MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER IX

Growth of Cretan Culture and Commerce

Cretan Origin of ean Civilization--The Historic Periods--Cretan and Egyptian Chronologies --Egyptian Evidence of Early Shipping-- Pottery as Evidence of Racial Drifts--Asiatic Invasions--The Libyans and Early Cretans--Evidence of Imported Sea-shells--Physical Features of Crete--Prevailing Air-currents--Why ean Mariners sailed by Night--Homeric References to Night Voyages--Fertility of Crete--Its Natural Beauties--Life on Sea-coast and among the Mountains--Corn and Wine Harvests--Surplus Products for Early Commerce--Glimpses of Early Minoan Times--Relations with Egypt in Pyramid Period--Story of the Stone jars--Invention of Potter's Wheel--Borrowings from Egypt--Cretan Ceramic Development--Problem of Sea Routes--Cretans as Ha-nebu and Keftiu.

THE discoveries in Crete have proved conclusively that its pre-Hellenic culture was of great antiquity and local growth. It had developed with unbroken continuity from Neolithic times, and so pronounced was its individual character that it could borrow from contemporary civilizations without suffering loss of identity.

Cretan civilization was immensely older than Mycenn. Indeed it had reached its "Golden Age" before Mycenassumed any degree of importance as a cultural centre. This fact has compelled archlogists to select a new name which could be appropriately applied to it. Professor Reisch favours "ean", and, all things considered, this generic term appears to be the most appropriate. It takes into account the obscure influences which were at work during the lengthy Neolithic Period, when independent communities were settled on various islands and on points on the mainland and had begun to trade one with another. The Island of Melos, for instance, as we have seen, was exporting obsidian and importing in exchange apparently the products of other localities. The influence of environment was directing into new lines the common form of culture derived from the North African homeland by the predominant race.

Mycenn civilization is placed in its proper perspective by referring to it as a late stage of ean. On the other hand, Cretan was an early and local form of it. "In Crete", says Mr. H. R. Hall, "it first developed, then spreading northwards it absorbed the kindred culture of the islands, and perhaps the Peloponnese; then it won Central Greece north of the Isthmus from its probably alien aborigines, becoming there 'Mycenn', and finally, when its own end was near, forced its way into Thessaly, having already reached the Troad in one direction, Cyprus (and Philistia later) in another, Sicily and Messapia in another." 1

Sir Arthur Evans has divided the history of ean civilization in Crete into three main periods, named after the legendary king, or Dynasties of kings, called Minos. These are:

Early Minoan.
Middle Minoan.
Late Minoan.

Each of these periods has also been divided into three stages: Early Minoan I, Early Minoan II, Early Minoan III, and so on to Late Minoan III.

The Minoan Age begins with the introduction of bronze, which occurred, however, long after ean civilization had assumed distinctive form. Crete was then able to borrow and adapt to its own use the inventions of other countries, and yet maintain the individuality of its local institutions and art products. The introduction of bronze stimulated its industries, but caused no more change in its national characteristics than has been effected in China by the introduction of electric lighting in our own day.

Cretan archlogists as a whole are agreed as to the order and relative duration of the various historic periods, and most of them have adopted the system of Sir Arthur Evans. Nor do they differ greatly regarding the approximate dating of these. It has even been found possible, although the local script cannot yet be read, to frame a provisional chronological system based on the Berlin system of minimum dating, so as to fit the story of Crete into the history of the ancient world. Important clues have been forthcoming in this connection. From an early period trading relations existed between the island kingdom and the Delta coast, and various manufactured articles were consequently exchanged, as well as wheat and barley, oil and skins, and other perishable goods. The discovery in the deposits assigned to different and well-marked historic phases, of Egyptian products in Crete and Cretan products in Egypt, has made it possible for archlogists to ascertain which periods in either country were contemporaneous.

"With the help of Egyptian synchronisms", writes Mr. H. R. Hall, "we know that the Minoan civilization was nearly, if not quite, as old as the Egyptian. . . . If we date the beginnings of Egyptian history about 3500 B.C., we have not long to wait before we find indisputable traces of connection between Egypt and Crete." 2

Early Minoan I begins, therefore, some time after the legendary Pharaoh Mena united by conquest Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty, and before the great pyramids near Cairo were erected. About the same period the Sumerian civilization of Babylonia was beginning to flourish, and the Hatti tribe of the Hittite confederacy had established itself in Anatolia.

Early Minoan II extended from about the period of the Fourth to that of the Sixth Egyptian Dynasty: that is from the Pyramid Age till the close of the Old Kingdom Period.

Early Minoan III covers the dark age of early Egyptian history extending from the Seventh till the Eleventh Dynasties.

Middle Minoan I commenced early in the Eleventh Dynasty Period. Middle Minoan II flourished during the part of the Twelfth and part of the Thirteenth Dynasties; and Middle Minoan III came to an end during the early period of the Hyksos occupation of Egypt.

The Late Minoan Period was the "Golden Age" of Crete. It began before the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt, and attained its highest splendour during the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty. During Late Minoan II, Thothmes III of Egypt received gifts from the island kingdom as well as from the Hittites.

Late Minoan III was an age of decline. Foreigners were in occupation of Crete, and the mainland towns of Tiryns and Mycenwere flourishing and influential. ean civilization had thus reached the Mycenn stage. Iron was coming into use; the sixth city of Troy had been built. It was the Age of Homer's heroes. At the close of the Mycenn period of the ean Age the northern conquerors of Greece were inaugurating the Hellenic era. "The so-called miracle of the rise of Hellenism, early in the first millennium B.C., is to be explained", writes Mr. D. G.

Hogarth, "by the re-invigoration of aboriginal societies settled for long previous ages in the ean area, and possessed of an ancient tradition and instinct of culture. . . . This process was chiefly due to the blood and influence of an immigrant population of less impaired vigour, which had long been cognizant of and participant in the mid-European culture, and was itself, both in origin and development, related to the elder society of the ean area." 3

At what period Crete began to trade with Egypt it is as yet impossible to ascertain with certainty. Professor Flinders Petrie 4 found, in the lowest levels of the temple at Abydos, black pottery which he concluded came from Crete on account of its close resemblance to fragments discovered by Sir Arthur Evans in the Late Neolithic deposits of Knossos. He also characterized as ean several vases and pieces of painted pottery discovered in tombs of the First Dynasty. He maintained further that the Cretan and other foreign imports were brought to Egypt in the galleys depicted on pre-Dynastic vases.

This view has not found general acceptance. It has been urged that the galleys were ordinary Nile boats. "They have deck shelters", writes Mr. Hall, "just like the model funerary boats of the Middle Kingdom tombs, and they carry women on board. On one vase a woman is depicted waiting, with her hands above her head; it may well be that they actually represent the ferry boats of the dead. They carry purely Egyptian emblems. Now, we know of the Egyptians that they were never seafarers; they disliked the sea, and they held the seafaring inhabitants of the Delta coast in abomination: it was never the Egyptians who went to Crete in the early days or later. . . . Finally, the boats are represented amid ostriches, oryxes, mountains, and palm-trees: that is to say, they are sailing on the Nile with the desert hills and their denizens on either hand." 5

All that seems certain in this connection is that shipping was already well advanced in pre-Dynastic times. There is no evidence to show whether the seafarers on the Delta coast, or in Crete, possessed superior galleys to those used by the navigators of the Nile. No doubt they did. The Cretans who went to Melos for obsidian must have found it necessary to build galleys capable of withstanding the buffetings of wind and wave in the ean Sea. In fact, the early settlers could not have reached Crete unless they had superior craft to the prehistoric dahabeeyahs and feluccas of the Nile. It is possible, therefore, as Professor Flinders Petrie thinks, that oil and skins were carried across the Mediterranean from Crete in pre-Dynastic times, and exchanged for the corn and beans of Egypt. But on this point the evidence afforded by the pottery cannot be held to be conclusive.

The dark pottery with geometric designs belongs to a class of widespread distribution. Specimens with similar decorations, but of different texture, have been found as far apart as Anau by the Pumpelly expeditions, which conducted important researches in Russian and Chinese Turkestan, at Susa, the ancient capital of Elam, in Persia, at Hittite sites at Sakje Geuzi in North Syria, in Cappadocia and Boghaz'k, and at points in the Balkan Peninsula. The black pottery of pre-Dynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete may, therefore, have come from Anatolia. Some hold, indeed, that it has an ethnic significance.

MAGAZINE OF JARS AND KASELLES, KNOSSOS

The Jars ("pithoi") are made of decorated earthenware and are of huge size. The "kaselles" are the small square openings in the floor of the magazine, evidently used at one time for storage purposes.

Mr. Pumpelly's view is that the Central Asian oases were the sources of Western Asiatic culture, but the evidence he brings forward in this connection is of somewhat slight character and hardly justifies his theory that Egypt and Babylonia derived their knowledge how to grow barley and wheat, and actually received certain breeds of domesticated animals, from this part of the world. As we have seen, cattle were domesticated in southern France in the Aurignacian period of the Pallithic Age, before the Fourth Glacial Epoch.

Mr. Pumpelly 6 has, however, demonstrated that climatic changes which took place in the Transcaspian oasis caused the early civilization, of which he discovered important traces, to vanish entirely. The "Kurgans" were buried by drifting sand, and the agriculturists and pastoralists had therefore to migrate in search of "fresh woods and pastures new". It may be that their movements are indicated by the various finds of black pottery. Communities of the wanderers may have settled in Elam and Anatolia, and drifted into Egypt through Syria, and towards Crete through the Balkans. Professor Elliot Smith says that "a definitely alien strain made its appearance in the people of Egypt during the Early Dynastic period, and left its indelible impress in their physical traits for all time. The heterogeneous features appear in a form so pronounced as to justify the positive assertion that the alien element in the mixture was neither Egyptian nor did it belong to any of the kindred peoples. It was something quite foreign and certainly Asiatic in origin--that variety which Von Luschan has called Armenoid." 7 If the Anatolian "broad-heads" were the distributors of the black pottery obtained from the cast, representatives of their stock may have reached Crete as well as Egypt before the introduction of metal-working. The evidence obtained from graves shows that they were pressing westward into Europe long before the close of the Neolithic Period, although not in such great numbers as in the Copper and Bronze Ages.

Another view of the problem has been urged by Dr. Duncan Mackenzie. He considers it probable that while the Libyans were developing the black-topped style of pottery "the allied Neolithic people of the ean, in a wider European context, were creating the peculiar style of black hand-polished ware typical, for that early period, of the ean. Well on in this Neolithic epoch", he says, "must come the Egyptian-looking black-topped ware found in the Copper Age tombs of Cyprus, whose significance in this connection was first pointed out by Furtwangler as being a new indication of race connection between the Egyptian and East Mediterranean of that period, and of a northward movement of the Libyan race consequent upon, and caused by, the first appearance of the Egyptians proper in the Nile land. If, as is likely, this northward movement began before the ean civilization had attained to such consistency in itself and such influence outwards as could have had any definite echo in Egypt, then we should have sufficient explanation of the fact that of imported remains in Egypt none from the ean region go back to this early period." 8 The pottery with geometric designs found by Professor Flinders Petrie at Abydos may therefore have come from North Africa.

It will thus be seen that the problem as to whether Crete traded with Egypt in Late Neolithic and the earliest Minoan times must be left in the realm of conjecture. What seems certain, however, is that the island kingdom received cultural influences directly or indirectly either from North Africa or Anatolia at an early period in its history. This could not have occurred without navigation being well advanced. But, although such a conclusion seems highly probable, it would be rash to build upon it in absence of direct evidence regarding the existence of the regular and constant exchange of commodities, and the influence which would consequently be exercised in the development of art. "We can hardly as yet", writes Mr. H. R. Hall, "speak of relations between Egyptian and ean Art in Neolithic days, though it is by no means certain that such relations did not then exist, especially since there is a probability that the ean civilization was ultimately derived, in far-away Neolithic times, from that of Egypt, or rather from one of the primitive elements that went to form Egyptian culture." 9 It should be mentioned, however, that a piece of ivory was found in Neolithic strata at Phtos, in Crete. It may have come from Egypt. Shells have also been discovered by Italian archlogists in the caves of Liguria, which do not belong to the north Mediterranean coast, but are common along the Libyan coast. These are wave-worn and were probably carried to Italy by early navigators, but whether these were Neolithic or Early Minoan Cretans is uncertain.

The makers of pottery with geometric designs must have regarded sea-washed Crete as a veritable Paradise, whether they came from Libyan grasslands fringing yellow desert, or the Delta region with its seasonal plagues, or from the uplands of Anatolia where in winter the passes are often snow-blocked. Quite a variety of climates is offered by the picturesque island, with its great mountain spine fretted by peaks which rise from 5000 to 8000 feet above the sea-level, its sloping forests of pine and oak and chestnut, and its sheltered valleys where grow the olive and fig and vine. A sharp contrast is afforded by even its northern and southern shores, especially in winter, when the former is chilled by bleak winds from the mainland, and the latter is as balmy as the North African coast. During the greater part of the year the prevailing winds blow alternately from the north-east and north-west, and from the south-west and the south. The northern winds, ever welcomed through the ages in Egypt, attain greatest velocity in late winter and whiten the mountains of Crete with the snows they retain until July, while the currents from the south come chiefly during the months of autumn and early winter. Easterly and westerly breezes are invariably light and of short duration. "The cold current rushing over the easy north slope of the Balkan, and through the Rumelian gap, gathers force", writes Mr. D. G. Hogarth, 10 "as it nears the African vacuum. Local relief shelters the Adriatic coasts, and to some extent western Macedonia, Thessaly, and Botia; but Attica receives a full draught through the depression between its low hills, Pentelicus and Hymettus; and the isles, especially Crete, are scourged to such purpose that the higher vegetation in many districts will only grow in triangular patches to southward of sheltering rocks. The counter-current blows off the Sahara with terrific energy for almost as many days annually as the steppe wind; but the high relief of Crete breaks its force from the ean, and it is on the slopes of the White Mountains, Kedros, Psiloriti and Lasithi, and the western coasts and isles of Greece that it expends the most of its storms and rains." The north wind, however, brings more moisture to the peninsula. But the rainfall diminishes towards the south) "till little is left to Attica or the Cyclad isles but a hard cold current of more bracing and stimulating sort for the healthy human frame than is found anywhere else in the area of the Nearer East".

Between July and September the north-east or northwest wind falls in the late afternoon, and then "the overheated land begins to suck a current off the cooler sea--that familiar inbat breeze which, after a short interval of stillness following midday, sets the caiques dancing in every Levantine harbour". At midnight the land breeze commences to blow seaward.

Early navigators among the isles must have soon learned to take advantage of morning and evening breezes as they passed from harbour to harbour with their commodities.. In the Odyssey 11 the wanderer Odysseus spends his last day among the Phcians on the isle of Scheria longing for the sun to set.

He to the radiant sun
Turned wistful eyes, anxious for his decline.

After supper he was escorted to the vessel which was to convey him to Ithaca. Ere the port was cleared he "silent laid him down", and when the rowers

With lusty strokes upturned the flashing waves,
His eyelids, soon, sleep, falling as a dew,
Closed fast.

All night long the vessel sped like a falcon, "swiftest of the fowls of heaven".

The brightest star of heaven, precursor chief
Of day-spring, now arose, when at the isle
(Her voyage soon performed) the bark arrived. 12

Telemachus also sails at midnight, when

blue-eyed Pallas from the west
Called forth propitious breezes; fresh they curled
The sable deep, and, sounding, swept the waves . . .

A land breeze filled the canvas . . .
Thus all night long the galley, and till dawn,
Had brightened into day, cleared swift the flood. 13

In early spring navigation is perilous in the ean, and even in summer winds may veer suddenly without warning. It was a meltem or summer gale that caused the ship on which St. Paul was being carried to Italy to meet with disaster. The "south wind blew softly", and "they sailed close by Crete". 14 Then arose "a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon", a hard north-eastern which comes in violent gusts and covers the heaving bays with sheets of foam. "And when the ship was caught," says the Biblical narrative, "and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive." The meltem was encountered by the captain of the vessel, who paid so little heed to St. Paul's warning, in late autumn, when, as was wonted to be said, "sailing was now dangerous because the fast was now already past". 15

Classic legends of heroes who were shipwrecked like Odysseus, and of sea monsters and syrens, are eloquent of the perils which the sea rovers of the ean confronted with unflinching courage and increasing skill wrung from hard experience. But as man has ever achieved greatest progress when confronted by difficulties, the islanders became the first traders on the Mediterranean. They were lauded for their seamanship in song and story--those self-confident men so proud and cold, of whom the goddess Athene spoke to Odysseus, the wanderer, when on the Island of Scheria:

Mark no man; question no man; for the sight
Of strangers is unusual here, and cold

The welcome by this people shown to such.
They, trusting in swift ships, by the free grant
Of Neptune traverse his wide waters, borne
As if on wings, or with the speed of thought. 16

In early Minoan times Crete must have proved as attractive to settlers as it did to traveller Lithgow in 1609, when, describing the plain of Khania, in the north-west, he wrote: "Trust me, I told along these rocks at one time, and within my sight, some sixty-seven villages; but when I entered the valley, I could not find a foote of ground unmanured, save a narrow passage way wherein I was, the olives, pomegranates, dates, figges, oranges, lemmons, and pomi del Adamo, growing all through other, and at the rootes of which trees grew wheate, malvasie, muscadine, leaticke wines, grenadiers, carnobiers, mellones, and all other sortes of fruites, and hearbes the earth can yeld to man, that for beauty, pleasure and profit it may easily be surnamed the garden of the whole universe, being the goodliest plot, the diamond sparke, and the honeyspot of all Candy (Crete). There is no land more temperate for ayre, for it hath a double spring tyde; no soyle more fertile, and therefore it is called the combat of Bacchus and Ceres; no region or valley more hospitable, in regard of the sea having such a noble haven cut through its bosome, being as it were the very resting-place of Neptune."

The year is divided into three seasons. After the gales and rainstorms of Winter comes in March a luxuriant and balmy Spring, when fragrant and many-coloured wild flowers, anciently sacred to the Earth Mother, bloom everywhere in great profusion. Flocks and herds that were "wintered" in the valleys are driven once again to the uplands, where rich fresh herbage springs up in abundance. Rivers and streams flash in the sunshine; torrents leap gladly among the rocks, and the sound of falling waters mingles with the constant hum of insects and the songs of melodious birds. In April turtle doves are numerous in passage; in Crete as in Egypt and Babylonia they were associated in other days with the goddess of love.

When the grey dusk blots out the splendour of sunset, and the olive warblers are silenced in the olive groves, the nightingale's sweet "jug-jug" and clear pensive carol ripples through the shadowy woodlands. The shepherd who has ascended the mountain slopes to his summer shelter does not hear the songster of night, but at dawn he is awakened by the wise thrush which "sings its song twice over", and ere long in the growing brightness his heart rejoices to hear once again the full-throated chorus of blackbirds and linnets and woodlarks in leafy woods. where silent lizards come out to listen to the pipes of Pan, where rough satyrs dance merrily, and wide-eyed nymphs peer shyly through congregated trees and whispering water reeds at the human intruders of their solitudes. Higher up the slopes are scented pine-woods that murmur in the breeze like the everlasting sea. Spring comes slowly up this way. Beyond the forest zone the snow retreats grudgingly, and is replaced by the bright foliage of Alpine plants in sheltered nooks, and especially on the southern mountain face. When the glistening diadem of snow is robbed from Mount Ida, and no storm-cloud comes nigh, its bald crest looms greyly across the blue Mediterranean.

There are villages on bracing upland valleys, and in these the present-day descendants of the ancient Cretans lead simple and secluded lives, like the earliest pastoralists. Herding their flocks, they climb shelves of rasping rock, wearing the quaint skin boots with protruding heel and toe pieces that were invented by their remote ancestors. Hither may have come by preference many of the booted Anatolians who were attracted to the island in Minoan times. In midsummer, when the valleys beneath are parched with heat, and their fields and gardens must needs be irrigated, a temperate climate prevails on the plateaus. The nights are cool and refreshing, and amidst the hushed silence of the mountains the voices of men who guard their flocks can be heard calling from great distances through the rarefied air, when the Sphakiots, who claim to be descendants of the Dorians, come to raid the sheepfolds.

It is on these uplands, where Artemis still cares for her nimble-footed herds, that the greatest activity is displayed in Spring-time and early Summer. In the rich alluvial valleys the small farmers have not much else to do than to survey their growing crops. Their fields were ploughed and sown before the "storm season" came on, and they secured ample nourishment from the drenching rains. The harvest falls in May on these lower grounds, but on the uplands it cannot be gathered in before July. After crops are threshed and stored, the fruit is ripe for plucking; then grape juice flows crimson from the wine press, and sweet oil from golden olives.

In ancient times Crete yielded a rich surplus of its products which was available for purposes of trade. Ships were loaded with skins and wine and oil, dried fish and sponges, dried fruits and sacks of barley, which were bartered for the commodities of other lands. The seamen visited island after island in the ean sea, and they ventured westward to Sicily; the mainland of Greece was but a day's journey; eastward lay the shores of Anatolia, where the second city of Troy had rich gifts to offer in exchange for heavy cargoes. In time Egypt attracted the fearless mariners. It lay towards the south-east, and when favourable winds were blowing could be reached in the space of two or three days. They may have heard of this rich and wonderful land on the Syrian coast, or perhaps there were Cretan traditions regarding it. Birds that flew thither may have guided them. In the story of Uenuamen, the Egyptian emissary who was forced to remain in Cyprus, that melancholy man laments, gazing across the sea, "Seest thou not the birds which fly, which fly back unto Egypt? Look at them; they go unto the cool canal. And how long do I remain abandoned here!" 17 Let us follow the island mariners to the homeland of their ancestors, voyaging in the track of migrating birds.

In the Cretan period, Early Minoan I, is embraced the Third Egyptian Dynasty (C. 2980-2900 B.C.). A change had taken place in the administration of Egypt, Pharaoh Zoser having transferred his court from the south to Memphis, the London of the Nile Valley. He was the builder of the first pyramid-the step pyramid of Sakkara; and his activities extended to Sinai, whither he sent annual expeditions to work the copper mines. Early Cretan traders must have returned home with wonderful stories of his great achievements. But they were doubtless more greatly impressed by the tireless Pharaoh Sneferu, who did so much to strengthen and consolidate united Egypt. He battled against Asian hordes which invaded the Delta region, constructed roads there, and fortified strategic points on the eastern frontier. This monarch built great river vessels for purposes of trade and defence, some of which were over a hundred and seventy feet long. As he also dispatched on one occasion, as he duly recorded, a fleet of forty ships to the Syrian coast to obtain cedars from Lebanon, it is evident that Mediterranean navigation had been well advanced ere his time. He may have been not only familiar with the achievements of Cretan mariners, but perhaps even employed them.

Sneferu was the last king of his line. The Fourth Dynasty (c. 2900-2750 B.C.) produced the stern and masterful Pharaohs--Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura--who erected the immense pyramids near Cairo. In this Age imposing royal statues were carved from material as hard as diorite, that of Khafra being one of the triumphs of Egyptian art.

Direct evidence of Crete's connection with Egypt during this, the Old Kingdom, period is of scanty character. It is not to be wondered, however, that such should be the case. The marvel is that any traces at all should survive of trading relations conducted at such a remote period.

To emphasize the importance of the few significant finds that have enabled the Sherlock Holmeses of Archlogy to prove that such relations did exist, it should be explained that after copper came into use in Egypt, fine stone working became possible, and developed rapidly. The invention of the copper drill enabled workmen to construct shapely bowls, vases, jars, platters, and other vessels of porphyry, diorite, alabaster, and other suitable stones. Craftsmen took evident delight in their handiwork. In one of the tomb scenes, two of them are depicted squatting on the ground drilling out stone vessels. The artist imparted to their faces an expression of self-conscious reserve which suggests that they were accustomed to hear their praises sounded and took pride in their skill. Hieroglyphics placed between the figures record a characteristic conversation. "This is a very beautiful vessel," says one, and his comrade replies, "It is, indeed." 18

These stone vessels were in great demand, and displaced in the market the rough hand-made pottery, which consequently deteriorated in quality; evidently it was manufactured chiefly for sale to the poorer classes, and) as burial rites have ever been of conservative character, to be placed in graves. The same thing happened in Crete after the introduction of metal. There, too, stone vessels caused much unemployment among the potters, and less skill was displayed by those who supplied cheap vessels of baked clay to a declining market.

It is of special interest to find in this connection that the Cretan stone vases among Early Minoan relics show points of resemblance to those of Egypt. The most important evidence, however, is derived from strata of Middle Minoan I. Some fragments of carinated bowls belonging to this period resemble closely characteristic Egyptian carinated bowls of the Third and Fourth Dynasties. The Cretan vessels were made of Liparite imported from the Lipari islands, which are situated to the north of Sicily, and were apparently visited by the adventurous mariners of Crete in Early Minoan times. No doubt can remain that these Cretan bowls were copies of Egyptian models, and these were probably carried direct from the land of the Pharaohs.

The copper drill, which filled the hearts of Egyptian potters with despair, was in time surpassed by a more wonderful mechanical contrivance, which ultimately restored the prestige and popularity of their ancient craft.

EARLY MINOAN POTTERY, INCLUDING EXAMPLES WITH "BEAK" OR "TEAPOT SPOUTS"

(FROM VASILIKI).

Sometime during the Fourth Dynasty, when the industries were being stimulated by the Pyramid -building activities of the Pharaohs, and inventive minds were constantly directed towards the solution of difficult problems with purpose to simplify and expedite the work of construction, an ingenious craftsman produced the potter's wheel. He was probably a citizen of busy Memphis. As much is suggested by the fact that the new invention was afterwards associated with Ptah, the god of that city, and his southern form, Khnumu, of the First cataract colony of artisans. These deities were depicted shaping the sun and moon and the first man and woman on the potter's wheel. The discoveries and inventions of pious worshippers were always attributed to the culture deity.

As the shapely products of the potter's wheel had to be burned with more care than the old hand-made articles, the problem of firing was solved by the introduction of the enclosed furnace. Results were then obtained which placed the workmanship of the stone-vessel workers in the shade. One can imagine the proud inventor carrying his wonderful jars and vases to the royal palace to receive the congratulations of the Pharaoh, and perhaps a decoration of which he was richly deserving.

The new pottery attained speedy and widespread popularity. Both in Egypt and Crete the potters first imitated the vessels of stone and metal. Indeed the Early Minoan workers, when they decorated their productions, painted imitation rivets on the handles. The Cretan Schnabelkannen (vase form), with "beak spout", "bridge spout", or "teapot spout", had been evidently modelled on similar copper and stone vases of the Egyptian Old Kingdom Period. Trading relations between the Cretans and the Nilotic peoples must therefore have been of a direct and intimate character.

But although Crete thus borrowed from Egypt, just as any modern country may borrow an invention from another, its civilization maintained its strictly local character. It was because the island craftsmen had attained a high degree of skill that they were able to adopt new methods, and contribute to the general growth of culture. They were not mere imitators who slavishly copied the methods of their neighbours. Their own inventions were in turn borrowed by others.

The study of Cretan pottery shows that its culture was of local growth and that development was not due merely to outside influence, although outside influences may have at periods provided the stimulus which caused craftsmen to produce something new and improve upon what was being done elsewhere. The spirit of rivalry involved has ever made for progress.

Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who has acted as Sir Arthur Evans's "lieutenant" in Crete, and is "the chief authority on Early Cretan pottery", as Professor Burrows says, 19 was the first to deal with the development of ceramic art of the island in a manner which has thrown much light on the growth of its civilization. The American and Italian archlogists acknowledge freely his influence and example as an accurate observer, and constantly refer to his "masterly analysis" of Knossian ceramic art. He has woven a wonderful narrative from the collection of fragments dug out of the soil, setting in order what had for so long been confused and obscure. 20

Trial pits were sunk at various points on the hill of Knossos and inside the palace, with purpose to ascertain the contents and depth of the Neolithic stratum. It was found that the average thickness from the virgin soil upwards was about six metres, the greatest being eight. In the lowest layer, fragments were obtained of a "sooty grey" pottery which had been hand-polished outside and inside. The primitive potters made vessels of rough shape from poorly sifted clay, which had neither necks nor differentiated bases: there was no decoration. The second metre yielded a similar ware, but a few fragments were found to be ornamented with geometrical designs, the V-shaped zigzag being either filled in with or surrounded by dots. Some authorities believe that this geometric motive is of northern origin. It appears on Late Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery in our own country and throughout the continent.

In the third and fourth metres a small percentage of the fragments are incised. Then in the fifth metre appears a new development. The incised geometric designs are found to be filled with gypsum or chalk. Here begins the "light on dark" ornamentation of Cretan pottery. This style of pottery has been found in the first stratum of Troy and also in Egypt. Whether it was imported into the Nile Valley from Crete or Asia Minor is, however, uncertain. The evidence afforded indicates either a racial drift from some cultural centre, or the existence of commercial connections between widely separated districts at a remote period in the Neolithic Age. The interval represented by this stratum was of a lengthy duration.

Another new development occurs in the fifth metre. The commonest primitive ware, which shows gradually improving workmanship, is no longer wholly plain. After the vessels were polished, some of the potters began to decorate them with waved rills which gave a rippling aspect to the surface. This style of ornamentation increased in popularity during the period represented by the sixth metre, and was not only effected on the outsides of vessels, but also inside the jutting rims.

We now approach the close of the Neolithic Period.

The pottery increases in quantity, and among the new forms which appear are cups which are evidently the prototypes of the Kamares vessels of a later age.

In the seventh metre we are in the period of transition between the Stone and Bronze Ages. It comes up to the level of the floor of the first Knossian palace, and as the ground was levelled before this building was erected, the eighth metre of the Early Minoan Period appears to have been swept away. Fragments of it may have become mixed with those in the seventh stratum.

The seventh metre is of special interest because it contains the earliest specimens of painted ware. The potters who ornamented their vessels with white-filled geometric incised designs, began to paint them instead. This departure opened up endless possibilities of development. At first the early zigzags were imitated, but in time new decorative motives evolved, and then came a free use of various colours, with variations of "light on dark" and "dark on light" designs. Varnish was also used to give a more lustrous surface than was obtained by hand-polishing. This early painted and varnished ware was hand-made. In the Latest Neolithic Period, however, the clay was finely sifted and well baked. Instead of being dark, like the earlier productions, it was of a bright brick-red colour. Apparently the enclosed furnace had come into use in Crete before the introduction of the potter's wheel. It was when the potters succeeded in baking this red ware that the "dark on light" designs came into use.

At Phtos similar results were forthcoming from a pit sunk below the palace floor. The hill had been levelled prior to the erection of the palace, and only 5 metres of the strata remained. "I was able", writes Mosso, who conducted this excavation, "to confirm the result of Dr. Mackenzie's investigation of the black pottery upon the virgin soil being plain.

THE "HARVESTER VASE" (STONE) FOUND AT AGHIA TRIADHA

(See full description in Chapter XII)

A little higher appears pottery with decoration of punctured dots and lines. In a later period the decoration of the pottery becomes more complex; imitation of basket-work is found, and the deeply incised lines are filled with white chalk. The vases become more elegant, and have decoration in white on a black ground. This pottery is identical with that found in the Troad and in Sicily." 21

When Cretan pottery attained its highest development in the Middle Minoan Period, it found a ready market in Egypt, which never produced ware so richly coloured or elaborately ornamented. In another direction the Cretans also surpassed their teachers. This was in the carving of vessels of stone. The island craftsmen began by imitating Nilotic forms, but used a softer material which allowed their artists freer play. The greatest surviving triumph of Cretan decoration on stone is the so-called Harvester vase from Aghia Triadha, near Phtos. With consummate skill the artist depicted upon it a procession of men marching four deep, who are evidently taking part in some ceremony. One of the figures holds in his right hand an Egyptian sistrum, and is followed by a number of lusty singers. The drawing is entirely devoid of Egyptian conventionalism, and possesses a degree of naturalism which is typically Cretan. It is a spirited impression of an emotional group of human beings, and strikes quite a modern note. These stone vases were manufactured in Crete long after the new pottery had displaced stone and metal vessels as articles of everyday use. It is believed they were covered with thin layers of gold, and could have been purchased only by wealthy persons.

Another direct connection between Egypt and Crete is the button seal. It came into use in Crete during the Early Minoan II and III Periods. Mr. H. R. Hall thinks it passed from the island to the Nile valley, where the cylinder seal had long been the popular form. Sir Arthur Evans, on the other hand, is inclined to regard it as being of Delta origin. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt it is a relic of direct trade oversea between the two peoples.

The interesting problem here arises: By what route did the Cretans navigate their vessels to the Egyptian coast? One view is that they sailed across the open sea to the Libyan coast and the Delta, and another that their route was along the Asiatic coast by Cyprus. Mr. H. R. Hall has pointed out in this connection that the Mediterranean tribes "who attacked Egypt in the reign of Rameses III actually did take the longer route". He grants that single ships might have directly crossed the sea. but says that "the probability remains that the longer and safer route was the original one by which connection was first established, and that it was not until the approximate position of either Egypt or Sicily was well known that the direct route could be first dared". 22

It is probable that the Cretan mariners first came into touch with the coast population of Egypt, who were known as the Haau, that is, "fen men" or "swamp men". They were a seafaring folk, and were regarded by the Dynastic Egyptians as aliens. The magical spells of the "Book of the Dead" were forbidden to them. About the time of the Sixth Dynasty references are made to the Ha-nebu, which meant "all the northerners". In the Eighteenth Dynasty it was applied to signify the Anatolians and the inhabitants of Greece. The early Cretans may have been called the Ha-nebu also. A more direct and later term applied to them was the Keftiu. Maspero has suggested that Keftiu signified the people and Keftiu the land. According to Hall, Keftiu is the same expression as Kefti, "signifying 'at the back of', or 'behind'; i.e. the land Keftiu. was the 'hinterland', the 'Back of Beyond' to the Egyptians". 23 In the Bible Crete is referred to as Caphtor.

Figures of the Keftiu in Egyptian tombs of the Empire Period are typically Cretan, with wasp waists and girdle and Minoan kilt, and hair falling over the shoulders in pleated tails. They carry vessels of Cretan shape with characteristic decorations. Towards the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty the racial designation Keftiu drops out of use, and names of tribes are given. By that time the island had been overrun by conquerors from the mainland who sacked and destroyed the palaces and overthrew the Knossian Dynasty.

Footnotes

1 The Journal of Egyptian Archlogy, Vol. I, p. iii (April, 1914).
2 The Journal of Egyptian Archlogy, Vol. I, pp. 111, 112 (April, 1914).
3 Ionia and the East, p. 99 (1909).
4 Abydos, Vol. II, p. 38.
5 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXV., pp. 321 et seq.
6 See also The Pulse of Asia, by Professor Huntington, a member of the staff of the Pumpelly Expedition in Turkestan.
7 The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 95, 96.
8 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXIII, pp. 155 et seq.
9 Journal of Egyptian Archlogy, Vol. I, p. 110, and Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXV, p. 337.
10 The Nearer East, pp. 99 et seq.
11 Book XIII.
12 Cowper's translation.
13 Odyssey, Book II (Cowper's translation), 530-53.
14 Acts, xxvii.
15 Ibid., xxvii, 9. The fast was the great day of atonement in the month of September.
16 Odyssey, Book VII (Cowper's translation), 39-44.
17 King and Hall's Egyptian and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries, p. 430.
18 Breasted's translation, A History of Egypt, p. 96.
19 The Discoveries in Crete, p. 48.
20 Journal of Hellenic Studies, XXIII and subsequent volumes.
21 Palaces of Crete, p. 25.
22 The Annual of the British School at Athens, VIII, pp. 157-8.
23 The Annual of the British School at Athens, VIII, pp. 159-60.

MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE

By DONALD A. MACKENZIE

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED

66 CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON

[1917]

CHAPTER VIII

Pre-Hellenic Earth and Corn Mothers

Mythology and Floating Folk-beliefs--Legends of Egyptian Influence in Crete--Primitive Spirit Groups as "Holy Mothers"--Evidence from Modern Greece--Goddesses as Fairy Queens--The Great Mother of Gods, Demons, and Mankind--Twin Deities and Bisexual Deities--Cult of Self-created Great Father--Stages of Civilization reflected in Religious Beliefs--Female Demons of Modern Greece--The Pre-Hellenic and Hellenic Forms of Rhea, "Mother of the Gods--The Egyptian "Mothers" Neith and Nut--Earth Mother as a Serpent--Demeter as the "Barley Mother"--Rhea and the Cretan Snake-goddess--The Eleusinian Mysteries--The Mysteries of Crete and Egypt--Isis and Demeter--The Corn and Earth Goddesses of India --Demeter--Persephone Myth--Its Antiquity and Significance--The Later Tammuz--Adonis Myth--The Demeter of Phigalia--Pre-Hellenic Cult of the Earth Mother--Fusion of Myths of the Hunting Pastoral and Agricultural Periods--Osiris and Minos--Osiris and the Minotaur--Eponymus Ancestor as a Son of Earth --Minos and Pelasgus--First Man of "Lost Atlantis"--Tribal Forms of Animal-headed Gods.

IN a previous chapter 1 it has been shown that, during the Late Pallithic and Neolithic Periods, the worship of a goddess of maternity, who was at once a destroyer and preserver, obtained among tribes of Eurafrican and Eurasian peoples, and that memories of her primitive savage character have been perpetuated in these islands in folk-tales and place-names until the present Age. The past similarly lives in the present in Crete and Greece, where it is still possible to find traces of the floating material from which Homeric and Thesiodic Mythology was framed. Herodotus pondered over this aspect of the problem and wrote: 2

Whence the gods severally sprang, whether or no they had existed from eternity, what forms they bore--these are questions of which the Greeks knew nothing until the other day, so to speak, for Homer and Hesiod were the first to compose Theogonies, and give their gods their epithets, to allot them their several offices and occupations, and describe their forms; and they lived but four hundred years before my time as I believe. 3

Herodotus received his information regarding the literary conception of the deities from three priestesses of the Dodonns, who also said:

Two black doves flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and while one directed its flight to Libya, the other came to them. She alighted on an oak, and sitting there began to speak with a human voice, and told them that on the spot where she was, there should thenceforth be an oracle of Jove (Zeus). They understood the announcement to be from Heaven, so they set to work at once and erected a shrine. The dove which flew to Libya bade the Libyans to establish there the oracle of Ammon (Amon).

In Egypt Herodotus was given a different version of the legend. The priests of Jupiter (Amon) at Thebes said:

Two of the sacred women were once carried off from Thebes by the Phnicians. The story went that one of them was sold into Libya, and the other into Greece, and these women were the first founders of the oracles in the two countries.

Herodotus also held that the names of some of the deities came from Egypt.

In early times the Pelasgi, as I know by information which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of all kinds, and prayed to the gods, but had no distinct names or appellations for them, since they had never heard of any. They called them gods ( θεοὶ {Greek o, disposers), because they had disposed and arranged all things in such a beautiful order. After a long lapse of time the names of the gods came to Greece from Egypt, and the Pelasgi learnt them, only as yet they knew nothing of Bacchus, of whom they first heard at a much later date. Not long after the arrival of the names, they sent to consult the oracle at Dodona about them. This is the most ancient oracle in Greece, and at that time there was no other. To their question, "whether they should adopt the names that had been imported from the foreigners?" the oracle replied by recommending the use of the names of the gods, and from them the names passed afterwards to the Greeks. 4

These statements seem to bear out what the results of modern research tend to emphasize: that the systematized mythology was a creation of priests and. poets, and had a political as well as a religious significance. The most ancient conceptions and beliefs were perpetuated, however, by the masses of the people, and may still be winnowed from existing folk-beliefs and stories.

In Crete the dove and serpent goddesses appear to have evolved from primitive spirit groups. These were first conceived of as mothers. "The prominence of the idea of maternity in the Cretan religion", says Mr. Farnell, "is illustrated by the Cretan cult of 'Meteres', the 'Holy Mothers' who were transplanted at an early time from Crete to Engyon in Sicily." 5

In modern Greece the memory of the spirit groups still survives. Nymphs and Nereids haunt mountains and valleys, oceans and streams, and are ruled over by the "Queen of the mountains", the "Queen of the shore", or primitive forms of the owl-headed Athene or the beautiful and blood-thirsty Artemis. They are, in short, exceedingly like our fairies, who obey the commands of Queen Mab. Some of the Celtic goddesses exist in groups: "Proxim(the kinswomen); Dervon (the oak spirits); Niskai (the water spirits); Mair Matron Matres or Matr (the mothers); Quadrivi(the goddesses; of cross-roads). The Matr, Matr and Matronare often qualified by some local name. Deities of this type appear to have been popular in Britain, in the neighbourhood of Cologne, and in Province. . . . In some parts of Wales 'Y Mamau' (the mothers) is the name for the fairies." 6 The "seven Hathors" of Egypt who presided at birth were similarly "mothers" and "fates". The "Golden Aphrodite" of Greece was chief of the "deathless fates". Demeter's priestesses, the earthly representatives of her nymphs, conducted a religious ceremony at weddings, as a Cos inscription shows. 7 Fairies in our folk-tales are so fond of pretty children that they endeavour to steal them, and, when they are successful, substitute changelings. The Greek Nereids have, according to modern folk-belief, similar propensities. 8

Ancient and modern evidence tends to emphasize the widespread prevalence among the peoples of the Mediterranean race of the belief in the female origin and control of life. The primitive "queens" appear to have developed into goddesses, who were differentiated in localities to accord with human experiences and habits of life. Among the goddesses one was regarded as the Great Mother, who gave birth to the chief deities, male and female, the demons and the ancestors of mankind. "One is the race of men", sang Pindar, "with the race of gods; for one is the mother that gave to both one breath of life; yet sundered are they by powers wholly diverse, in that mankind is as naught, but heaven is builded of brass that abideth ever unshaken." 9

Sometimes the Great Mother is of dual personality. The Egyptian sisters Isis and Nepthys were both mothers of Osiris, as has been indicated--"the progeny of the two cows Isis and Nepthys". In the Indian epic the Mabhata, the monarch Jarasandha was similarly reputed to be the joint son of the two queens. The two parts of his body were united by Jara, the household genius, after birth, and his name signifies "united by Jara". 10 Two goddesses were associated with the Sumerian god Tammuz. These were Ishtar and Belit-sheri. Ishtar was his "mother", and he became her lover; Belit-sheri was his "sister". Isis was at once the "mother", "sister", "wife", and "daughter" of Osiris. Demeter and Kore, and Demeter and Persephone were Greek pairs who had similar functions. The model of a Mycenn shrine discovered by Schliemann is surmounted by two doves which were, no doubt, sister goddesses. Images of goddesses holding a dove in either hand have also been found.

Another mystic conception was that the Great Mother was bi-sexual. The Libyan Neith was occasionally depicted as androgyne. Isis was the Egyptian "bearded Aphrodite", "the woman who was made a male", as one of the religious chants states, "by her father, Osiris". 11 The Babylonian Ishtar and the Germanic Freya were likewise double-sexed. This idea that deities were abnormal and superhuman applied not only to goddesses. One of the Orphic hymns sets forth:

Zeus was the first of all, Zeus last, the lord of lightning;
Zeus was the head, the middle, from him all things were created;
Zeus was Man and again Zeus was the Virgin Eternal.

Adonis similarly was "both maiden and youth". The Babylonian Nannar (Sin), the moon-god, was "father" and "mother" of gods and men. So was the Syrian Baal. In India Shiva is sometimes depicted with the right side female and the left male. The Persian Mithra was a god and goddess combined. Herodotus, in fact, appears not to have known that he was other than a female deity. He says the Persians worshipped Urania, "which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess, whom the Arabians call Alitta, and the Persians Mithra". 12

At what remote period this conception became prevalent it is impossible to ascertain. It may have had origin in the Pallithic Age, when bearded steatopygous female figurines were carved from ivory similar to those found in the pre-Dynastic graves of Egypt. Traces of the doctrine involved are found among the Esquimaux, whose artifacts so closely resemble those of the Magdalenian stage of culture, and among certain North American tribes. Another view is that the conception resulted from the early fusion of god and goddess cults, and of the rival fundamental ideas connected with them. Babylonia may have been the region from which the mystical doctrine was transferred to India on the one hand and Syria on the other. According to Richard Burton 13 "the Phnicians spread their androgynic worship over Greece".

In contrast to the conception of the peoples of the goddess cult, that life and the world was of female origin, was that of the peoples of the god cult, who believed that the first Being was the Great Father. The Scandinavians, or a section of them, believed that Ymer was the earth father, and that the underworld deities had origin from the perspiration of his armpits, while the demons sprang from his feet. One of the several creation myths in India sets forth that the world-giant Purusha was, like Ymer, the source of all life. The highest caste, the Brahman, sprang from his mouth, the second, the Kshatriya, from his arms, the third, the Vaisya, from his thighs, and the fourth, the Sudra, from his feet. 14 In Anatolia the Armenoid Hatti were father-worshippers. During the period of their political supremacy their "Lord of Heaven", a sky and atmospheric deity with solar attributes, was all powerful. "With the Hittites", says Professor Garstang, "fell their chief god from his predominant place. . . . But the Great Mother lived on, being the goddess of the land. Her cult, modified in some cases profoundly, by time and changed political circumstances, was found surviving at the dawn of Greek history in several places in the interior." 15 Zeus of the Hellenic Greeks was similarly a father god and was imposed, as has been indicated, on the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece after conquest. In Egypt Ptah, the god of Memphis, who wielded a hammer like the Hittite father god, and was, therefore, a thunderer also, was a "perfect god". At the beginning he built up his body and shaped his limbs ere the sky was fashioned and the world set in order. "No father begot thee", a priestly poet declared, "and no mother gave thee birth. Thou didst fashion thyself without the aid of any other being." 16

There is no trace of beliefs of the father cult in Crete. The Hellenic Zeus, as has been shown, was little more than a name on the island. It was applied to the young god who was the son of the Great Mother.

The various representations of the Cretan goddess suggest that, if they had no totemic significance, she was supposed to assume various aspects at different seasons and under different circumstances. As the Lady of Serpents she may have been the goddess of the Underworld, and as the Lady of Trees and Doves, the goddess of birth and fertility. She was also a mountain-goddess who wielded an axe or wand. It is possible that she was never sharply defined, and was closely associated with the vague spirit group of mothers--the "meteres", over whom she may have presided as "queen".

All the ancient deities reflected the habits of life of their worshippers, and retained traces of savage conceptions after they assumed benevolent attributes among cultured peoples. The Cretan Great Mother was evidently the goddess of the Neolithic folk who adopted the agricultural mode of life and kept domesticated animals. She was the earth mother and the corn mother, and the protector and multiplier of flocks and herds. As the Neolithic folk were also huntsmen, their goddess was associated with wild animals. She had evidently existence before Osiris taught his people how to sow grain and cultivate fruit-trees. When we find her guarded by lions it becomes evident that she was the dreaded being who had to be propitiated, like Black Annis of Leicester. This savage aspect of her character must not be lost sight of. It still survives in Greek folk-belief. The mother who gave origin to demons as well as gods was evidently, like the Babylonian Tiamat and the blood-thirsty Ishtar, possessed of primitive demoniac traits. The peasants of Greece at the present day remember Lamia, the "Queen of Libya" who was loved by Zeus. Her children were robbed by Hera, and she "took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern, and there changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole and killed the children of more fortunate mothers". Another kind of Lamia, the Gello, transforms herself into a fish, a serpent, a kite, or a skylark, and devours babes also. When one of these demons is slain, no grass grows where her blood falls. 17 In Gaelic folk-tales no grass grows under whin-bushes or holly-trees, because the Cailleach has touched the ground there with her hammer.

The Cretan mother-goddess appears to have possessed the attributes of the various goddesses who were differentiated in classic mythology. The pre-Hellenic Mother, one of whose names appears to have been Rhea, was taken over by the Greeks and given a place in the Olympian group. Her original character became vague. She was seated on a throne beside which her lion crouched in repose, and her ancient functions were performed by her children: Hestia, who resembled the Roman Vesta; Demeter, who resembled the Roman Ceres; Hera, who resembled the Roman Juno; and the gods Zeus and Poseidon, her sons, who link with the Roman Jupiter and Neptune. Her husband was the savage Cronos, who devoured his children like so many other primitive deities in various lands.

But the Hellenic Rhea, although called the "Mother of the Gods", was not a self-created being, but the daughter of Gaia, the earth mother, and Uranus, the sky father, who equate with the Aryo-Indian Dyaus, and Prithivi, the sky father and earth mother of Indra. In Egypt, on the other hand, the mother goddess was Nut of the sky, and the father the earth-god Seb. The Libyan Neith, however, who appears to have been a form of Nut, was an earth, sky, and atmospheric goddess. Her worshippers made her declare:

It would appear that the pre-Hellenic and Cretan Rhea was at once Gaia, Demeter, Artemis, and the earlier Aphrodite, and that she was originally identical with the pre-Hellenic Athene and Artemis, and the Phrygian Cybele.

Gaia was vaguely defined, yet belief in her was widespread. She was a divine prophetess, a fate, a power behind the gods. Like all primitive deities, including the Sumerian Tiamat, she had to be propitiated or fought against. Apparently one of her incarnations; was the Delphian snake, others being snakes of different cults which were oracles. The priestesses who drank the blood of bulls and entered sacred caves to prophesy were believed to hold commune with the earth mother, the divine revealer. The wisdom with which serpents were supposed to be endowed was of great antiquity. They were also protectors of tribes and households, and symbols of fertility. In Egypt Isis and Nepthys had serpent forms. The tutelary goddess of the Delta was Uazit, the winged serpent, and oracles were ascribed to her. She was the guardian of the child Horus when Set sought for him with murderous intent. Snakes, "dragons", and "worms" were protectors of hidden treasure. Sacrifices were offered to these blood-thirsty monsters, so that they might be propitiated, either as protectors of households or givers of crops and edible animals. The ancient custom of slaying a human being or animal when foundation-stones were laid or seeds were sown appears to have been connected with the belief that the earth genius must be sacrificed to so that her goodwill and co-operation might be secured. In the snake-goddess of Crete we should recognize, it would appear, the anthropomorphic form of the primitive Gaia.

The earth mother who possessed stores of hidden treasure was, as Anesidora, "she who sends up gifts". One of her gifts was the food-supply. She provided grass for flocks and herds, caused trees to blossom and bear fruit, and to her agricultural worshippers gave rich harvests.

The specialized form of the goddess most closely associated with crops was Demeter. Meter signified "mother", but the meaning of the prefix is uncertain. According to W. Mannhardt deai was the Cretan word for "barley", and the goddess was the "Barley Mother". 18 Others hold that the prefix is a dialectic variant of the word for "earth".

But although the etymology of her name may remain doubtful, her real character is otherwise revealed. Melanippides and Euripides identified her with Rhea when they called her "mother of the gods", and the fact that the "earth snake" was invariably associated with her shows that she shared the attributes of Gaia, the elder "mother", and resembled closely the snake-goddess of Crete. She was associated with tree-worship, and the story was told that she punished Erysichthon by causing him to suffer dreadful hunger for cutting down trees in her sacred grove. In one of the hymns she is petitioned to gift the apple crop. As tree-goddesses were also water-goddesses, it is interesting to find that springs were dedicated to her in Attica and elsewhere, and that Euripides referred to her wanderings over rivers and the ocean. This poet also associated her with mountains, so that she must have been a guardian of animals like the primitive Scoto-Irish Cailleach, and a mountain-goddess like the Cretan "lady" who was depicted on the summit of a high peak.

It was chiefly, however, as a provider of the food-supply that Demeter was addressed. She was asked for gifts of cattle and corn and fruit, and bulls and cows were sacrificed to her. Consequently she was a deity of fertility and a love-goddess. The pig was also sacrificed to her as to other earth spirits. As has been stated, pork was tabooed in Crete, and appears to have been eaten sacrificially only. Demeter's connection with the underworld emphasizes her character as a Fate--a goddess of birth and death, who controlled and measured the lives of mankind.

Demeter's great festival was called the Eleusina, the legendary explanation being that it was first celebrated at Eleusis, in Attica. One of its features was the mystic ceremony of initiation. Little is known regarding the Eleusinian mysteries. It would appear, however, from stray literary references to, and sculptured scenes of, the ceremony performed, that it was of elaborate character. The candidate fasted, and bathed in the sea with a young pig which was to be sacrificed. Having thus been purified, he entered the sacred place, where he drank of a posset prepared from the "first fruits"--barley or grapes. For a time his head and shoulders were covered by a cloth, so that he could not see what was happening about him. Probably he was terrorized. A priest instructed him, and he performed symbolic acts, and took vows.

The ceremony appears to have had a religious significance. "Whoever goes uninitiated to Hades", says Plato, "will lie in mud, but he who has been purified and is fully initiate, when he comes thither will dwell with the gods " 19

According to Diodorus Siculus, 20 the Cretans professed that they gave the mysteries to Greece, and that they were performed openly on their island and communicated to everyone in ancient times. The same writer says that the Cretans received the mysteries from Egypt, the mysteries of Isis being the same as those of Demeter and the mysteries of Osiris the same as those of Dionysus. 21 Plutarch expresses a similar view. 22 Herodotus, referring to the festival at Busiris, in the Delta, says that "it is in honour of Isis, who is called in the Greek tongue Demeter". 23 Apparently there were strong resemblances between the mysteries of Isis and those of Demeter.

It does not follow, however, that the Cretans had no anthropomorphic goddess, and knew naught of the mysteries until they began to trade with Egypt across the Mediterranean Sea. The resemblance between Isis and Demeter may have been due to both Egyptians and Cretans having inherited similar beliefs from their common ancestors in the area where the Mediterranean race was characterized. As much is suggested by the fact that there existed apparently in Crete, and undoubtedly in pre-Hellenic Greece, an ancient myth in which Demeter is associated, not with the young god Dionysus, who links with Osiris, Attis, and Tammuz, but with a young goddess. This myth did not survive in Egypt; that, however, it existed there at one time is suggested by the close association of Isis and Nepthys, the joint mothers of Osiris. In India the story of Sita, who was an incarnation of Lakshmi, is suggestive in this connection. This heroine of the Rana, having served her purpose on earth, departs to the Underworld.

The earth was rent and parted, and a golden throne arose,
Held aloft by jewelled Nagas 24 as the leaves enfold the rose,
And the Mother 25 in embraces held her spotless, sinless child.

Then they vanished together. "In the ancient hymns of the Rig Veda", says Romesh C. Dutt, "Sita is simply the goddess of the field furrow which bears crops for men. We find how that simple conception is concealed in the Rana, where Sita, the heroine of the epic, is still born of the field furrow, and after all her adventures returns to the earth." 26

The daughter of Demeter was Kore-Persephone. The ancient legend regarding the abduction of the young goddess is as follows.

It chanced that one day Persephone, daughter of Demeter, was wandering in a flowery meadow gathering lilies and violets, roses and crocuses, and hyacinths and narcissuses. Suddenly the earth opened, and Pluto, god of Hades, appeared, seated in a golden car. Seizing the maiden, he carried her off. Her cries were heard by the golden-haired Demeter, who assumed a dark mantle and wandered over mountains, rivers, and oceans, searching in vain for her daughter. On the tenth day she met Hecate, who conducted her to the sun-god. This all-seeing deity informed Demeter that Pluto had carried off Persephone with the consent of Zeus. On hearing this, Demeter withdrew from Olympus, and she vowed never to return until her daughter was restored to her. She also cast a blight upon the earth, and men ploughed and sowed in vain; no barley grew, nor did trees yield fruit. The goddess retired to Eleusia, and the king's daughters found her sitting at the Maiden's Well below an olive-tree. Celeus, the king, received her hospitably, and she became the nurse of his sons Triptolemus and Demophon. She desired to make Demophon an immortal, and put him one night in a fire; but his mother screamed aloud, with the result that the spell was broken, and he perished.

Similarly, Isis thrust into the fire the infant son of the King of Byblus, whom she had been engaged to nurse, when searching for Osiris. 27 Demeter compensated the parents for their loss (or sacrifice) by giving Triptolemus seeds and instructing him in the art of agriculture. She also conferred upon him a chariot which was drawn by winged dragons. Pausanias says that she instructed Triptolemus and his father in the performance of her rites and mysteries. 28

Many stories were related regarding Demeter's wanderings. One was that she fled from Poseidon as a mare, and that he assumed the form of a stallion. She afterwards became the mother of the horse Areion, which had the gift of speech. Hesiod, however, makes Medusa the spouse of Poseidon in his horse form and the mother of the winged Pegasus.

In Phigalia Pausanias 29 saw the cave "sacred to Black Demeter". Here she was fabled to have dwelt for a time sorrowing for her daughter. Meanwhile the blight remained upon the earth, and mankind were perishing from famine. The gods searched for, and Pan discovered, her hiding-place. Then Zeus sent the Fates to her, and when he was informed that she would not remove the blight until Persephone was restored to her, he commanded that she should be released by Pluto. The god of Hades accordingly restored Persephone to her mother. She was brought from Hades by Hermes, and was received with glad heart by her mother, who at once restored fertility to the earth.

Zeus, however, had made it a condition of Persephone's release that she had not eaten aught in Hades. To secure her return, Pluto gave her a pomegranate seed before her departure, and when this fact was revealed the young goddess had to return again to the gloomy Underworld. Once more Demeter sorrowed, and cursed the earth in her wrath. A compromise had, therefore, to be effected, and Zeus decreed that Persephone should spend one-third of each year on earth with her mother, and the remaining two-thirds with Pluto in Hades.

In this Demeter-Persephone myth the young goddess plays the same part as Tammuz and Adonis, who spent part of the year on earth with one goddess, and part of the year in the Underworld with the other. She is not slain and dismembered like these gods and the Egyptian Osiris. The part of Osiris is taken by Triptolemus, who received the grain seeds from Demeter, as Osiris, the deified king, received them from Isis. It is evident, therefore, that if the Cretans and pre-Hellenic Greeks borrowed the mysteries from Egypt, they did so before the Osirian myth was fully developed-that is, before the migration from North Africa of the tribes of the Mediterranean race. It is unnecessary to assume that the earliest agricultural settlers in Greece and Crete had no knowledge of the Mysteries. Even the Australian savages have their initiation and other rites.

It is evident that the primitive form of Demeter in Arcadia bore a close resemblance to the repulsive hags of England and Scotland. Like the snake-goddess of Crete, she retained in her symbols her early demoniac traits. Pausanias 30 tells that in the cave of Phigalia the ancient figure of the Black Demeter was of wood; it was seated on a rock and had a mare's head, 31 which had above it the figures of snakes and other monsters. She held a dolphin in one hand and a dove in the other. When this statue was accidentally burnt, the Phigalians neglected the festivals and ceased to offer up sacrifices. Then a terrible famine afflicted the land. An oracle was consulted, and the people were informed that they were being punished for forgetting that Demeter had introduced among them the cultivation of corn.

Professor Frazer, 32 dealing with the form of the myth as it is given in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, regards Demeter and Persephone as personifications of the corn--the former as the old corn of last year and the latter as the seed corn in autumn and sprouting in spring. Persephone's period in Hades was the period in which the sprouting seed remained under the earth. 33 The Black Demeter appears to have been the personification of the barren earth in winter, the Green Demeter the goddess of growing corn, and the Yellow Demeter the harvest deity. In their seasonal festivals the ancient agriculturists rejoiced and sorrowed alternately in sympathy with the goddess.

It would appear that the various names of the ancient earth mother were in turn individualized as separate deities. "As pre-Homeric offshoots of Gaia", says Dr. Farnell, "we must recognize Demeter, Persephone, and Themis." 34 Themis was the Titan who became the second wife of Zeus. Kore appears, too, to have been originally identical with Demeter. "From the two distinct names", Dr. Farnell considers, "two distinct personalities arose. . . . Then as these two personalities were distinct, and yet in function and idea identical, early Greek theology must have been called upon to define their relations. They might have been explained as sisters, but as there was a male deity in the background, and Demeter's name spoke of maternity, it was more natural to regard them as mother and daughter. And apart from any myth about Demeter's motherhood, Persephone-Kore might well have been a very early cult title, meaning simply the girl-Persephone, just as Hera, the stately bride mother, was called, 'Hera the girl' at Stymphalos . . . or the facts could be brought into accord with another supposition. 'Kore' may have been detached from such a ritual name as Demeter-Kore, 'the girl-Demeter'." 35

In Crete, therefore, the snake-, dove-, and mountain-goddesses may have been seasonal forms of the Mother Earth. Until the inscriptions are read, however, it cannot be said with certainty whether or not they developed into separate personalities. All that can be said is that the legends which associate Rhea and Demeter with Crete are highly suggestive in this connection. Athene, a pre-Hellenic goddess, who was associated with the ubiquitous earth-snake, may have been a specialized form of Gaia also. Like the Libyan Neith, she developed as a war- and fertility-goddess, and was identified with that deity by Herodotus and other writers. The animals sacrificed to her were the bull, cow, sheep, and pig, and, once a year, the tabooed goat.

What appears to be certain is that in pre-Hellenic Greece and Crete, and elsewhere throughout Europe, the Earth Mother was worshipped and propitiated from an early pre-historic period. Her mysteries were performed in caves, as were also the Pallithic mysteries. In the caves there were sacred serpents, and it may be that the prophetic priestesses who entered them were serpent-charmers.

Cave worship was of immense antiquity. The cave was evidently regarded as the door of the Underworld, in which dwelt the snake form of Mother Earth. Swine were sacrificed to her, a custom which appears to have had origin in the Archlogical "Hunting Period". In the Scoto-Irish Fian (Fingalian) stories the love hero, Diarmid, the Adonis of the pre-Agricultural peoples, is slain by the boar leader of the swine-herd of Mala Lith, "Gray Eyebrows", the dark-visaged Cailleach (Old Wife), who was the mother of men and demons and wild animals. This legend may be a reminiscence of human sacrifice. Demeter's pig, like Athene's goat, was perhaps of totemic origin. The boar clan and the goat clan would have made blood offerings to their totems, as do the Australian Kangaroo and Witchetty-grub tribes to theirs, to secure the food-supply.

In the "Pastoral Period" sacrifices of bulls and cows must have become prevalent. The goddess was then the cow mother, who caused the herds to multiply, and provided them with grass. Hathor, the Egyptian goddess, had the body of a woman and the head of a cow. In one of the archaic versions of the Osirian myth Horus cuts off the head of his mother Isis, and the moon-god Thoth replaces it with a cow's head. Isis had also a serpent form, being evidently an earth-mother in origin.

When agriculture was introduced, the various tribes recognized their earth-black and grass-green mother-goddess in a new form--the harvest-haired corn spirit. But she still retained all her immemorial attributes: she did not cease to be the earth-snake, the hag huntress among the mountains and in valleys, the cow goddess of grassy steppes and green oases, and the spirit of fig-tree and olive and vine. Around her, too, hovered the animistic groups who were remembered in after time as nymphs and fairies. She also retained her association with the animal forms she assumed in season as the deity of fertility. There were serpents in her hair, a dove in one hand and a dolphin in the other, like the Demeter of the cave of Phigalia Withal, she was the standing-stone which was visited at certain phases of the moon by women who prayed for offspring. In the Scoto-Irish legend, the Cailleach, after the period of spring storms, transforms herself into "a gray stone looking over the sea". In India goats are sacrificed to the stone of the goddess Durga, which stands below a sacred tree. The legend of the birth of the Cretan Zeus is of special interest in this connection. Cronos swallowed a stone, believing it was Rhea's son, and it was afterwards set up as a sacred object at Delphi. The original Zeus was evidently worshipped as a stone pillar--the pillar which enclosed his spirit, or the spirit of his earthly representative, the priest-king.

The earliest form of the agricultural myth, judging from the Demeter-Persephone legend, appears to have been one in which goddesses only were concerned. All the ceremonies performed were based on the experiences of the sorrowing and wandering mother, the dark woman who concealed herself in a cave, and the abducted daughter condemned to pass part of the year in the Underworld.

It is possible that the Osirian legend, in which the daughter is displaced by the slain young god, came to Crete from Egypt by an indirect route-perhaps with a community of late invaders from Syria or Anatolia. After Osiris taught the Egyptians the art of agriculture he went abroad on a mission of civilization, and when he was slain, and set adrift in a chest, Isis voyaged to Byblus to recover his body. This may be a memory of the missionary enterprise of the Osirian cult. Minos, the Cretan king who resembles Osiris as an earthly king and lawgiver, became, like his prototype, a judge of the dead.

His mother, Europ a princess of Phnicia, who was abducted by the Zeus bull, may have been a form of the cow Isis.

The Minotaur may have been a still more primitive form of Osiris. That god, as Apuatu, his earliest known form, was "the opener". He was therefore identical with the animal-headed Anubis. The mother of the Minotaur was Pasipha the queen. Like the Egyptian Queen Isis, she appears to have had originally a cow form, which gave rise to the legend that Dalus constructed for her the image of a cow, which she entered. The legend that the Minotaur was slain by Theseus may have displaced an earlier myth about the slaying of the corn-god in his bull form. In the Anpu-Bata Egyptian story the sacred bull is slain so that its spirit may enter its tree incarnation. The Apis bull was periodically sacrificed in early times.

Although human sacrifices were offered to the Minotaur--the victims, no doubt, of the bull-ring--that fact need not be urged against the identification of the bloodthirsty monster with Osiris. It is not improbable that the primitive Osiris was a bull-headed man like the Minotaur, which in one of the Cretan seal impressions is depicted seated on a throne below a tree conversing with a priest; its close resemblance to Anubis and Sebek is highly suggestive of Egyptian origin. 36 Professor Breasted has proved, from the evidence of the early Pyramid texts, that Osiris had at one time as unsavoury a reputation as the Cretan Minotaur. He calls him "a dangerous god", and adds: "The tradition of his [Osiris's] unfavourable character survived in vague reminiscences long centuries after he had gained wide popularity. At that time [the prehistoric period] the dark and forbidding realm which he ruled had been feared and dreaded. In the beginning, too, he bad been local to the Delta, where he had his home in the city of Dedu, later called Busiris by the Greeks. His transformation into a friend of man and kindly ruler of the dead took place here in prehistoric ages." 37

Osiris in his later form was a deified ruler, who received knowledge of the art of agriculture from the earth-goddess, like the Greek Triptolemus. His violent death, with dismemberment, is suggestive of the sacrifice of the old king so that his spirit might pass to his successor. There can be little doubt that human sacrifices were at one time prevalent among the peoples of the Mediterranean race, although they were forbidden ultimately in Osirian texts. Isis and Demeter, as has been shown, burned children before they revealed to mankind the art of agriculture. Dr. Farnell favours the view that the ancient custom of human sacrifice has survived as a memory in the legend which relates that the daughters of Cecrops, having been driven mad by the goddess Athena, flung themselves down from the rock of the Acropolis of Athens. Of similar character is the tradition that the first lot of maidens who were sent from Locris to be priestesses and handmaidens in Athena's temple were slain and burnt, their ashes having been afterwards cast from a mountain into the sea. "It is clear", Dr. Farnell comments, "this is no mere story of murder, but a reminiscence of peculiar rites." 38

Europ as bride of Zeus, was probably, like Pasipha wife of Minos, a developed form of the Earth Mother.

THE BULL-BAITERS

From the painting by John Duncan, A.R.S.A.

Minos and the Minotaur may similarly be regarded as forms of Osiris, the former an eponymous patriarch whose spirit passed from king to son, and the latter as a link between the animal and anthropomorphic forms of the tribal deity, who was also the eponymous ancestor. According to Pausanias 39 the Arcadians believed that the first settler in their land was Pelasgus, the eponymous ancestor, apparently, of the Pelasgians. Asius, he says, referred to him as follows:--

Divine Pelasgus on the tree-clad hills
Black earth brought forth, to be of mortal race.

"And Pelasgus", he proceeds, "when he became king contrived huts that men should be free from cold and rain, and not be exposed to the fierce sun, and also garments made of the hides of pigs, such as the poor now use in Euba and Phocis. He was the inventor of these comforts. He, too, taught people to abstain from green leaves and grass and roots that were not good to eat, some even deadly to those who eat them. He discovered also that the fruit of some trees was good, especially acorns." 40

A similar legend is related by Plato regarding the patriarch of his Lost Atlantis. He states that on the hill above the palace (Knossos) lived "one of those men who in primitive times sprang from the earth, by name Evenor. His wife was Leucippe. They had only one daughter, named Clito". Clito became the wife of Poseidon, and the ancestress of all the tribes. 41

Minos, like Pelasgus, was evidently a semi-divine patriarch. Sir Arthur Evans shows that the "tomb of Zeus" was at one time called the "tomb of Minos". This "seems to record a true religious process", he says, "by which the cult of Minos passed into that of Zeus". 42

Probably the legend of the birth of Minos was appropriated by the Zeus cult. The child was suckled, according to one legend, by a sow, and to another by a goat--totemic animals, perhaps, from whom the food-supply was received. A Knossos seal impression depicts a child suckled by a horned sheep. Sir Arthur Evans refers, in this connection, to the legends of the son of Akakallis, daughter of Minos, being suckled by a bitch; of Miletos, "the mythical founder of the Cretan city of that name", being nursed by wolves; and of the fabled suckling of the Roman twins by a she-wolf. "There is", he says, "some interesting evidence of a cumulative nature, which shows that Rome itself was indebted to prehistoric Greece for some of the oldest elements in her religion." 43 The Indian heroine, Shakuntala, was guarded at birth by vultures, as Semiramis was by doves, while the eagle protected Gilgamesh and the Persian patriarch Akhamanish. In Egypt Horus was nourished and concealed by the serpent-goddess Uazit.

All the eponymous heroes had probably animal forms at the earliest period. Serpents figure prominently in the winged disk of Horus, suggesting the fusion of the falcon and serpent clans of Egypt. The young god was usually depicted with a falcon's head and a human body, and he was an eponymous ancestor. In the bull-headed Minotaur, therefore, it would appear that we have a survival of an early form of a Cretan Osiris or Horus, the link between the bestial deity and human beings.

The Minotaur, however, was not the only man monster who received recognition in Crete. At Zagros Mr. Hogarth discovered a large number of clay sealings depicting man-stags, man-lions, man-goats, eagle-women, goat-women, and so on. One of the forms of the Sumerian Tammuz-Ningirsu was a lion-headed eagle.

It may be that, before the legendary Minos established his empire, Crete was divided into petty states, each of which had its separate animal-headed god or goddess. These deities may have been originally totems. When the totem was slain the priest-king was wrapped in its skin, as was the Sumerian Ea in the skin of the fish. The priest-king was an incarnation of the totem. If the custom of depicting deities partly in bestial and partly in human form arose in this way, it was of exceedingly remote origin, for, as we have seen (Chapter II), there were animal-headed deities in the Late Pallithic Period.

Greek legends regarding Crete take no account of the stag- and eagle-headed monsters. The Minotaur with bull's head and forelegs and human body and legs overshadowed them all. This fact is highly suggestive. Possibly the explanation is that the bull clan of Minos, which was established at Knossos, attained political supremacy over the whole island, with the result that its Minotaur became the chief deity. This would account also for the myths regarding the sea-bull forms of Poseidon and Zeus, and the notorious ceremonies associated with the bull-ring at Knossos. The Minos clan may have invaded and conquered the island. Some authorities are inclined to regard Minos as a conqueror. Plato says of Atlantis that it was governed by a warrior class which lived separately in the more elevated parts, and had "common rooms of entertainment". 44

The same writer goes on to say that after a bull was captured at the annual festival, the people gathered round the fire in which it was sacrificed, to judge transgressors of the laws inscribed on a certain column. 45 The laws were probably those which were credited to Minos.

The conclusions which may be drawn from the evidence available are as follows: Traces survived in Cretan religion of various stages of culture. New settlements were effected on the island from time to time by peoples of common origin, who introduced advanced systems of religion which were grafted on to the old. The worship of the Earth Mother was ever pre-eminent. At first she was the culture deity who instructed mankind. Then the tribal hero whom she favoured was elevated to the Pantheon, the living king being his incarnation on earth, while the dead king was his incarnation in the Underworld as the judge of the dead. As this deified hero displaced an earlier man-monster, who was the son of the mother goddess, and her earthly representative, the legend arose that the hero had actually slain him. 46 Minos, who hated the Minotaur, may have been the original of the legendary Theseus. That is, Theseus may have been a real king who released Athens from the sway of the Minoan kings and absorbed the Minos-Heracles myth of Crete. The Minos clan came, perhaps, like the legendary Europ from the Syrian coast, where it had adopted the later Osirian faith. After Crete traded directly with Egypt cultural influences filtered across the Mediterranean. It is unlikely, however, that the religion of the Cretan people as a whole was so profoundly affected by the imported beliefs of the rival cults of Egypt and Libya as they were by those of kindred peoples who settled on the island and exercised direct political influence there. In pre-Hellenic times the Minoan kings colonized parts of Greece, and traditions of Crete's cultural influence survived long after the Homeric Age, although the splendour of its ancient civilization became a blurred and faded memory which in time was associated with the Lost Atlantis.

Footnotes

1 Chapter III.
2 Herodotus, II, 53-5.
3 That is during the ninth century B.C.
4 Herodotus, II, 52.
5 Cults of the Greek States, Vol. III. p. 195.
6 Celtic Religion, Prof. Anwyl, pp. 41, 48.
7 Rouse's Greek Votive Offerings, p. 246.
8 Modern Greek Folk-lore and Ancient Greek Religion, J. C. Lawson, p. 141.
9 Pindar, Nem. VI, 1, quoted by Lawson in Modern Greek Folk-lore, p. 65.
10 Indian Myth and Legend, p. 229.
11 The Burden of Isis, Dennis, p. 49. ("Wisdom of the East" Series.)
12 Herodotus, I, 131.
13 The Thousand Nights and a Night, Vol. X, p. 231 (1886).
14 Indian Myth and Legend, p. 89.
15 The Syrian Goddess, pp. 17, 18.
16 Egyptian Myth and Legend, p. 156.
17 Lawson's Modern Greek Folk-lore, pp. 173 et seq.
18 Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 292 et seq.
19 Pho, 69 c.
20 V, 77.
21 Pho, 1-96.
22 Isis et Osiris, 35.
23 II, 59.
24 Serpents.
25 Bashudha, the earth mother.
26 The Rana condensed into English verse (Temple Classics, 1898).
27 Egyptian Myth and Legend.
28 II, 14.
29 VIII, 42.
30 VIII, 42.
31 The result, apparently, of the local fusion of the old earth-goddess cult and the horse cult of invaders.
32 Golden Bough ("Spirits of the Corn and Wild"), Vol. II, pp. 37 et seq.
33 The length of the period is differently estimated by various writers.
34 Cults of the Greek States, Vol. V, pp. i 19 et seq.
35 Cults of the Greek States, Vol. V, pp. 119-24.
36 The British School at Athens, Vol. VII, p. 18.
37 Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 38 (1912).
38 Cults of the Greek States, Vol. I, pp. 260 et seq.
39 VIII, 1.
40 Pausanias, trans. by A. R. Shilleto, Vol. II, pp. 61-2.
41 The Critias, Section VIII.
42 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, p. 121.
43 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, pp. 128, 129.
44 The Critias, Section VI,
45 Ibid., Section XV.
46The sacrificial slaying of the sacred animal may have also survived in the legend.

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.