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)

The cult of meteorites

885

Classical literature, if we exclude the speculative explanations
of philosophers1, is seldom concerned with meteorites. But epic
poetry has two possible allusions. The Iliad makes Athena dart
from heaven to earth like a brilliant and scintillating star that Zeus
sends as a sign to men2—in short, like a meteor. And the Hymn
to the Pytliian Apollon represents that god as having landed at
Krisa in the same meteoric form3.

The most famous of all Greek meteors, the aerolite that fell at
Aigos Potamos in 405 B.C., was perhaps associated with the
Dioskouroi4. A lurid account of it has been left by Daimachos of
Plataiai, an early Hellenistic historian5, who says6:
' Before the stone fell, for seventy-five days in succession, there was seen in the
sky a fiery body of vast size like a flame-coloured cloud, not resting in one place
but borne along with intricate and irregular motions, so that fiery fragments
broken from it by its plunging and erratic course were carried in all directions
and flashed fire like so many shooting-stars. However, when it had sunk to
earth at that point and the inhabitants, recovering from their fear and amaze-
ment, had come together, no effect or trace of fire was to be seen"—only a stone

/(/.'Some aspects of Amun' in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 1934 xx. 139—153
returns to the charge and considers further the relation of Amun to Min. 'Amun was
derived from the much older Min, with whom he had much in common. Yet they
differed somehow. Min had the thunderbolt, while Amun had the meteorite. Min
became a fertility-god, while Amun became solarized. Min belonged to the bull-gods
and was related to Horus, while Amun belonged to the ram-gods and inclined towards
Seth. Amun also differed somewhat from the other ram-gods, for their ram was not his.
They were Heryshef, Khnum, and the Lord of Mendes. They primarily controlled the
waters on earth, a function not foreign to Amun, who came to do so as well. But from
the beginning he had been an air-, sky-, and weather-god....He was the blue firmament,
Ac heavenly counterpart of the earthly waters. His sacred object was clearly a meteorite
which came to earth from his very self. Like other meteorites its representatives were
0rnphaloi, of which one at least suggests a fallen star in its material.'

These articles, taken together, certainly present us with a consistent picture of
Meteorite-cult over a wide area of the ancient world. I feel bound, however, to enter
'wo pleas for caution: (1) The equation of thunderbolt = meteorite = omphalis is not
Universally valid. Other things beside meteorites might be reckoned as thunderbolts,
**■« flint implements (supra ii. 505 ff., 643). And other things beside meteorites might
J- represented as omphalol, e.g. a tomb (supra ii. 219 n. 4), a mound of earth (supra ii.
l°1)< a mountain (supra ii. 983 n. o). (2) Apart from this assumed equation, we have no
^equate proof that Min or Amun had any connexion with meteorites. That the aniconic
°rm of Amun was a meteoric fragment is an attractive hypothesis, but hardly more.

On which see O. Gilbert Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums
Leipzig 1907 pp. 638—642, 688 f.

Supra i. 760. 3 Supra i. 760. 4 Supra i. 762.

E. Schwartz in Pauly—Wissowa Keal-Enc. iv. 2009.

IJaim. frag. 5 (Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 441 f. MUller) =/ra£-. 8 (Frag. gr. Hist. ii. 16 f.
Jacoby) a>>. Piout^.Zy,. 12. 4 f.

CP- O. C. Farrington Meteorites Chicago 1915 p. 27 'Meteorites show little warmth
nen they arrive upon the earth....Neither are there any indications of any heating effect
ere meteorites have struck the earth. No bakin of the soil or charring of vegetation
can be observed.'