Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

232 Hephaistos and Athena

monograph on Lemnos notes that Oriental apothecaries still sell
packets of Lemnian earth, dug before sunrise on August 6 (the
Transfiguration) in the presence of Greek and Turkish clergy, and
guaranteed as genuine by the impress of a Turkish seal1. I may add
that the well-stocked medical cabinet of J. F. Vigani2, the first
Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, now preserved in the Library
of Queens' College, contains various samples of earth (c. 1700 A.D.)
distinguished on their labels as Terra sigill. Lemnia, Terra sigtll-
alb., and Terra sigill. rubr. (fig. 147 a, b, c). Their colours are respec-
tively light red, white, and dark red. The first and third have stamped
in relief the Turkish crescent and star on a shield together with a
bunch of grapes and the legend terra sig(l)a|leh(h)ia. The

Fig. 147.

second shows a seven-headed dragon, with wings and a twisted tail;
and reads TERRA WWM. SIGILLATA (?). It may be a rival earth of
alien manufacture. Fredrich holds3 that this whole business of a
Lemnian medicament points backwards to a marriage of the fire-g°d

den Inseln des Thrakischen Meeres Hannover i860 p. 121 and G. Pantelides 'Lrropfa nj
vqaou Afavov Alexandria 1876 p. 47 ff. The Turks think that drinking vessels made 0
Lemnian earth render any poison drunk out of them harmless (Conze loc. cit.): cp. PI00'*
de red. rat. and. 9 on pots made of clay from Cape Kolias.

1 Other details are given by P. Belon du Mans Les observations deplusieurs singtdarttc*
& ckoses memorables, trouvies en Grece, Asie, ludte, Egypte, Arabic, <Sr= autres fty
estranges Paris 1555 p. 29 f. (Greek mass celebrated in small chapel of Sotira, after whlC 1
the monks fill 'petits sacs de poil de bestes' with the earth, etc.). He figures a selects'1
of the seals, which bear in Arabic letters the words tin imachton, 'sealed earth' ( = ^"w'
Brit. Sch. Ath. 1909—1910 xvi. 222 fig. 1, cp. ib. p. 230 fig. 5).

2 On which see E. S. Peck in Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Soct")'
1934 xxxiv. 34—49. ■

3 C. Fredrich he. cit. p. 74: 'Dort oben auf dem Mosychlos loderte ja einst »
Erdfeuer; der Feuerdamon hauste dort mit der Erdgottin. In der rotlichen Erde slt>
beide vermahlt; sie ist Sacrament und daher wirkt sie Wunder: xpu"™ s* rives *■'<" e
TeXeras avrrj (Dioskorides, a. a. O.). Wir kommen damit auf uralten Gotterdienst a
jenem Htigel, auf eine Verehrung der allnahrenden Erde, die nirgends wieder im aeSa^.'n
schen Meere soviel Getreide spendet wie auf Lemnos, und des Feuerdanions, der ^
Damon der Zeugungskraft ist. <3 Krinvia x^v nai rb irayKparis crAas 'H0aicrr6r£i";
klagt Philoktet (v. 986).'