MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER VII

Races and Myths of Neolithic Crete

The Cave--dwellers of Crete--Azilian Stage of Culture--The Neolithic Folk--Obsidian obtained from Melos--Neolithic Finds at Knossos and Phtos--Island inhabited at 10,000 B.C.--Settlers of the Mediterranean Race--The Evidence of Early Egyptian Graves--Migrations from North Africa into Europe--Appearance of Anatolians in Crete--The Agriculturists and Bearded Pastoralists--Racial Religious Beliefs in Scotland and Greece--The Various Cults of Zeus--Political Significance of Zeus Worship--Legend of the Cretan Zeus--the Tomb of the God--Traditional Holy Places appropriated by Early Christians--Cretan Zeus like Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, Attis, and other Young Gods--Kings as Incarnations of Deities--Egyptian and Greek Mysticism--Demeter and Dionysus--Totemic Animals Tabooed--Pig Sacred in Egypt and Crete--The Sacred Goat--Bull Cult of Knossos--Links between Libya and Crete--The Double--axe Symbol--Maltese Story of "Axe Land"--Etymology and Labyrinth--Neolithic Houses in Crete--Survival of Pallithic Traditions and Customs and Types--Religious Borrowing.

WHO were the earliest inhabitants of Crete and whence came they? The problem is involved in obscurity, but certain suggestive facts may be stated which throw some light upon it. As already indicated (Chapter III) no bones of Pallithic man have been discovered on the island. Signor Taramelli, an Italian excavator, recently explored, however, the interesting grotto of Miamu, which was inhabited by early settlers who appear to have been either in the Late Magdelenian or the Azillan stage of culture. The deposit of the partly artificial cave yielded on examination a number of bone heads of weapons and bone spatulas, somewhat like the "spoon-shaped celts" of the Swiss lake-dwellings and the Rhone valley, which were probably utilized by huntsmen for scooping out marrow from the bones of roasted animals. Evidently, therefore, Crete had been occupied at a remote period by cave-dwellers. The lower grotto deposit was overlaid by Bronze Age remains.

During the long interval which followed the last glacial epoch, there was a gradual and general subsidence of land round the Mediterranean as elsewhere. But after Crete had become detached from Greece, it still remained for a period of uncertain duration connected with Asia Minor, where there were, no doubt, communities of cave-dwellers as in Phnicia and Palestine. These ancient folks of the Cretan grotto of Miamu may have been isolated from their congeners on the mainland like the "beachcombers" of the "kitchen middens" in England and Scotland. We cannot say whether they became extinct or not. It is possible that the seafaring pioneers of the Neolithic Age found inhabitants on the island.

The earliest traces of the Neolithic folk have been discovered in the vicinity of the mountain village of Magasa. Among the relics were polished stone axes, numerous bone awls, and fragments of coarse pottery belonging to a similar stage of culture to that which obtained among the Neolithic cave-dwellers of Gezer, Palestine, who, as has been indicated, made pottery also. Apparently the Magasa settlers came from the north in their many-oared galleys, resembling those depicted on the painted pre-Dynastic pottery of Egypt. As much is indicated by the finds of obsidian flakes, Neolithic man, it may be explained, not only constructed knives, saws, arrow-heads, and other small implements from flint found in chalk deposits, and chert nodules embedded in limestone, but also from obsidian, which is the "glassy" variety of volcanic rock-hardened lava--known as liparite, 1 the "frothy" variety being "pumice-stone". Now, there is no obsidian in Crete. The only source of it in the ean is the Island of Melos (now Milos, or Milo), where the famous statue of Venus de Milo was discovered. Evidently an early Neolithic civilization had local development in the Cyclades, amidst

the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea,
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece".2

Obsidian artifacts have been found in various islands of the ean, as well as on the mainland at Mycenand elsewhere, on the island of Cyprus, and as far westward as Malta, where it was imported, apparently from Melos, to be worked, for flakes as well as knives have been found, and also in Sicily. Schliemann discovered knives and flakes of obsidian in "the four lowest prehistoric cities at Hissarlik". He remarked regarding them at the time: "All are two-edged, and some are so sharp that one might shave with them". 3 The Jews still use flint and obsidian knives in religious ceremonies. Obsidian implements have also been taken from Neolithic strata near Nineveh. In Egypt, during the Old Kingdom Period, the beaten-copper statues of Pepi I and his son were given eyes of obsidian.

When Knossos and Phtos were first selected as settlements, the Cretans had advanced into the later stage of Neolithic culture. Their obsidian knives were finely wrought, and have been found associated with serpentine maces, axes of diorite and other hard stone, and, as it is of special interest to note, clay and stone spindle whorls, indicating that the art of spinning was well known.

It has been stated that the beginning of the Neolithic Age has been dated approximately 103000 B.C. The calculation has been arrived at by the comparative study of the stratified deposit at Knossos. The layers of the historic period are about 18 feet deep. Below these are the Neolithic layers, through which a depth of about 20 feet has been reached. Roughly about 3 feet was accumulated every thousand years. Allowing for variation in the deposits, the minimum date 10,000 B.C. appears to be safe; even 12,000 B.C. or 13,000 B.C. is possible. There is no trace in the first layer of a culture so low as that of Magasa. The earliest "folk-wave" which reached Knossos came with a form of culture which had been developed elsewhere.

Unfortunately no human remains have been unearthed in the Neolithic deposit to afford evidence regarding the racial affinities of these pioneers of civilization. Ethnologists are of opinion that they were representations of the Mediterranean race, and arrive at their conclusion on the following grounds: The large majority of the skulls found in Bronze Age graves are long, and are similar to those taken from Neolithic graves in Greece and elsewhere throughout Europe, especially in the south and west, as well as those from the pre-Dynastic graves of Egypt. The average stature of the Minoan Cretans was about 5 feet 4. inches. In the early Bronze Age there was a broad-headed minority.

It has been found that, as Dr. Collignon says, "when a race is well seated in a region, fixed to the soil by agriculture, acclimatized by natural selection, and sufficiently dense, it opposes an enormous resistance to absorption by the new-comers, whoever they may be". This view finds conspicuous support in the permanence of the Cro-Magnon type of mankind in the Dordogne valley. An interval of at least 20,000 years has not altered particular skull and face forms there. In Egypt at the present day the fellaheen resemble to a marked degree their Neolithic ancestors. Ethnologists explain in this connection that physical characteristics are controlled by the females of a community. Intrusions of males as traders, settlers, or conquerors may have been productive of variations, but the tendency to revert to the original type has operated to a marked degree, the "unfits" being eliminated by local diseases from generation to generation. In those districts, however, where settlers of alien type were accompanied by their wives and families, ethnic changes have been more pronounced. It is not surprising to find, in this connection, that in a country like Great Britain primitive types should be found to be still persistent. The majority of the invaders who crossed the seas were evidently males.

Since Sergi first roused a storm of criticism by advancing his theory of the North African origin of the Mediterranean race, a considerable mass of data has been accumulated which tends to confirm his conclusions. Egypt has provided evidence which sets beyond dispute the fact that once a racial type had been fixed it persisted for many thousands of years with little or no change. The problem as to why some heads are long and some are broad still remains obscure. All that can be said is that certain peoples developed in isolation during untold ages their peculiar physical characteristics, which changes of food and location have failed to alter.

Numerous graves were found during recent years in Upper Egypt in which the bodies have been preserved for a space of at least sixty centuries--"not the mere bones only", says Professor Elliot Smith, "but also the skin and hair, the muscles and organs of the body; and even such delicate tissues as the nerves and brain, and, most marvellous of all, the lens of the eye. "Thus", he adds, "we are able to form a very precise idea of the structure of the proto-Egyptian." This distinguished ethnologist's description of the early inhabitant of the Nile valley is of special interest: "The proto-Egyptian was a man of small stature, his mean height" was "a little under 5 feet 5 inches in the flesh for men, and almost 5 feet in the case of women. . . . He was of very slender build, for his bones are singularly slight and free from pronounced roughness and projecting bosses that indicate great muscular development. In fact, there is a suggestion of effeminate grace and frailty about his bones. . . . Like all his kinsmen of the Mediterranean group of peoples, the proto-Egyptian, when free from alien admixture, had a very scanty endowment of beard and almost no moustache. On neither lip were there ever more than a few sparsely scattered hairs, and in most cases also the cheeks were equally scantily equipped. But there was always a short tuft of beard under the chin." The burial customs and the ceramic and other remains of the Mediterranean peoples were of similar character everywhere. 4

In some pre-Dynastic Egyptian graves the dead were wrapped in "flaxen cloth of considerable fineness". It is probable, therefore, that the spindle whorls found in Crete were invented in Egypt. The brunette complexion of the Mediterranean Neolithic folk was probably acquired on the North African coast whence they spread into Europe. As ships were depicted on Egyptian pre-Dynastic pottery, it is possible that companies of them crossed the Mediterranean Sea. The great majority entered Europe, however, across the Straits of Gibraltar, and by the Palestine and Asia Minor route, along the ancient "way of the Philistines".

The stomachs of some of the naturally mummified bodies have been taken out, and when their undigested contents were submitted to examination) discovery was made, among other things, of fish bone and scales, fragments of mammalian bones, remains of plants used as drugs, and husks of barley and millet. The Mediterranean folks who remained in Egypt were evidently agriculturists, stock-breeders and fishermen, and non-vegetarians.

A people who had adopted the agricultural mode of life were able to occupy more limited areas than huntsmen or pastoralists. Europe must have been thinly populated at the dawn of the Neolithic Age, when the Mediterranean peoples began to "peg out claims" in its valleys, round its shores, and on green inviting islands. The Cretan pioneers were undoubtedly agriculturists. They grew peas and barley, and ground their meal in stone mortars and querns; they fenced their land, and must therefore have had land laws; and they kept herds of sheep, cattle, pigs, and goats. The fig- and olive-trees were also cultivated. In short, they had imported to Crete the agricultural and horticultural civilization which the Egyptians credited to Osiris and Isis, before they had begun to carry on a sea trade with the home country. Evidence has also been forthcoming that the Neolithic peoples of western Europe and the British Isles were similarly agriculturists. Sometimes the teeth taken from graves are found to be in a ground-down condition. This was partly due to the deposit of grit in limestone and sandstone mortars and querns, which mixed with the meal. 5 The Neolithic folk who utilized soft stones for milling must have been as familiar as some of their modern descendants with the agonies of toothache and indigestion.

The minority of broad-heads in the early Minoan period in Crete may have been survivals from Pallithic times, or the descendants of slaves. It is more probable, however, that they represented an infusion of traders and artisans from Asia Minor. Professor Elliot Smith, who believes that the Egyptians were the first to work copper, suggests that "the broad-headed, long-bearded Asiatics", of Alpine or Armenoid type, "learned of its usefulness by contact with the Egyptians in Syria", and passed on their acquired knowledge to other peoples. Referring to Crete in particular he says: "We can have no doubt these people (the Armenoids) began to make their way into Crete, from Anatolia perhaps, at the time when the diffusion of the knowledge of copper was beginning". 6 At a much later period the artisans of North Syria and Anatolia were famous as metal-workers. One of the results of the wars waged by Egypt, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, was the introduction to the Nile valley of coats of mail, gilded chariots, gold and silver vases, and other articles which were greatly prized. "At this period", writes Professor Flinders Petrie, "the civilization of Syria was equal or superior to that of Egypt. . . . Here was luxury far beyond that of the Egyptians, and technical work which could teach them, rather than be taught." 7 Many thousands of prisoners were also taken, and, when tribute was arranged for, the Pharaoh made it a condition that his vassals should send "the foreign workmen" with it. Kings and noblemen also received wives from Syria and Anatolia. During the Eighteenth Dynasty the typical Egyptian face, as a result, underwent a change. The upper and artisan classes became half foreigners. As at the present day, however, the peasants were unaffected by the alien infusion, and they constituted the large majority of the inhabitants.

The broad-heads represent an ancient stock which had an area of characterization somewhere in Central Asia. They were apparently separated, during the Late Glacial and Inter-glacial Periods, for many thousands of years from the fair northerners and the brunette Mediterraneans--long enough, at any rate, to develop distinctive physical characteristics, and also, it would appear, distinctive modes of thought. They were mainly a pastoral people, and clung to an upland habitat along the grassy steppes. In contrast to the lithe and slight agriculturists from North Africa, they were heavily bearded and muscular; they also included short and tall stocks. During the Neolithic Period these broad-heads were filtering into Europe, but it was not until the early Copper Age that their western migrations assumed greatest volume.

Evidence as to the source of early Cretan culture and the homeland of the pioneer settlers may be obtained, not only by studying physical characteristics, but also early religious beliefs. There is nothing so persistent as "immemorial modes of thought". At the present day it is possible to find, even in these islands, small communities descended from alien settlers, who have for long centuries lived beside and never mixed with the descendants of the aborigines. Round the east coast of Scotland, for instance, the fisher-folks in not a few of the small towns are endogamous-they rarely marry outside their own kindred; and they not only speak a different dialect from their neighbours, but have different superstitions. So distinctive, too, are their physical traits that they are easily distinguished in certain localities.

In ancient times peoples of different origin lived more strictly apart than is the case nowadays. Herodotus and other Greek writers sought for clues as to tribal origins by making reference to burial customs and religious beliefs.

The Carians maintain they are the aboriginal inhabitants of the part of the mainland where they now dwell, and never had any other name than that which they still bear; and in proof of this they show an ancient temple of the Carian Jove in the country of the Mylasians. 8

There is a third temple, that of the Carian Zeus, common to all Carians, in the use of which also the Lydians and Mysians participate, on the ground that they are brethren. 9

One of the interesting phases of Cretan religion was the worship of the local Zeus. The deity must not be confused, however, with the so-called Aryan or Indo-European Zeus of the philologists of a past generation. The name Zeus is less ancient than the deities to whom it was applied. It is derived from the root div, meaning "bright" or "shining". In Sanskrit it is Dyaus, in Latin Diespiter, Divus, Diovis, and Jove, in Anglo-Saxon Tiw, and in Norse Tyr; an old Germanic name of Odin was Divus or Tivi, and his descendants were the Tivar. The Greeks had not a few varieties of Zeus. These included: "Zeus, god of vintage", "Zeus, god of sailors," "Bald Zeus", "Dark Zeus" (god of death and the underworld), "Zeus-Trophonios" (earth-god), "Zeus of thunder and rain", "Zeus, lord of flies", "Zeus, god of boundaries", "Zeus Soter", as well as the "Carian Zeus" and the "Cretan Zeus". The chief gods of alien peoples were also called Zeus or Jupiter. Merodach of Babylon was "Jupiter Belus" and Amon of Thebes "Jupiter Amon", and so on.

The worship of Zeus, the father-god, had a political significance. He was imposed as the chief deity on various Pantheons by the Hellenic conquerors of prehistoric Greece, but local deities suffered little or no change except in name.

WILD GOAT AND YOUNG: FAIENCE RELIEF, FROM KNOSSOS

Reproduced from "Annual of the British School at Athens", by kind permission of the Committee and of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

Dionysus might be called Zeus, but he still continued to be Dionysus, the son of the Great Mother, and did not become Zeus the self-created father-god.

The legend of the Cretan Zeus is as follows: It had been prophesied by Uranus and Gaia that Cronos would be displaced by one of his own children. He endeavoured to avert this calamity by swallowing each babe that was born to his wife, Rhea. After he had thus disposed of five of his family, Rhea went to Crete, and in a mountain cave there gave birth to Zeus. She then returned to her husband and presented him with a stone dressed up as a babe, which he swallowed.

Rhea was assisted by her priests, the Curetes, who danced a war or fertility dance, and her child was fostered by nymphs (the Cretan "mothers"), who gave him honey, so that Cronos would not hear his cries. Milk for nourishment was provided by the goat Amalthea. So strong was the child that soon after birth he broke off one of the goat's horns, which he presented to the nymphs: it afterwards became known as Cornucopia, the "horn of plenty", because it became filled with whatever its owner desired.

When Zeus grew up he rescued his brothers and sisters from the stomach of Cronos, and also took forth the stone which had been substituted for himself: this stone became sacred to his worshippers. Afterwards he deposed his father and sat on the throne as chief deity. Like other ancient gods, he reigned for a time and then died. His grave was pointed out in Crete, as several classical authors have testified. 10 Perhaps it was on account of their habit of repeating this and other ancient legends that the Cretans became so notorious among orthodox Greeks. Paul wrote of them: "There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers . . . whose mouths must be stopped; who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not. . . . One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars." 11

"Later Cretan tradition", writes Sir Arthur Evans, "has persistently connected the tomb of Zeus with Mount Juktas, which rises as the most prominent height on the land side above the site of Knossos. Personal experiences obtained during two recent explorations of this peak go far to confirm this tradition. All that is not precipitous of the highest point of the ridge of Juktas is enclosed by a 'Cyclopean' wall of large roughly oblong blocks, and within this enclosure, especially towards the summit, the ground is strewn with pottery, dating from Mycenn to Roman times, and including a large number of small cups of pale clay exactly resembling those which occur in votive deposits of Mycenn date in the caves of Dikta and of Ida, also intimately connected with the cult of the Cretan Zeus."

In the vicinity is "the small church of Aphendi Kristos, or the Lord Christ, a name which in Crete clings in an especial way to the ancient sanctuaries of Zeus, and marks here in a conspicuous manner the diverted but abiding sanctity of the spot. Popular tradition, the existing cult, and the archaeological traces point alike to the fact that there was here 'a holy sepulchre' of remote antiquity." 12

Early Christian missionaries similarly appropriated elsewhere the "holy places" of the Pagan cults. St. Paul's Cathedral in London probably marks the site of the ancient sanctuary of the god Lud, which was approached by Ludgate (the way of Lud). Ancient sculptured stones are often found built into the walls of old chapels. Sometimes the local saint was worshipped after death as if he had acquired the attributes of the Pagan deity he displaced. Bulls were offered up in Applecross, Ross-shire, in 1656, "upon the 25th August", runs a minute of Dingwall Presbytery, "which day is dedicate, as they conceive, to Sn. Mourie as they call him". 13

The Cretan Zeus was a deity who each year died a violent death and came to life again. He thus resembled closely the Egyptian Osiris, the culture king, who introduced agriculture, was slain by Set (one of whose forms was the black pig), and afterwards became Judge of the Dead. We do not know what name was borne by this Cretan deity. It may have been "Velchanos", the youthful warrior of Cretan tradition. A Knossian cult may have called him Minos. As we have seen, this culture king, who during life was famed as a lawgiver, became one of the judges of the dead in the Homeric Hades. Apparently he was deified and regarded as a form of the Cretan Dionysus, who differed somewhat from the Thracian Dionysus.

At what period Zeus-Dionysus was introduced into Crete it is impossible to say with certainty. His close association with agriculture and the underworld suggests that he was known at an early period, but, as will be shown in the next chapter, not necessarily the earliest.

To the agriculturists the myths and customs associated with the sowing and reaping of grain were of as much importance as the implements they used. Every people who in early times adopted the agricultural mode of life adopted also the religious practices associated with it. Persistent folk-legends in Greece pointed to Egypt as the fountainhead of agricultural religion. Diodorus Siculus says that the mysteries of Dionysus are identical with those of Osiris, and that the Isis and Demeter mysteries are the same also, the only difference being in the names applied to the deities. 14 "Osiris", says Herodotus, "is named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks." 15

The Cretan Zeus-Dionysus links not only with Osiris, but also with Tammuz of Babylon, Ashur of Assyria, Attis of Phrygia, Adonis of Greece, Agni of India and his twin-brother Indra, the Germanic Scef and Frey and Heimdal, and the Scoto-Irish Diarmid. Each of these deities was apparently a developed form of a primitive culture-god, who was a deity of love, fertility, and vegetation; he symbolized the grass required by pastoralists, the fruit of wild and cultivated trees, the spring flowers, and the corn; in short, he was the provider of the food-supply, and he was the life-principle in the food.

In pre-historic times, when the migrating peoples had a vague conception of the mysterious Power which controlled the Universe and the lives of men, they did not give concrete and permanent form to the deities they worshipped and propitiated and controlled by the performance of magical ceremonies. They believed that the Power was manifested in various forms at different periods, and existed in all forms at one and the same time. Osiris appeared among men as a wise king who introduced agriculture and inaugurated just laws; he was at the same time the moon and the young bull, goat, or boar, who was given origin by a "ray of light" issuing from the moon. He was the ancestor of men and edible animals; he was the "vital spark" or life-essence n all that grew; he was the Nile which fertilized the sun-parched desert. Each Pharaoh was an Osiris, and each pious individual who died became one with Osiris in the agricultural heaven which he attained by obeying the laws of Osiris. Thus Proclus says, in reference to the Greek mysteries: "The gods assume many forms and change from one to another; now they are manifested in the emission of shapeless light, now they are of human shape, and anon appear in other and different forms". 16

The Cretan god was the son of the Great Mother who has been identified with Rhea. Apparently he also became her husband. Osiris was the son of Isis, or of Isis and Nepthys--"the bull begotten of the two cows Isis and Nepthys", and he was also at once the husband and father of Isis. Tammuz was the son and spouse of Ishtar, and the later Adonis the lover and son of Aphrodite.

The goddess Demeter and the god Dionysus, her son, were said to be of Cretan origin. According to Firmicus Maternus, Dionysus was the illegitimate son of King Jupiter of Crete, and was hated by Queen Juno. On one occasion, when Jupiter prepared to leave the island, he appointed Dionysus to reign in his place. Juno plotted, during her husband's absence, with the Titans, who lured the young prince away and devoured him. Minerva, his sister, however, rescued his heart and gave it to Jupiter on his return, and that high god enclosed the heart in a case and placed it in a temple which he erected, so that it might be worshipped. Other myths of similar character are told regarding the young god who was mangled like the Egyptian Osiris. One variation states that Jupiter had the heart pounded in a mortar and given to Semele, who, after eating it, gave birth once more to Dionysus.

In the Egyptian Anpu-Bata story, Bata, who is evidently a primitive god resembling Osiris, exists in various forms at different periods. His soul enters a blossom, and when the blossom is destroyed the soul enters a sacred bull; the bull is slain and the soul is enclosed in two trees: the trees are cut down, and a chip having entered the mouth of the Pharaoh's wife, that lady gives birth to a child who is no other than the original Bata.

The identification of the god with an animal suggests totemism. In one of the early culture stages it was believed that the spirit of the eponymous tribal ancestor existed in a bull, a bear, a pig, or a deer, as the case might be. Invariably the animal was an edible one--the source of the food-supply, or the guardian of it. Osiris, in one part of Egypt, was a bull and in another a goat. He appears also to have had a boar form. Set went out to hunt a wild boar when he found the body of Osiris and tore it in pieces.

The sacred animal was tabooed for a certain period of the year, or altogether. In Egypt the pig was never eaten except sacrificially. Herodotus says: "The pig is regarded among them (the Egyptians) as an unclean animal, so much so that if a man in passing accidentally touch a pig, he instantly hurries to the river and plunges in with all his clothes on. Hence, too, the swineherds, notwithstanding that they are of pure Egyptian blood, are forbidden to enter into any of the temples, which are open to all other Egyptians; and further, no one will give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or take a wife from among them, so that the swineherds are forced to intermarry among themselves. They do not offer swine in sacrifice to any of their gods, excepting Bacchus (Osiris) and the moon, whom they honour in this way at the same time, sacrificing pigs to both of them at the same full moon, and afterwards eating of the flesh. . . . At any other time they would not so much as taste it." 17

According to one of the Cretan legends regarding Zeus-Dionysus, as related by Athens, 18 the animal which nourished with its milk the young god of the cave was a sow. "Wherefore all the Cretans consider this animal sacred, and will not taste of its flesh; and the men of Pros perform sacred rites with the sow, making her the first offering at the sacrifice." 19 The pig taboo extended as far as Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and is still remembered. 20

Dionysus was also associated with the goat, as we have seen. A clay impression of a gem from Knossos shows an infant sitting beside a horned sheep. 21 Possibly we have here another form of the legend. The various animals may have been totemic. Different tribes claimed descent from different animals which were associated with the culture-god whom they adopted.

It would appear that the bull tribe achieved ascendancy in Crete, for the horns of that animal, a piece of "ritual furniture", which Sir Arthur Evans refers to "by anticipation" as "the horns of consecration", is the commonest cult objective on pottery, frescoes, gems, steles, and altars. The horns were evidently a symbol of the god of fertility. It would appear that before Zeus-Dionysus was depicted in human shape he was worshipped through his symbols or attributes.

Another symbol of the god was the 8-form shield. In North Africa it is found associated with the Libyan goddess Neith, who was a Great Mother with a fatherless son. On Mycenn and Cretan signets and seals this shield is sometimes shown with human head and arms. It was used by one of the Hittite tribes, and may be identical with the Botian shield. A similar pattern also "appears as an ornamental motive on a bronze belt of the latest Bronze or earliest Hallstatt period in Hungary". 22 The so-called "spectacle marking" on the Scottish sculptured stones, which sometimes appears upright and sometimes longwise, may have been an 8-form shield of symbolic significance--an attribute of the god or goddess of fertility.

The double axe was another distinctive symbol of the Cretan god. In Malta certain folk-tales make reference to "Bufies", which is believed to signify "Axe-land", situated somewhere beyond the Sahara. "Axe-land", says Mr. R. N. Bradley, "must be one of the original homes of the axe, and therefore possibly of Neolithic culture." 23 Votive stone axes, perforated for suspension, are common in Malta, Cyprus, and other Mediterranean islands. On the sculptured stones of Brittany the double axe appears as a symbol or hieroglyph, and it is sometimes grasped by an outstretched hand. 24 In Crete the double axe with long handle was depicted between the "horns of consecration" in outline on stones of pillars of palaces and the Dictn inner cave, and inside houses, apparently as a charm. It figures on a gold signet from Mycenin elaborate form, beside a goddess, seated beneath a vine. On the upper part of the signet the sun and crescent moon are enclosed by "water rays". Hovering high on the left is the 8-form shield with human head, an uplifted arm with a staff or spear in the hand, and a single leg below.

THE PRINCIPAL ROOM OF THE MUSEUM AT CANDIA, CRETE

In the foreground is a great double axe from Aghia Triadha.

The goddess is approached by votaries, who make offerings of flowers including the iris and hyacinth. On a gem from Knossos the goddess grasps the double axe in her hand, as she does also on a mould from Palaikastro, and other objects found elsewhere. Sir Arthur Evans is of opinion that "labyrinth" is derived from labrys, the Lydian (or Carian) name for the Greek double-edged axe. 25 "The suffix in -nth has been conclusively shown", says Professor Burrows, "to belong to that interesting group of pre-Hellenic words that survives both in place-names like Corinth (Corinthos) and Zakynthos . . . and in common words that would naturally be borrowed by the invaders from the old population." Some of these are the words for "barley-cake", "basket", "hedge-sparrow", and "worm". "The similarly formed word for 'mouse'," he adds, "which remains as the ordinary Greek word. . . . is quoted by the Greek grammarians as a Cretan word." 26

Words like "absinth" and "hyacinth" are similarly survivals that have been borrowed. Professor Burrows thinks, however, that laura, lavra, or labra, signified "passage". Laburinthos would thus mean "place of passages". He notes that "the early Eastern Church called its monasteries Laurai, or Labri as they were sometimes spelt. The name must have been originally given, either from the cloisters round them, or because of the long passages, with the monks' cells leading off them; but this does not seem to have been consciously felt, and the word was used for the monastery as a whole. The name indeed is still seen in The Lavra, a monastery at Mount Athos." 27

The Cretan Zeus was, as a deity of vegetation, associated with tree- and water-worship. In the myth about Cronos swallowing the stone there is evidently a memory of stone-worship also.

It would appear that more than one folk-wave entered Crete during the thousands of years which were covered by the Neolithic Period. At Knossos the earliest settlers constructed wattle huts, plastered with mud, and were well advanced in civilization. The Magasa folks, on the other hand, who produced fewer and cruder artifacts, had more substantial houses. They built low walls of stone) and erected a timber framework, which they enclosed in brick. A similar architectural method appears to have obtained among the Anatolian Hittites in historic times. Inside the Magasa house walls were plastered, and the flat roofs were made of plastered reeds. Both these sections of Cretans, as has been shown, obtained obsidian from Melos, and worked it beside their dwellings, as the finds of flake testify. Whether, however, either or both of them were contemporaries of the dwellers in the artificial cave at Miamu is uncertain. It is suggestive, however, to find that the historic Cretans had sacred caves like the Hittites, the prehistoric people of Phoenicia, and the French and Spanish Pallithic folk of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian stages of culture. Did they adopt certain of the religious customs of the descendants of the Pallithic folks who survived on the island? Or was there among the earliest settlers a community of Libyans of mingled stock? The Cro-Magnon type survives till the present day on the North African coast, where it has been identified by Collignon and Bertholon among the Berbers. 28 It may be that there were tall men among the Cretans, who were distinguished as warriors, as was Goliath among the Philistines. The Philistines were of Cretan origin.

Some of the athletes depicted on vases and frescoes appear to have been above the average stature. It is of interest to recall, too, in this connection, that the slim waists that distinguished the Cretans were characteristic also of the Aurignacian cave-dwellers. This custom of waist-tightening may have survived from the archlogical Hunting Period. In Gaelic stories there are references to the "hunger belt". It is possible, too, that the Cretan girdle had a religious significance, like the "prayer belt" of Russia. Sir Arthur Evans found at Knossos snake girdles which had been deposited as votive offerings in a sacred place. Two snakes enfolded the hips of the snake-goddess. Aphrodite's girdle compelled love. The Germanic Brunhild's great strength lay in her girdle. The dwarf Laurin was subdued when his girdle was wrenched off by the heroic Dietrich. 29 Ishtar wore a girdle.

As has been indicated also (Chapter II), the bell-mouthed skirt worn by the Minoan women was similar to that of the Cro-Magnon women depicted in the Aurignacian caves 10,000 years ere the Neolithic folk settled in Crete. The gowns of the Egyptian women were of the "hobble" pattern.

Crete, of course, could not have maintained a large population of hunters. There can be little doubt that its inhabitants were not numerous at any period prior to the introduction of agriculture. As the great bulk of its historic population were of Mediterranean type, it would appear that North Africa was the source of the high civilization which obtained at Knossos during the Late Neolithic Period. The religion of the Cretan agriculturists resembled in essential details that of the Egyptians. Their chief deity was the Great Mother, whose son died, like Osiris, a violent death. No doubt religious borrowing took place when the Cretans traded with Egypt, and that the traditions preserved by Herodotus and other writers in this connection were not without some foundation. But, as there existed so close a resemblance between the fundamental beliefs of the separated peoples, it is impossible to discover to what extent Cretan religion was influenced by Nilotic. The Sumerian Tammuz myth, which also resembles the Osirian, was fully developed at the dawn of history, and Merodach, a fusion of Tammuz and Ramman, had for one of his names Asari, which has been identified with Asar (Osiris).

A conclusion which may be suggested is that the various sections of the Mediterranean race had, prior to their migrations to suitable areas of settlement from the North African homeland, adopted a system of religious beliefs which was closely associated with their agricultural mode of life, and passed it on afterwards to the peoples, who learned from them how to till and sow the soil and reap the harvest in season. The myths of the Phrygian Attis and the Germanic Scef are probably relics of cultural contact in bygone ages.

Footnotes

1 So called after the semi-crystalline rock emitted as lava from the chief volcano of the Lipari Islands.
2 Browning's "Cleon".
3 Ilios, p. 247.
4 The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 41 et seq.
5 The writer and a friend once tested a limestone quern and ascertained that it deposited as much grit as covered a three-penny piece in about fifteen minutes.
6 The Early Egyptians, pp. 172, 173.
7 A History of Egypt, Vol. II, pp. 146, 147.
8 Herodotus, I, 171.
9 Strabo, 659.
10 Diodorus Siculus, III, 61; Cicero, De natura deorum, III, 21, 53; Lucian, Philopseudes, 3.
11 Titus, i, 10-12.
12 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, pp. 121, 122.
13 St. Maelrubha, the early Christian missionary, who gave his name to Loch Maree (formerly Loch Ewe). He flourished in the seventh century.
14 Diodorus Siculus, I, 96.
15 Herodotus, II, 144.
16 Ennead, I, 6, 9.
17 Herodotus, II, 47.
18 Pausanias, VII, 17, 5.
19 Cults of the Greek States, L. R. Farnell, Vol. I, p. 37.
20 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 293-4, and Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. vii, vii.
21 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, p. 129.
22 British Museum Early Iron Age Guide, p. 7.
23 Malta and the Mediterranean Race, p. 126 (1912).
24 See The Mediterranean Race, G. Sergi, p. 313, for illustration or axes on one of the sculptured stones.
25 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, pp. 106 et seq.
26 The Discoveries in Crete, p. 120.
27 The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 118, 119.
28 Ripley's Races of Europe, p. 177.
29Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 380 and 428.

MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER VI

The Great Palace of Knossos

Early Discoveries in Crete--How "Tattered Legends" have been "reclothed"--Dramatic Revelations at Knossos--Famous Fresco of the Cup-bearer--Pre-Hellenic Peoples not Barbarians--The Kheftiu of the Egyptian Texts--Phnicians' Blue Dye came from Crete--Blue Robes of "Lost Atlantis" People--The Throne and Council Chamber of Minos--How Men were judged--Plaster Relief of Sacred Bull--Traces of Earlier Palace--A Visit to the Knossos--"Wooden Walls" of the Island Kingdom--Official, Religious, and Domestic Quarters--Frescoes in Queen's Megaron--Boxing and Dancing in the "Theatral Area"--Drainage Systems of Crete and Sumeria--Phcians of Homer as the Cretans--Glimpses of Palace Life from the Odyssey--Votive Offerings in Shrines and Caves--How Queen Victoria honoured an Ancient Custom--Sacred Animals and Symbols----Snake Goddess and Priestess--How Cretan Ladies were dressed--Greek and Maltese Crosses--The Star Form of Isis.

"THE ancient history of Crete", it used to be customary to write, "begins with the heroic or fabulous times. Historians and poets tell us of a king called Minos, who lived before the Trojan War. Then comes the well-known story of the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne." The solar symbolists disposed of the various legends as poetic fictions.

The controversy aroused by the discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenand Tiryns was being waged with vigour and feeling when a native Cretan excavated at Knossos a few great jars and fragments of pottery of Mycenn character. The spot was afterwards visited by several archlogists, including Dr. Schliemann and Dr. Dpfeld, and a preliminary investigation brought to light undoubted indications that the remains of an ancient palace, partly built of gypsum, lay beneath the accumulated debris of ages. It was impossible, however, to make satisfactory arrangements with the local proprietors or the Turkish Government. The view expressed by Mr. W. J. Stillman, that the ruins were those of the famous Labyrinth, did not attract much attention.

In 1883 some peasants in the eastern part of the island happened upon ancient votive objects in the Dictn cave, which they had been in the habit of utilizing as a shelter for their goats. These they put on the market, and as there was a great demand for them, a brisk trade in Cretan antiquities sprang up. Archlogists were again drawn to the island, and excavations which did not produce great results were conducted in front of the cave. This made the peasants redouble their efforts to supply a growing demand, and as they met with much success the archlogists became more and more impressed by the possibilities of the island as an area for conducting important research work. In 1894 Sir Arthur Evans and Mr. Hogarth paid a visit to Crete, and examined both the site of Knossos and the Dictn cave. The times were inauspicious for their mission, for the island was seething with revolt against the Turkish authorities. Sir Arthur, however, was able to effect the purchase of part of the Knossos ground, having become convinced that great discoveries remained to be made. What interested him most at the time were the indications afforded by mysterious signs on blocks of gypsum of a system of hitherto unknown prehistoric writing. It was not, however, until 1900 that he was able to acquire by purchase the entire site of Knossos and conduct excavations on an extensive scale.

During the interval, further investigations were conducted by different archlogists at the Dictn cave, which is double-chambered. Inscribed tablets and other finds came to light, but all research work had to be abandoned in 1897, when it was found that the upper cave was blocked with fallen rock. The political unrest on the island, besides, made it unsafe for foreigners to pursue even the peaceful occupation of digging for ancient pottery and figurines of bronze and lead.

In 1900, however, Sir Arthur Evans operating at Knossos, and Mr. Hogarth at the Dictn cave, achieved results which more than fulfilled their most sanguine hopes. What they accomplished was to reveal traces of an ancient and high civilization, of which the Mycenn appeared to be an offshoot. No such important discovery had been made since Schliemann, twenty-five years previously, unearthed the graves he so confidently believed to be those of Agamemnon and his companions. "Here again", as Mr. Asquith said at the annual meeting of the subscribers to the British School at Athens, 1 "scepticism received an ugly blow. Legends", he added, "which had become somewhat ragged and tattered have been decently reclothed. The mountain on which Zeus was supposed to have rested from his labours, and the palace in which Minos invented the science of jurisprudence, are being brought out of the region of myth into the domain of possible reality."

Sir Arthur Evans went to Crete as a trained and experienced archlogist, and was assisted from the beginning, in March, 1900, by Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who had already distinguished himself by his excavations on the island of Melos, and Mr. Fyfe, the British School of Athens architect. A large staff of workers was employed, and by the time the season's work was concluded in June a considerable portion of the Knossos palace was laid bare.

Among the most remarkable finds were the wall paintings that decorated the plastered walls of the palace corridors and apartments. These did more to arouse public interest in pre-Hellenic civilization than even the burnt city of Troy or the gold masks of kings in the graves at Mycen Here were wonderful pictures of ancient life vividly portrayed, of highly civilized Europeans who were contemporaries of the early Biblical Pharaohs, and lived in splendour and luxury long centuries before Solomon employed the skilled artisans of Phnicia to decorate his temple and palace. And what manner of people were they? Not rude barbarians awaiting the dawn of Hellenic civilization, but men and women with refined faces and graceful forms, whose costumes resembled neither those of the Egyptians, Greeks, nor Romans. There was a note of modernity in this antique and realistic art and the manners of life it portrayed. The ladies with their puffed sleeves, narrow waists, and flounced skirts, might well have walked, not from a Cretan palace, but some Paris salon of the 'eighties and 'nineties.

In his first popular account of his excavations, Sir Arthur Evans gave a vivid description of his dramatic discovery of the fresco named the "cup-bearer".

"The colours", he wrote, "were almost as brilliant as when laid down over three thousand years before. For the first time the true portraiture of a man of this mysterious Mycenn race rises before us. There was something very impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of male beauty, recalled after so long an interval to our upper air from what had been till yesterday a forgotten world. Even our untutored Cretan workmen felt the spell and fascination.

THE CUP-BEARER, KNOSSOS

From a photograph kindly lent by Sir Arthur Evans

They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such a painting in the bosom of the earth as nothing less than miraculous, and saw in it the 'icon' of a saint! The removal of the fresco required a delicate and laborious process of under-plastering, which necessitated its being watched at night, and old Manolis, one of the most trustworthy of our gang, was told off for the purpose. Somehow or other he fell asleep, but the wrathful saint appeared to him in a dream. Waking with a start, he was conscious of a mysterious presence; the animals round began to low and neigh, and there were visions about; ' φαντάξει {Greek fantsei}', he said, in summing up his experiences next morning, 'The whole place spooks!' 2

This life-sized figure of a youth remains in a wonderful state of preservation from the thighs upwards, and is a feature of Candia museum. He carries in front a long pointed vessel, adorned with silver and gold, with "wine foam" at the brim, one raised hand grasping the handle and the other clutching it at the tapering end. His face is finely depicted in profile, the well-proportioned features are quite modern, and he is clean-shaved; the forehead is ample, the eyes dark, and the hair black and curly. Sir Arthur Evans thinks the skull is of "brachycephalic" (broad-headed) type; others regard it as "mesacephalic" (medium). Round the neck is a necklace of silver, and there is an car-ring in the only ear shown, which appears to be mounted with a blue stone. There is an armlet on the upper part of the right arm, and a bracelet with what appears to be a seal round the left wrist, which looks just like the "wristlet-watch" worn at the present day. The body is well developed, and the waist tightened by a girdle. He wears a closely-fitting loin-cloth, which is richly embroidered.

Before the famous figure was reached, the excavators had laid bare a paved corridor nearly 4 yards wide. The left wall retained traces of plaster which had been decorated with a continuous fresco of a procession of male and female dignitaries. None of the faces, however, survived. It was noted that the figures resembled closely those of the "Keftiu" depicted in Egyptian tombs.

An interesting feature of these and other frescoes was the evidence they afforded of the use of a blue dye among the Cretans. Some male figures wore bright-blue robes, and others white robes bordered with blue. Apparently the Phnicians were not the first to utilize the famous dyes which have long been so closely associated with them. Proofs were subsequently forthcoming to place this belief beyond doubt. Long before the Phnicians supplanted the Cretans as sea-traders the islanders produced bright-blue garments, which were worn, it would appear, on special ceremonial occasions. It is of interest to note in this connection that the inhabitants of Plato's Atlantis had a similar custom. After the bull was sacrificed, and the sacred cup deposited in the temple of the gods, and "the fire round the sacrifice had been cooled, all of them dressed themselves in beautiful dark-blue robes . . . and then mutually judged one another as respects any accusations of transgressing the laws. After the acts of judgment were over, when day came, they inscribed their decisions on a golden tablet, and deposited them as memorials, together with their dresses." 3

A hoard of inscribed clay tablets was discovered by Evans in a bath-shaped terra-cotta receptacle within a small chamber. These were embedded in charcoal, indicating that they had been placed in a wooden box which at some period was destroyed by fire.

As the work of excavation made progress, many remarkable discoveries were made in that first season which appealed to the imaginations of scientists and workers alike. The glimpses of life afforded by fragmentary frescoes set the ghosts of vanished Cretans walking once again; the wind rustling through the disinterred ruins by night seemed "like light footfalls of spirits" passing up and down the stately corridors; the past "out of her deep heart spoke". By day

There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the standard
Of some herial host;
Whilst from all the coast
Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered
Over the oracular woods and divine sea
Prophesyings which grew articulate.

The prophesyings of the excavators were no vain dreams; with dramatic swiftness they were revealed almost as soon as they were conceived. Confidently search was made for tangible evidence that this palace had been occupied by the legendary Minos, or one of the kings who bore that name or title, when his very council chamber was unearthed, and the most ancient throne in Europe brought to light.

In the heart of the palace this priceless relic of an antique civilization had lain buried in debris all through the ages that saw the coming and going of Homer's heroes, the rise and fall of Assyria, the fading beauty of Babylon, the flickering loveliness of Egypt, Persian splendour, the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome. The kings that sat in it had long faded into the region of myth and fancy; it was believed by wise scholars that they never existed at all. And here was the royal throne to tell another story!

The "Throne Room" was situated between the upper part of the spacious central court of the palace and the "long gallery" of the western wing. It was entered, however, from the court alone. Those who sought the presence of the king had first to pass through a small ante-room about seven yards square, the rubble walls of which, the excavators found, had been plastered with day and faced with stucco made beautiful by artists who were skilled draughtsmen and brilliant colourists.

Stone benches were ranged round the walls of the council chamber, and between two of these on the north side stood the gypsum throne of the king on a raised slab. Here sat the Minos surrounded by his high officers of state. There is seating accommodation for about twenty on the benches.

The throne, which was found intact, is of graceful form. It presents an interesting contrast to that on which the statue of the Egyptian King Kafra of Pyramid fame is seated. Its back, which is higher and less severe. has an undulating outline, and resembles somewhat an oak leaf. The base broadens downward from the seat, which is hollowed to fit the body comfortably, and the sides are gracefully carved, the "double moulded arch" in front resembling "late Gothic" designs.

To this chamber may have been led such a wanderer as brave Ulysses, who desired to accelerate his return to his native home. He would have found the grave Minos enthroned amidst his councillors, who sat "side by side on polished stones", and perhaps heard him sneak like the Phcian king in the Odyssey:--

Chiefs and Senators! I speak
The dictates of my mind, therefore attend.
This guest, unknown to me, hath, wand'ring found
My palace, either from the East arrived
Or from some nation on our western side.
Safe conduct home he asks, and our consent
Here wishes ratified, whose quick return
Be it our part, as usual, to promote;
For at no time the stranger, from what coast
Soe'er, who hath resorted to our doors,
Hath long complained of his detention here.
Haste--draw ye down into the sacred Deep
A vessel of prime speed, and, from among
The people, fifty and two youths select,
Approved the best; then, lashing fast the oars,
Leave her, that at my palace ye may make
Short feast, for which myself will all provide.
Thus I enjoin the crew, but as for these
Of sceptred rank, I bid them all alike
To my own board, that here we may regale
The stranger nobly, and let none refuse.
Call, too, Demodocus, the bard divine,
To share my banquet, whom the gods have blest
With pow'rs of song delectable, unmatch'd
By any, when his genius once is fired. 4

Opposite the "high seat" of Minos in the "Throne Room" was a shallow tank with stone breastwork. Its use is uncertain. The theory that ambassadors and others washed here while awaiting the king is not convincing; there were bath-rooms elsewhere in the vast palace in which travel-wearied men could refresh and cleanse themselves. Perhaps it was simply part of the decorative scheme. Fish may have been kept here to give a touch of realism to the scenes painted on the stucco-plastered walls. Traces survive of a riverside fresco, with reeds and grasses and budding flowers beside flowing waters, which must have imparted to the chamber an air of repose. On either side of the door were two gleaming griffins, crested with peacock's plumes, "showing", says Sir Arthur Evans, "that this Indian fowl was known to the East Mediterranean world long before the days of Solomon". A flowery landscape formed a strangely-contrasting background, with ferns and palm-trees fringing the soft blue stream.

Before this chamber was swept by the fire which destroyed the palace, it must have been at once stately and beautiful. No doubt the benches were strewn with richly-embroidered rugs and cushions to complete the brilliant colour scheme of which fragmentary traces survive. The throne appears to have been richly decorated. "The whole face of the gypsum", writes Sir Arthur Evans, "had been coated with a fine white plaster wash, and this again coloured in various ways. The seat showed distinct remains of a brilliant red colour. A minute examination of the back disclosed the fact that fine lines had been traced on it such as are also visible on the wall frescoes, a technical device, borrowed from Egyptian practice, for guiding the artist's hands. It would appear, therefore, that the back of the throne had been once decorated with an elaborate colour design." 5 The paved floor was also, apparently, set in a border of gypsum covered with plaster and richly adorned.

Another interesting early find was the "wine cellar" of the palace--or rather the "cellars". In the lengthy corridors were found intact rows of great jars from which wine was drawn by the "cup-bearers" for the feast, and oil was likewise stored. Worthy of special mention is also the painted plaster relief of a bull which dignified the wall of one of the chambers. "It is life-sized, or somewhat over", its discoverer wrote at the time. "The eye has an extraordinary prominence, its pupil is yellow and the iris a bright-red, of which narrower bands again appear encircling the white towards the lower circumference of the ball.

PAINTED PLASTER RELIEF--BULL'S HEAD--KNOSSOS

From a photograph kindly lent by Sir Arthur Evans

The horn is of greyish hue. . . . Such as it is, this painted relief is the most magnificent monument of Mycenn plastic art that has come down to our time. The rendering of the bull, for which the artists of this period showed so great a predilection, is full of life and spirit. It combines in a high degree naturalism with grandeur, and it is no exaggeration to say that no figure of a bull at once so powerful and so true was produced by later classical art." 6

The first season's discoveries made it evident that the palace had been of great dimensions and splendour. Nothing was found to indicate that it flourished after the Mycenn period. It had evidently been destroyed by fire in pre-Hellenic times, before the thirteenth century B.C. Traces were also found of a still earlier palace, below which were the layers of the Neolithic (Late Stone Age) period. Regretfully Sir Arthur Evans had to suspend operations in June 1900 on such a promising site, owing to the malarious conditions and distressing dust-clouds raised by the south wind from Libya. Nine brief weeks, however, had revealed enough to satisfy even so fortunate an archlogist as Sir Arthur, who had the luck of Schliemann combined happily with richer experience and technical skill. No doubt could any longer remain that a great pre-Homeric civilization had flourished in Crete, and that Minos had been rescued from the fairyland of the solar symbolists to take his place once again among the mighty monarchs of the great days of old.

Were it possible for us, by waving the wand of a magician, to conjure before our eyes this wonderful palace, as it existed when Queen Hatshepsut reigned over Egypt and Thothmes III was fretting to seize the reins of power, we should be first of all impressed by the modernity of its aspect.

We are guided from the sea-shore, like the hero of the Odyssey, who visited the dwelling of Alcinous, the Phcian king, by a goddess in human guise. At a favourable point of vantage on the poplar-fringed highway, we are afforded the first glimpse of the palace of Knossos. It is situated beside a river 7 on a low hill in the midst of a fertile valley, about 3 miles from Candia. The dominating feature of the landscape is sacred Mount Juktas, with its notched peak. It seems as if the "hammer god" had intended to shape the mountain like an Egyptian pyramid, and, having finished one side, abandoned the task soon after beginning to splinter out the other.

The palace, which is approached by paved roadways, has a flat roof and forms a rough square, each side being about 130 yards long. No walls surround it. Crete, like "old England", is protected by its navy--its "wooden walls". The Minos kings have suppressed the island pirates who were wont to fall upon unprotected towns and plunder them, and hold command of the sea. 8

We enter the palace by the north gate, passing groups of soldiers on sentry duty. A comparatively small force could defend the narrow way between the massive walls which lead us to the great Central Court. Note these little towers and guard-houses, from which they could discharge their arrows against raiders. There are dark dungeons beneath us, over 20 feet deep, in which prisoners are fretting their lives away, thinking of "Fatherland, of child, and wife, and slave", and "the wandering fields of barren foam" on which they had ventured to defy the might of Minos.

The Central Court in the middle of the palace is over 60 yards long and about 30 yards wide. On the eastern side are the private apartments of the royal family, but these are not entered from the Court, but along mazy corridors which are elsewhere approached. The first door on the western side leads us through an ante-room to the Throne Room. Farther down, and near the centre of the Court, is the shrine of the Snake goddess. Behind it are the west and east Pillar Rooms and the room containing temple repositories; these apartments appear to have a religious significance. Farther south is the large "Court of the Altar". We pass out of the Court at the northern end, and penetrate the western wing of the palace. We find it is divided about the middle by the "Long Gallery". Walking southward, we pass, on the right, numerous store rooms, until we reach an entrance leading to the sacred apartments behind the shrine of the Snake goddess. It has already dawned upon us that we are in a labyrinthine building, if not the real Labyrinth with its intricate and tortuous passages through which the famous Theseus was able to wander freely and extricate himself from with the aid of the clue given to him by the princess Ariadne. One apartment leads to another, and when our progress is arrested by blind alleys we turn back and find it difficult, without the help of a guide, to return to the Long Gallery that opens on the zigzag route back to the Central Court. The eastern wing is similarly of mazy character. In the southern part of it are reception rooms, living-rooms, bedrooms, and bath-rooms. These include the "Hall of the Colonnades", the "Hall of the Double Axes", the "Queen's Megaron", and the "Room of the Plaster Couch". 9 Stairways lead to the upper stories.

The rooms assigned to the ladies are approached through a dark "dog's-leg corridor". We enter the "Queen's Megaron" and are silenced by its wonderful beauty. The paved floor is overlaid with embroidered rugs, and has a richly-coloured "surround" of painted plaster. Frescoes adorn the walls. Here is a woodland scene with a brilliantly-plumaged bird in flight. On the north, side is the whirling figure of a bright-eyed dancing girl, her long hair floating out on either side in rippling bird-wing curves, her arms responding to the rise and fall of the music. She leans slightly forward, poised on one foot. She wears a yellow jacket with short arms, with a zigzag border of red and blue. Other dancers are tripping near her. Beyond these are the musicians. 10 We are reminded of one of the scenes on the famous shield of Achilles:--

There, too, the skilful artist's hand had wrought,
With curious workmanship, a mazy dance,
Like that which Daedalus in Knossos erst
At fair-hair'd 11 Ariadne's bidding framed.
There, laying on each other's wrist their hand,
Bright youths and many suitor'd maidens danced:
In fair white linen these; in tunics those
Well woven, shining soft with fragrant oils . . .
Now whirl'd they round with nimble practised feet,
Easy, as when a potter, seated, turns
A wheel, new fashioned by his skilful hand,
And spins it round, to prove if true it run:
Now featly mov'd in well-beseeming ranks.
A numerous crowd, around, the lovely dance
Survey'd, delighted. 12

Another fresco is a picturesque study of sub-marine life. Fish dart to and fro above the ocean floor about two great snouted dolphins, the air bubbles darting from their fins and tails to indicate that they are in motion. 13

In the Queen's Megaton the Cretan ladies are wont to chatter over their needlework during the heat of the day. They admire the works of art on the walls, and discuss the merits of the various draughtsmen who reside elsewhere in the palace. Note how little furniture they require. They won't have anything that is not absolutely necessary in their rooms, and what they have is beautiful. The charm of wide spaces appeals to them. A broad fresco must not be interrupted by ornaments that might distract attention from such a masterpiece. It is sufficient in itself to fill a large part of the room.

Visitors who arrive dusty and weary are conducted to the bath-room, which is entered through a door at the north-west corner. Its walls are plainly painted, but relieved from the commonplace by a broad dado of flowing spirals with rosette centres. Portable tubs are provided, and attendants spray water over those who use them.

We pass from this, the south-eastern, to the north-eastern wing, and find it is occupied by artistic craftsmen who are continually employed in beautifying the palace. Art is under royal patronage. Here, too, are the rooms of musicians. Farther on are the butlers; these provide the stores for the cooks, who occupy the domestic quarters south of the Queen's Megaton and beneath it.

Once again the guards permit us to walk along the corridor of the north entrance, and we turn from their guard-houses and sentinel-boxes to visit the "Theatral Area" at the north-western corner of the palace. On two sides are tiers of stone steps on which spectators seat themselves. One is the royal "grand stand", and it has accommodation for about 200 people; the other is reserved for young people. The crowds stand round about in a circle behind the wooden barriers. Sometimes the attraction is an athletic display. Boxers and wrestlers are popular. Here, too, the dancers display their skill when the king calls upon them to "tread the circus with harmonious steps." Their dances have a religious significance.

Turning southward from the Theatral Area we walk along the broad west court outside the palace. It is paved and terraced. Almost the whole of this outer portion of the western wing is occupied by stores, and the court is the market-place. Here come the traders who sell their fruit and vegetables and wares; and here too those who pay their taxes in kind. Officials and merchants pass to and fro; here is a great consignment of goods from Egypt which is being unpacked. The scribes are busy checking invoices, and issuing orders for its disposal. A group of young people gather round a sailor, who is accompanied by a native Egyptian, and fills their ears with wonderful stories regarding the river Nile and the great cities on its banks.

Our steps are directed to the southern side of the palace. Here is the door leading to the "Court of the Altar" and other sacred rooms. Farther on is the "Court of the Sanctuary" in the southern part of the east wing. Workmen are busy near us extending the palace beyond the royal apartments.

We have now taken a rapid survey of the great square palace of Knossos. There are many details, however, that have escaped our notice. The Cretans were not only great builders, but also experienced sanitary engineers.

A GLIMPSE OF THE EXCAVATED REMAINS OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS

An excellent drainage system was one of the remarkable features of the palace. Terra-cotta drain-pipes, which might have been made yesterday, connect water-flushed closets "of almost modern type", and bath-rooms with a great square drain which workmen could enter to effect repairs through "manholes". Rain water was introduced into the palace, and its flow automatically controlled.

Crete, however, was not alone in anticipating modern sanitary methods. Long before the Late Minoan period, which began about 1700 B.C., the Sumero-Babylonians had a drainage system. Drains and culverts have been excavated at Nippur in stratum which dates before the reign of Sargon I (c. 2650 B.C.), as well as at Surghul, near Lagash, Fara, the site of Shuruppak, and elsewhere. It is uncertain, however, whether the Cretans derived their elaborate drainage system from Sumeria. What remains clear, however, is that on the island kingdom, and in cities of the Tigro-Euphratean valley, the problem of how to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases had been dealt with on scientific lines.

A glimpse of such a palace as that of Knossos, if not of this palace itself, is obtained in the Odyssey, and in that part from which quotation has been made in dealing with the "Throne Room".

Ulysses (Odysseus), the wanderer, is cast ashore on the island of Scheria, the seat of the Phcians, "who of old, upon a time, dwelt in spacious Hypereia". Dr. Drerup 14 and Professor Burrows 15 have independently arrived at the conclusion that Scheria is Crete, Hypereia being Sicily, "and that the origin of the Odyssey is to be sought for in Crete". Burrows adds: "It can be at once granted that attention has been unduly concentrated on Ithaca, Leukias, and Corcyra, while the numerous references in the Odyssey 16 to the topography of Crete have been neglected". Dr. Drerup draws attention to a most suggestive passage in the seventh book, in which the secret is "let out." The Phcian King, Alcinous, promises that his seamen will convey the shipwrecked stranger to his home, "even though it be much farther than Euboea, which", he explains, "certain of our men say is the farthest of lands, they who saw it, when they carried Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, to visit Tityos, son of Gaia". 17 Now Rhadamanthus was the brother of the Cretan King Minos. "What was he doing in Corcyra?" asks Professor Burrows. "The Phcians," adds the same writer, "themselves mariners, artists, feasters, dancers, are surely the Minoans of Crete."

Ulysses (Odysseus) is found on the sea-coast by the princess Nausicaa. She provides him with clothing and food, and says--

Up stranger! seek the city. I will lead
Thy steps towards my royal father's house
Where all Phcia's nobles thou shalt see.

Her proposal is to lead him to her father's farm, where he will gaze on the safe harbour in which

Our gallant barks
Line all the road, each stationed in her place,
And where, adjoining close the splendid fane
Of Neptune, 18 stands the forum with huge stones
From quarries hither drawn, constructed strong,
In which the rigging of their barks they keep
Sail cloth and cordage, and make smooth their oars.

She intends to leave him at this point, fearing that the sailors might ask, "Who is this that goes with Nausicaa? and cast imputations on her character. Apparently the gossips were as troublesome in those times as in our own. She adds naively:

I should blame
A virgin guilty of such conduct much,
Myself, who reckless of her parent's will
Should so familiar with a man consort,
Ere celebration of her spousal rites.

The princess then advises the wanderer to make his way from the royal home farm to the palace:--

Ask where Alcinous dwells, my valiant sire.
Well known is his abode, so that with ease
A child might lead thee to it.

When he is received within the court he should at once seek the queen, her mother.

She beside a column sits
In the hearth's blaze, twirling her fleecy threads
Tinged with sea purple, bright, magnificent!
With all her maidens orderly behind.

If he makes direct appeal to this royal lady he will be sure to "win a glad return to his island home".

The wanderer is much impressed by the gorgeous palace of the Phcian king, towards which he is led by the grey-eyed goddess Athene, who assumed the guise of a girl carrying a pitcher. He pauses on the threshold, gazing with wonder on the inner walls covered with brass and surrounded by a blue dado. Doors are of gold and the door-posts of silver. He has a glimpse of a feasting chamber; the seats against the wall are covered with mantles of "subtlest warp", the "work of many a female hand". There the Phcians are wont to sit eating and drinking in the flare of the torches held in the hands of golden figures of young men.

Fifty handmaidens attend on the King and Queen. Some grind the golden corn in millstones. Others sit spinning and weaving with fingers

Restless as leaves
Of lofty poplars fluttering in the breeze.

So closely do they weave linen that oil will fall off it. just as the Phcian men are skilled beyond others as mariners, so are the women the most accomplished at the loom. The goddess Athene has given them much wisdom as workers, and richest fancy.

Outside the courtyard of the palace is a large garden surrounded by a hedge. There grows many a luxuriant and lofty tree.

Pomegranate, pear, the apple blushing bright,
The honied fig, and unctuous olive smooth.
Those fruits, nor winter's cold nor summer's heat
Fear ever, fail not, wither not, but hang
Perennial . . .
Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,
Figs follow figs, grapes clust'ring grow again.
Where clusters grew, and (every apple stript)
The boughs soon tempt the gath'rer as before.
There too, well-rooted, and of fruit profuse,
His vineyard grows . . .
On the garden's verge extreme
Flow'rs of all hues smile all the year, arranged
With neatest art judicious, and amid
The lovely scene two fountains welling forth,
One visits, into every part diffus'd
The garden ground, the other soft beneath
The threshold steals into the palace court,
Whence ev'ry citizen his vase supplies.

The wanderer, having gazed with wonder about him, enters the palace. He sees men pouring out wine to keen-eyed Hermes, the slayer of Argos, before retiring for the night. Athene again comes to his aid, and wraps him in a mist so that he passes, unseen by anyone, until he reaches the queen. He tells her of his plight, and asks for safe conduct to his native land, and the great lady takes pity on him. The wanderer is given food and wine. Before he retires to rest he relates to King Alcinous how he was cast on the island shore and conducted to the farm by the princess. Recognizing that the girl has compromised herself, his majesty offers her in marriage to the stranger, promising

House would I give thee and possessions too
Were such thy choice.

He adds, however, that if he prefers to return home no man in Phcia "shall by force detain thee". The wanderer's decision is, "Grant to me to visit my native shores again". So the matter ends. Odysseus is conducted to

a fleecy couch
Under the portico, with purple rugs
Resplendent, and with arras spread beneath
And over all with cloaks of shaggy pile.

The king and queen retire to an "inner chamber".

Next morning the king and his counsellors assemble as indicated in the description of the Throne Room of Knossos palace, and arrangements are completed to give Odysseus a safe conduct home. Before he goes a feast is held, at which "the beloved minstrel", Demodocus, sings of the Trojan war. Then a visit is paid to the "Theatral Area", where athletes display feats of strength. A young man challenges the stranger boastfully. Roused to wrath by his speech, Odysseus says:

I am not, as thou sayest,
A novice in these sports but took the lead
In all, while youth and strength were on my side.
But I am now in bands of sorrow held,
And of misfortune, having much endured
In war, and buffeting the boist'rous waves.

He, however, flung a quoit and broke all records. Then he challenged the young man who taunted him

To box, to wrestle with me, or to run . . .
There is no game athletic in the use
Of all mankind, too difficult for me.

The challenge is not accepted, however. Then the king says:

We boast not much the boxer's skill, nor yet
The wrestler's; but light-footed in the race
Are we, and navigators well informed.
Our pleasures are the feast, the harp, the dance
Garments for change, the tepid bath, the bed.
Come, ye Phcians, beyond others skilled
To tread the circus with harmonious steps,
Come play before us; that our guest arrived
In his own country, may inform his friends
How far in seamanship we all excel,
In running, in the dance, and in the song. 19

In these passages we probably have, as some authorities think, real Cretan memories. It is uncertain whether or not actual Cretan poems were utilized in the Odyssey. Professor Burrows suggests that the glories of the palace of Alcinous "were sung by men who had heard of them as living realities, even if they had not themselves seen them; men who had walked the palaces (Knossos and Phtos) perhaps, if not as their masters, at least as mercenaries or freebooters". 20

It will be noted that Alcinous says the Phcians do not boast much of the skill of their boxers. Yet the Cretan pugilists are found depicted in seal impressions, on vases, suggesting that they were regarded with pride as peerless exponents of the "manly sport". It may be, however, that in the last period (Late Minoan III) the island boxers were surpassed by those among the more muscular northerners, who were settled in Crete in increasing numbers. "Late Minoan III", writes Professor Burrows, "is a long period, and marks the successive stages of a gradually decaying culture." The "Cretan memories" in the Homeric poems "refer to Late Minoan III". 21 Apparently the islanders were still famous as skilled mariners, while their dancing was much admired; but as athletes and warriors they had to acknowledge the superiority of the less cultured invaders who had descended on their shores.

Reference has been made to the sacred rooms in the great palace of Knossos. Unlike the Egyptians, the Cretans erected no temples. Their religious ceremonies were conducted in their homes, on their fields, and beside sacred mountain caves. Sir Arthur Evans discovered in the south-eastern part of the palace, near the ladies' rooms, a little shrine which could not have accommodated more than a few persons.

Another shrine was entered from the Central Court to the south of the Throne Room in the western wing. It would appear that this part of the palace was invested with special sanctity. In one of the apartments were found superficial cists in the pavement. The first two had been rifled. Then an undisturbed one was located and opened. It contained a large number of what appeared to be deposits of religious character--vessels containing burnt corn which had been offered to a deity or to deities, tablets, libation tables, and so on. Fragments of faience (native porcelain) had figures of goddesses, cows and calves, goats and kids, and floral and other designs. A number of cockles and other sea-shells artificially tinted in various colours also came to light. Apparently these cists answered the same purpose as sacred caves in which religious offerings were placed.

This custom of effecting a ceremonial connection with a holy place still survives in our own country. Portions of clothing are attached to trees overhanging wishing and curative wells. and coins and pins are also dropped into them. "Pin wells", sometimes called "Penny wells", are not uncommon. In some cases nails are driven into the tree. Special mention may be made of the well and tree of Isle Maree, on Loch Maree, in the Scottish county of Ross and Cromarty. It was visited on a Sunday in September, 1877, by the late Queen Victoria. Her Majesty read a short sermon to her gillies, and afterwards, with a smile, attached an offering to the wishing tree. Such offerings are never removed, for it is believed that a terrible misfortune would befall the individual who committed such an act of desecration. In ancient Egypt offerings were made at tombs, and in Babylonia votive figures of deities mounted on nails were driven into sacred shrines.

Seal impressions, which have been found in the Cretan palace cists, are of special interest. Among the designs were figures of owls, doves, ducks, goats, dogs, lions seizing prey, horned sheep, gods and goddesses. Flowers, sea-shells, houses, were also depicted. One clay impression of a boxer suggests that it was deposited by the pugilist himself to ensure his good luck at a great competition in the Theatral Area. The shells suggest that sailors desired protection.

A CRETAN SHRINE: RESTORED BY SIR ARTHUR EVANS

Snake Goddesses, or goddesses and priestess, "fetish cross", shells, libation jugs, stones hollowed for holding offerings.

One seal of undoubted maritime significance shows a man in a boat attacking a dog-headed sea-monster. The floral seals were probably offerings to the earth mother in Spring. No doubt the cow suckling its calf and the goat its kid were fertility symbols.

The faience relief of the wild goat and its young is one of the triumphs of Cretan art. It is of pale-green colour, with dark sepia markings. The animals are as lifelike as those depicted in the Pallithic cave-drawings. One of the kids is sucking in crouched posture, and the other bleats impatiently in front. The nimble-footed mother has passed with erect head and widely-opened eyes. She is the watchful protector and constant nourisher of her young--a symbol of maternity. The cow and calf is also a fine composition. Commenting on these, Sir Arthur Evans says that "in beauty of modelling and in living interest, Egyptian, Phnician, and, it must be added, classical Greek . . . are far surpassed by the Minoan artist".

Among the marine subjects in faience is one showing two flying fish (the "sea swallows" of the modern Greeks) swimming between rocks and over sea-shells lying on the sand.

Nothing, however, among these votive deposits can surpass in living interest the faience figures of the Snake goddess and her priestess. The former is a semi-anthropomorphic figure with the ears of a cow or some other animal. The exaggerated ear suggests "Broad Ear", one of the members of the family of the Sumerian sea-god Ea. She may have been thus depicted to remind her worshippers that she was ever ready to hear their petitions. On the other hand, it is not improbable that she had at one time the head of a cow or sow. Demeter at Phigalia was horse-headed, and there were serpents in her hair.

This goddess of Crete has a high head-dress of spiral pattern, round which a serpent has enfolded itself, and apparently its head, which is missing, protruded in front like the urs on the Egyptian "helmets" of royalty. Another snake is grasped by the head in her right hand and by the tail in the left, and its body lies wriggling along her outstretched arms, and over her shoulders, forming a loop behind, which narrows at her waist and widens out below it. Other two snakes are twined round her hips below the waist. These reptiles are of green colour with purple-brown spots. Evidently they are symbols of fertility and growth of vegetation. The goddess is attired in a bell-shaped skirt suspended from her "wasp waist", and a short-sleeved, tight-fitting jacket bodice, with short sleeves, open in front to display her ample breasts. Her skin is white, her eyes dark: she wears a necklace round her neck, and her hair falls down behind but only to her shoulders, being gathered up in a fringed arrangement at the back of the head.

The priestess, or votary, has her arms lifted in the Egyptian attitude of adoration. In each hand she grasps a small wriggling snake. A stiff girdle entwines her narrow waist. Unfortunately the head is missing. The jacket bodice is similar to that of the goddess, and the breasts are also ample and bare. "The skirt", writes Lady Evans, "consists of seven flounces fastened apparently on a 'foundation', so that the hem of each flounce falls just over the head of the one below it. . . . Over this skirt is worn a double apron or 'polonaise' similar to that of the goddess, but not falling so deeply, and not so richly ornamented. The main surface is covered with a reticulated pattern, each reticulation being filled with horizontal lines in its upper half. The general effect is that of a check or small plaid. . . . The whole costume of both figures seems to consist of garments carefully sewn and fitted to the shape without any trace of flowing draperies. 22

Among the symbols, which had evidently a religious significance, are the "horns of consecration", the sacred pillars and trees, the double axe, the "swastika" (crux gammata), a square cross with staff handles, and the plain equal-limbed cross. These are represented on seals, in faience, and on stones. Sir Arthur Evans suggests that a small marble cross he discovered--he calls it a "fetish cross"--occupied a central position in the Cretan shrine of the mother goddess. "A cross of orthodox Greek shape", he says, "was not only a religious symbol of Minoan cult, but seems to be traceable in later offshoots of the Minoan religion from Gaza to Eryx". He adds: "It must, moreover, be borne in mind that the equal-limbed eastern cross retains the symbolic form of the primitive star sign, as we see it attached to the service of the Minoan divinities. . . . The cross as a symbol or amulet was also known among the Babylonians and Assyrians. It appears on cylinders (according to Professor Sayce, of the Kassite period), apparently as a sign of divinity. As an amulet on Assyrian necklaces it is seen associated, as on the Palaikastro (Crete) mould, with a rayed (solar) and a semi-lunar emblem--in other words it once more represents a star." The Maltese cross first appears on Elamite pottery of the Neolithic Age: it was introduced into Babylonia at a later period. In Egypt it figures prominently n the famous floret coronet of a Middle Kingdom princess which was found at Dashur, and is believed by some authorities to be of Hittite origin.

If the Cretan cross was an astral symbol, it would appear that the snake or dove goddess was associated, like the Egyptian Isis and the Babylonian Ishtar, with Sirius or some other star which was connected with the food supply. The rising of Sirius in Egypt coincides with the beginning of the Mile flood. It appears on the "night of the drop". The star form of the bereaved Isis lets fall the first tear for Osiris, and as the body moisture of deities has fertilizing and creative properties, it causes the river to increase in volume so that the land may be rendered capable of bearing abundant crops. Osiris springs up in season as the rejuvenated corn spirit.

Other sites in Crete will be dealt with in the chapters which follow. But before dealing with these in detail, it will be of interest to glean evidence from the general finds regarding the early stages of civilization on the island and the first peoples who settled there, and also to compare the beliefs that obtained among the various peoples of the ancient race who, having adopted the agricultural mode of life, laid the foundations of great civilizations, among which that of Crete was so brilliant an example.

Footnotes

1 London, 30th October, 1900.
2 Monthly Review, March, 1901, p. 124.
3 The Critias, Sec. XV
4 Cowper's Odyssey, VIII, 30-54.
5 The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. VI, p. 38.
6 Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. VI, pp. 52-3.
7 The river used to flow nearer the palace site than it does at present.
8 Thucydides, I, 2-4.
9 These and other names were given to the apartments by Sir Arthur Evans.
10 Only one dancing figure has survived of this fresco.
11 Or "Ariadne of the lovely tresses".
12 Iliad, XVIII, 590 et seq. (Derby's translation).
13 These dolphins resemble closely the so-called "swimming elephants" on Scottish sculptured stones. Like the doves they had evidently a religious significance. Pausanias tells of a Demeter which held in one hand a dolphin and in another a dove.
14 Homer (1903), pp. 130 et seq.
15 The Discoveries in Crete (1907), pp. 207 et seq.
16 III, 291-300; XIX, 172-9, 188-9, 200, 338.
17 Butcher and Lang's Odyssey, p. 113.
18 Poseidon in the original.
19 Extracts from the Odyssey, Books VII and VIII (Cowper's translation).
20 The Discoveries in Crete, p. 209.
21 The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 209-10.
22 The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. IX, pp. 74 et seq.