DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1117#0232
i86 ADDER MARK OF GODDESS IN AWESOME ASPECT
must, therefore, be looked on as beneficent attributes. She is, in fact the
divine 'house-mother' of a cult still closely related to the simple domestic
form in which the snake itself stands as the material incarnation of the
household Spirit.
Yet it will be observed that the symbols, with which,' even in these
primitive shrines, the cult is associated, mark the divinity there imaged as
essentially the same as the Minoan Goddess of whom we have so much
evidence in a higher sphere. The appearance of the sacred doves, proper
to her celestial side, reveals already the beginning of the process by which
one outstanding feature of the old snake cult—the clay tube—was
finally assimilated to the cult of the Goddess in her Cypriote aspect. The
Double Axes, on the other hand, bring the worship into line with the dis-
tinguishing element of all later Minoan Religion, which itself had such wide
relations on the Anatolian side, where it is shared by the God of Lightning.
Adder Mark of Goddess regarded as Token of her Dread Infernal
Power, in Land of Earthquakes.
Snake Did not, perhaps, the snake itself, which may be regarded as a primarily
butesof mild and benevolent agent when seen in these primitive surroundings,
Goddess acquire a much more awesome significance as an emblem of the great Minoan
acquire Goddess in her palatial shrines ?
more 1 • i*i
awesome Allusion has already been made to the tendency of snakes m the
higher religious phases to invest themselves with their most deadly attri-
butes. That Ancient Serpent, Tiamat, the old ' Dragon' of Chaldaea,
daean becomes the incarnation of the Powers of Evil, though on the libation
in caS' vessel of King Gudea' we still see a relic of the simpler domestic snake cult
ofTiamat. ;n tne two intertwined snakes whose tongues touch the point from which
the liquid poured forth. Sufficient evidence has been given in the Third
Volume of this Work that, to the last, the great Minoan Snake Divinity
had not lost her more homely guise as a Mother Goddess,2 though a more
infernal aspect now prevails. On the other hand, there are good reasons
for believing that her rustic images, such as we see at Gournia and else-
. . . . r
where, and which in their characteristic contours go back to prototypes ot
the beginning of the Middle Minoan Age, were mainly of a domestic and
beneficent character.
But the terrific experiences of the activity of the underground powers
1 De Sarzec, Dccouvertts en Chaldce (L. Fig. 29. The snakes here, intertwined with a
Heuzey),Pl. 44, 2 ,\, B, c: cf. Cat. 281 and L. W. central stem, supply a prototype of the Caduceus.
King, A History of Sutner and Akkad, p. 76, - See P. o/M., iii, p. 469 seqq.
sigmn
cance.
Chsrl-
must, therefore, be looked on as beneficent attributes. She is, in fact the
divine 'house-mother' of a cult still closely related to the simple domestic
form in which the snake itself stands as the material incarnation of the
household Spirit.
Yet it will be observed that the symbols, with which,' even in these
primitive shrines, the cult is associated, mark the divinity there imaged as
essentially the same as the Minoan Goddess of whom we have so much
evidence in a higher sphere. The appearance of the sacred doves, proper
to her celestial side, reveals already the beginning of the process by which
one outstanding feature of the old snake cult—the clay tube—was
finally assimilated to the cult of the Goddess in her Cypriote aspect. The
Double Axes, on the other hand, bring the worship into line with the dis-
tinguishing element of all later Minoan Religion, which itself had such wide
relations on the Anatolian side, where it is shared by the God of Lightning.
Adder Mark of Goddess regarded as Token of her Dread Infernal
Power, in Land of Earthquakes.
Snake Did not, perhaps, the snake itself, which may be regarded as a primarily
butesof mild and benevolent agent when seen in these primitive surroundings,
Goddess acquire a much more awesome significance as an emblem of the great Minoan
acquire Goddess in her palatial shrines ?
more 1 • i*i
awesome Allusion has already been made to the tendency of snakes m the
higher religious phases to invest themselves with their most deadly attri-
butes. That Ancient Serpent, Tiamat, the old ' Dragon' of Chaldaea,
daean becomes the incarnation of the Powers of Evil, though on the libation
in caS' vessel of King Gudea' we still see a relic of the simpler domestic snake cult
ofTiamat. ;n tne two intertwined snakes whose tongues touch the point from which
the liquid poured forth. Sufficient evidence has been given in the Third
Volume of this Work that, to the last, the great Minoan Snake Divinity
had not lost her more homely guise as a Mother Goddess,2 though a more
infernal aspect now prevails. On the other hand, there are good reasons
for believing that her rustic images, such as we see at Gournia and else-
. . . . r
where, and which in their characteristic contours go back to prototypes ot
the beginning of the Middle Minoan Age, were mainly of a domestic and
beneficent character.
But the terrific experiences of the activity of the underground powers
1 De Sarzec, Dccouvertts en Chaldce (L. Fig. 29. The snakes here, intertwined with a
Heuzey),Pl. 44, 2 ,\, B, c: cf. Cat. 281 and L. W. central stem, supply a prototype of the Caduceus.
King, A History of Sutner and Akkad, p. 76, - See P. o/M., iii, p. 469 seqq.
sigmn
cance.
Chsrl-