Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

478 The Labyrinth at Knossos

The swastika as a representation of the Labyrinth can perhaps
be traced further afield. At Gaza the god Marnas, otherwise
called Zeus Kretagenes1, had a circular temple surrounded by
concentric colonnades, which appears to have borne some resem-
blance to the Cretan Labyrinth2. If so, it becomes possible that
the Phoenician letter mem on autonomous coppers of Gaza
(fig. 344)3 was not merely the initial of Marnas4, but also a quasi-
swastika like the Labyrinth-devices on coins of Knossos5.

However that may be, it seems certain that both Attic and
Cretan art presuppose the swastika as the earliest ascertainable
form of the Labyrinth. That much-disputed symbol has a volu-
minous literature of its own6, and critics are not yet unanimous as
to its ultimate significance. But among recent investigators there

Fig. 344.

is something like a consensus in favour of the view that it was a
stylised representation of the revolving sun7. On this showing,

appears on some of the sealings found by Mr. Hogarth at Zakro [ fount. Hell. Stud. 1902
xxii. 88 no. 133 pi. 10]. A still earlier example of the same class occurred in a magazine
of the Earlier Palace together with fine " Middle Minoan" pottery on the East slope.'

1 Supra p. 149. See now G. F. Hill Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman
Age London 1912 p. 14 ff. (extr. from the Proc. Brit. Acad. v).

2 Infra ch. ii § 9 (g). The old ground-plan came near to being retained, when the
edifice was rebuilt as a Christian church (supra p. 167 n. 3). Mazes still survive in
the flooring-of continental churches (infra p. 485 f.).

F. De Saulcy Numismatique de la terre sainte Paris 1874 P- 210 pi. 11,2: cp. supra
p. 236 figs. I75—I77-

4 F. De Saulcy op. cit. p. 210, Head Hist, num? p. 805. Cp. Damaskios dubit. et
solut. 262 (p. 127 f. Ruelle) <bs irapa fikv Alyvwriois to rkr 6voLia£6[xevoi>, 6 eariv evdela
6pdr\ [xia /cat rpets ir\dy<.oi eir avTrjs, 77 re Kopv<paia /cat 860 fxer avrrjv, /cat £ti irapa HXtou-
7roX£rats aXXo rt, /cat 7rap& Tafatots aXXo rod At6s—which shows that this symbol was
deemed sacred to Zeus.

5 This suggestion was first made by Sir Arthur Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath.
1902—1903 ix. 88 f.

6 To the bibliography of the sxvastika given by T. Wilson (supra p. 337 n. 1) add
Z. Nuttall The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations Cambridge
Mass. 1901 (Archaeological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard
University, vol. ii) pp. 1—602.

7 So e.g. Count Goblet dAlviella The Migration of Symbols p. 50, A. C. Haddon
Evolution in Art London 1895 p. 282 ff., A. Bertrand La Religion des Gaulois Paris 1897
p. 140ff. J. Dechelette Manueld'arch^ologie Paris i9ioii. 1.4536°. Cp. supra pp. 301, 3366