of cult may have been influenced here in other ways from that quarter
it is impossible to say. In any case we are brought very near that form of the
Mycenaean pillar-worship, the shrines of which have already been compared with
the simple dolmen cells still found in
§30. - An Oriental Pillar Shrine in
Macedonia, and the Associated Worship.
The attachment of the cult of sacred pillars to
sepulchral religion as shown by examples from the Greek and Semitic lands, and
again by the megalithic structures of the Maltese islands, still asserts itself
in the baetylic worship, which has survived to our day under the cloak of Islam
throughout the Mohammedan world It has been already noticed that the mosque at
1 These comparisons
were pointed out by me in a paper read at the Ipswich Meeting of the British
Association entitled 'Primitive European Idols in the Light of Recent
Discoveries.' printed in the East Anglian
Daily Times, Sept. 19, 1895. Cf. too, Cretan
Pictographs, &c., p. 129.
2 Caruana, Report on the Phoenician, &c. Antiquities from Malta, pp. 30, 31 and
photograph; P. et C, iii. p. 305, Figs. 230, 231.
3 See Primitive
European Idols, &c. loc. cit. To
the steatopygous female figures from
4 Petrie, Nagada and Ballas, PI. VI Figs. 1-4, pp.
13, 14, 34.
201] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 103
Fig. 69. - Sacked Pillar in
Shrine,
But one result of these Mohammedan survivals is
that the opportunity still presents itself, in the bye-ways of the East, of
actually partaking in the observances of a baetylic ritual, which is in fact
the abiding representative of the old Semitic stone-worship. Here and there,
even, upon soil that was once Hellenic, the same oriental influence has brought
back a local pillar cult essentially the same in character as that which
flourished in the Mycenaean world, but which had already, in classical days,
receded into the background before the artistic creations of Greek religion. A
personal
104 ARTHUR J. EVANS [202
experience may thus supply a more living
picture of the actualities of this primitive ritual than can be gained from the
discreet references of our biblical sources or the silent evidence of engraved
signets and ruined shrines.
In the course of some archaeological
investigations in upper
Fig. 70. - Plan of Shrine,
For the better understanding of the ritual
employed, I went through the whole ceremony myself A roomy mud-floored
ante-chamber, made for the convenience of the worshippers, communicated by an
inner doorway with the shrine of the stone itself The 'holy of holies' within
was a plain square chamber, in the centre of which rose the sacred pillar
(Figs. 69, 70). Like the baetylic stones of antiquity, it might be said to have
'fallen from heaven,' for, according to the local legend, it had flown here
over a thousand years since from Khorassan. 2 The pillar consisted of an upright stone of square section with
bevelled angles about 6 1/2 feet high and 1 1/4 feet thick, supporting another
smaller and somewhat irregular block. Both were black and greasy from secular
anointing, recalling the time-honoured practice of
1 The name of the
village (=Village of the Teke) in its Slavonic form is Tecino Selo. It lies in
the hills a little north of the track from Skopia (Üsküb) to Istib, a
short day's journey from the former place.
2 According to one
account it was brought to its present position by a holy man from
203] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 105
pouring oil on sacred stones as Jacob did at
Taking his stand on the flat stone by the
pillar, the suppliant utters a prayer for what he most wishes, and afterwards
embraces the stone in such a way that the finger tips meet at its further side.
A sick Albanian was walking round the pillar when I first saw it, kissing and
embracing it at every turn.
The worshipper who would conform to the full
ritual, now fills a keg of water from a spring that rises near the shrine -
another primitive touch, - and makes his way through a thorny grove up a
neighbouring knoll, on which is a wooden enclosure surrounding a Mohammedan
Saint's Grave or Tekke. 2 Over the
headstone of this grows a thorn-tree hung with rags of divers colours, attached
to it - according to a wide-spread primitive rite - by sick persons who had
made a pilgrimage to the tomb. The turbaned column itself represents in
aniconic shape the visible presence of the departed Saint, and, conjointly with
the thorn-bush, a material abode for the departed Spirit, so that we have here
a curious illustration of the ancient connexion between Tree and Pillar
worship.
In the centre of the grave was a hole, into
which the water from the holy spring was poured, and mixed with the holy earth.
Of this the votary drinks three times, 3
and he must thrice anoint his forehead with it. This draught is the true
Arabian solwan, or 'draught of
consolation.' 4
It was now necessary to walk three times round
the grave, each time kissing and touching with the forehead the stone at the
head and foot of it. A handful of the grave dust was next given me, to be made
up into a
1 Gen. xxvii. 18;
xxxv. 14. See above, p. 34. Compare Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 232, who illustrates the late survival
of the practice by the 'lapis pertusus' at
2 Near it was a
wooden coffer for money offerings.
3 It is permitted to
drink it through a cloth or kerchief.
4 Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 322. N. 3 remarks that this
draught 'that makes the mourner forget his grief, consists of water with which
is mingled dust from the grave (Wellhausen, p. 142), a form of communion
precisely similar in principle to the Australian usage of eating a small piece
of the corpse.
106 MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. [204
triangular amulet and worn round the neck. An
augury of pebbles, which were shuffled about under the Dervish's palms over a
hollowed stone, having turned out propitious, 1 we now proceeded to the sacrifice. This took place outside the
sepulchral enclosure, where the Priest of the Stone was presently ready with a
young ram. 2 My Albanian guide cut
its throat, and I was now instructed to dip my right hand little finger in the
blood and to touch my forehead with it.
The sacrifice completed, we made our way down
again to the shrine, while peals of thunder rolled through the glen from the
ARTHUR J. EVANS.
1 The hands were
separated, still palms downwards, and the numbers of the pebbles under the
right and left hand respectively were then counted.
2 Near him was a kind
of low gallows from which was suspended a three-pointed flesh-hook for hanging
up the meat. This flesh-hook had to the touched three times with the tip of the
right hand little finger.
Fresco Façade of