DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0520
ARMED DIVINITIES
467
Fig. 326.
Seal-impeession showing Infant
beneath horned sheep.
days,1 it is quite open to us to interpret the seal-type from the Repositories
reproduced in Fig. 326 2 as the infant god nourished by a horned sheep.
That the young armed God that we have to deal with in the Cretan
signet-types in truth represents the ' Cretan
Zeus ' of later tradition seems to be a reason-
able hypothesis. According to the interpreta-
tion given in this work we actually have a
glimpse of his Holy Sepulchre, while else-
where we seethe Goddess recalling him from
some celestial abode. All this agrees with the
idea of the ' mortal God' which was such a
stumbling-block to Greeks. That his death
and return to life were of annual celebration
in relation to the seasonal re-birth of Nature
is an almost irresistible conclusion.3
It is not an objection to this—for there is no logic in folk belief—that
on the remarkable bead-seal from Thisbe, Fig. 319, the Minoan Goddess is
herself seen rising from the earth like Gaia and Persephone, and, as in their
case, holding the poppy capsules that stand as a symbol of reproductive power.
The seeds or flowers in her hand, the tree-form with which she is so repeatedly
associated, and with the juice of whose fruit she is regaled, the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air of which she appears as the visible Mistress
and Protector, mark her clearly as a Nature Goddess.
As a Great Mother she must certainly be recognized as a sister form to
the divinity whose cult was so widely diffused in later times throughout Asia
Minor and its borders. But another aspect of her spiritual being must also
constantly be borne in mind, which brings us nearer to the sterner side of
Ishtar, to which more importance was attached in old Chaldaea. She is an
armed Goddess, whose distinguishing weapon is the sacred Double Axe, but
who also at times wields the spear and Minoan shield or the bow and arrows
of the huntress. She is the female counterpart of the divinity—first and
foremost a Thunder-God—predominant on the Anatolian side and in a wide
North Syrian region, the underlying ethnic element of which seems also to
Young
armed
God of
Cretan
signets.
Mortal
charac-
ter.
Minoan
Goddess
resurgent
as Gaia.
As an
armed
Goddess.
1 As, for instance, the versions of the tale of 2 Cf. P- of Jtf., i, p. 515, Fig. 373, The
a boy suckled by wolves, of which there seems fact that it is a horned animal need not stand
to be an inexhaustible stock in Indian villages. in the way of such an interpretation. In
I, myself, heard of one in Montenegro who Classical days we see Telephos nurtured by
was reported to have been brought up by a horned deer,
bears. 3 Niisson, op. cii., p. 482.
H h 2
467
Fig. 326.
Seal-impeession showing Infant
beneath horned sheep.
days,1 it is quite open to us to interpret the seal-type from the Repositories
reproduced in Fig. 326 2 as the infant god nourished by a horned sheep.
That the young armed God that we have to deal with in the Cretan
signet-types in truth represents the ' Cretan
Zeus ' of later tradition seems to be a reason-
able hypothesis. According to the interpreta-
tion given in this work we actually have a
glimpse of his Holy Sepulchre, while else-
where we seethe Goddess recalling him from
some celestial abode. All this agrees with the
idea of the ' mortal God' which was such a
stumbling-block to Greeks. That his death
and return to life were of annual celebration
in relation to the seasonal re-birth of Nature
is an almost irresistible conclusion.3
It is not an objection to this—for there is no logic in folk belief—that
on the remarkable bead-seal from Thisbe, Fig. 319, the Minoan Goddess is
herself seen rising from the earth like Gaia and Persephone, and, as in their
case, holding the poppy capsules that stand as a symbol of reproductive power.
The seeds or flowers in her hand, the tree-form with which she is so repeatedly
associated, and with the juice of whose fruit she is regaled, the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air of which she appears as the visible Mistress
and Protector, mark her clearly as a Nature Goddess.
As a Great Mother she must certainly be recognized as a sister form to
the divinity whose cult was so widely diffused in later times throughout Asia
Minor and its borders. But another aspect of her spiritual being must also
constantly be borne in mind, which brings us nearer to the sterner side of
Ishtar, to which more importance was attached in old Chaldaea. She is an
armed Goddess, whose distinguishing weapon is the sacred Double Axe, but
who also at times wields the spear and Minoan shield or the bow and arrows
of the huntress. She is the female counterpart of the divinity—first and
foremost a Thunder-God—predominant on the Anatolian side and in a wide
North Syrian region, the underlying ethnic element of which seems also to
Young
armed
God of
Cretan
signets.
Mortal
charac-
ter.
Minoan
Goddess
resurgent
as Gaia.
As an
armed
Goddess.
1 As, for instance, the versions of the tale of 2 Cf. P- of Jtf., i, p. 515, Fig. 373, The
a boy suckled by wolves, of which there seems fact that it is a horned animal need not stand
to be an inexhaustible stock in Indian villages. in the way of such an interpretation. In
I, myself, heard of one in Montenegro who Classical days we see Telephos nurtured by
was reported to have been brought up by a horned deer,
bears. 3 Niisson, op. cii., p. 482.
H h 2