DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.805#0013
4 FROM CRETE AND THE PELOPONNESE. [273]
axe certainly suggest that we have here to deal with symbols of divinity,
perhaps standing for the divinity itself, or ideas of cult and sacrifice,—the
latter form of symbolism being well brought out by the gold ornaments
representing oxes' heads with a double axe between the horns. In the
same way, to take an example from the practice of modern savages, a drawing
of eyes and beak stood among the Iroquois for the Thunder-Bird or a rayed
head for a Spirit among the Ojibwas. The whole of later Greek symbolism
may in fact be regarded as a survival, maintained by religious conservatism,
from a wide field of primitive pictography. The figure that stands as the
personal badge of the names of individuals at times actually appears as the
equivalent of the written form of the name, as when a monetary magistrate
called Leon places a lion on his dies. The same symbolic script is frequent
in the rendering of city names, one of the most interesting examples being
found on a coin of Mesembria where the part of the civic legend signifying
day is supplied by a swastika—the emblem of the midday sun.2
The symbols on the Mycenaean seals are themselves of too isolated
occurrence to be used straight away as examples of a hieroglyphic system—
though there seem to me to be good reasons for supposing that some at least
among them did fit on to such a system. But more recently one or two
objects have been found at Mycenae itself and in Mycenaean deposits else-
where which are calculated more effectually to shake some of the preconceived
notions of archaeologists as to the non-existence in Greece of a prae-Phoenician
system of writing. The most important of these are the handle of a stone
vase apparently of a local material (Fig. 1) found at Mycenae, which has
Fig. 1.—Signs on Vase-Handle, Mycenae.
four, or perhaps five, signs engraved upon it, and the handle of a clay
amphora from a chambered tomb in the lower town of Mycenae with three
Fig. 2.—Signs on Amphora-Handle, Mycenae.
characters (Fig. 2). Single signs have also been noticed on the handles of
two amphoras of the same form as the last found in the Tholos tomb of
2 P. Gardner, Num. Citron. 1880, p. 59 ; Head, Hist. Num. 237.
axe certainly suggest that we have here to deal with symbols of divinity,
perhaps standing for the divinity itself, or ideas of cult and sacrifice,—the
latter form of symbolism being well brought out by the gold ornaments
representing oxes' heads with a double axe between the horns. In the
same way, to take an example from the practice of modern savages, a drawing
of eyes and beak stood among the Iroquois for the Thunder-Bird or a rayed
head for a Spirit among the Ojibwas. The whole of later Greek symbolism
may in fact be regarded as a survival, maintained by religious conservatism,
from a wide field of primitive pictography. The figure that stands as the
personal badge of the names of individuals at times actually appears as the
equivalent of the written form of the name, as when a monetary magistrate
called Leon places a lion on his dies. The same symbolic script is frequent
in the rendering of city names, one of the most interesting examples being
found on a coin of Mesembria where the part of the civic legend signifying
day is supplied by a swastika—the emblem of the midday sun.2
The symbols on the Mycenaean seals are themselves of too isolated
occurrence to be used straight away as examples of a hieroglyphic system—
though there seem to me to be good reasons for supposing that some at least
among them did fit on to such a system. But more recently one or two
objects have been found at Mycenae itself and in Mycenaean deposits else-
where which are calculated more effectually to shake some of the preconceived
notions of archaeologists as to the non-existence in Greece of a prae-Phoenician
system of writing. The most important of these are the handle of a stone
vase apparently of a local material (Fig. 1) found at Mycenae, which has
Fig. 1.—Signs on Vase-Handle, Mycenae.
four, or perhaps five, signs engraved upon it, and the handle of a clay
amphora from a chambered tomb in the lower town of Mycenae with three
Fig. 2.—Signs on Amphora-Handle, Mycenae.
characters (Fig. 2). Single signs have also been noticed on the handles of
two amphoras of the same form as the last found in the Tholos tomb of
2 P. Gardner, Num. Citron. 1880, p. 59 ; Head, Hist. Num. 237.