DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8944#0008
106
ARTHUR J. EVANS
is indeed inseparable, and a special feature of the Mycenaean cult scenes with
which we have to deal is the constant combination of the sacred tree with pillar
or dolmen. The same religious idea—the possession of the material object by
the mimen of the divinity—is common to both. The two forms, moreover
shade off into one another; the living tree, as will be seen, can be
converted into a column or a tree-pillar, retaining the sanctity of the
original. No doubt, as compared with the pillar-form, the living tree was in
some way a more realistic impersonation of the godhead, as a depositary of
the divine life manifested by its fruits and foliage. In the whispering of
its leaves and the melancholy soughing of the breeze was heard, as at
Dodona, the actual voice of the divinity. The spiritual possession of the
stone or pillar was more temporary in its nature, and the result of a special
act of ritual invocation. But the presence of the tree or bush which afforded
a more permanent manifestation of divine life may have been thought to
facilitate the simultaneous presence of the divinity in the stock or stone,
just as both of them co-operate towards the ' possession' of the votary
himself.
In India, where worship of this primitive character is perhaps best
illustrated at the present day, the collocation of tree and stone is equally
frequent. The rough pyramidal pillars of the Bhuta Spirit, the dolmen
shrines with their sacred stones, and many other rude "baetyls" of the
same kind, such as those of the Horse God and the Village God among the
Khonds, are commonly set up beneath holy trees. In the Druidical worship
of the West, the tree divinity and the Menhir or stone pillar are associated
in a very similar manner, and lingering traditions of their relationship are
still traceable in modern folklore. To illustrate indeed this sympathetic
conjunction of tree and pillar we have to go no further afield than the borders
of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Beside the pre-historic stone fence of
Rollright the elder tree still stands hard by the King Stone, about which it is
told that when the flowery branch was cut on Midsummer Eve, the tree bled,
the stone ' moved its head.'1
§ 5.— The ' Labyrinth' and the Pillar Shrines of the God of the Doiible Axe.
It will be shown in the course of this study that the cult objects of
Mycenaean times almost exclusively consisted of sacred stones, pillars, and
trees. It appears, however, that certain symbolic objects, like the double
axe, also at times stood as the visible impersonation of the divinity. A valu-
able illustration of this aspect of primitive cult, which has hitherto escaped
attention, is supplied by the subject of a painted Mycenaean vase (Fig. 3),
now in the British Museum, found during the recent excavations at Old
Salamis in Cyprus.2 We see here the repeated delineation of a double axe
appearance of a Zeus Labranios in Cyprus.
I. H. Hall, Jourii. American Oriental Soc.
1883. Cited by 0. Richter, Kypros, &c. p. 21.
ARTHUR J. EVANS
is indeed inseparable, and a special feature of the Mycenaean cult scenes with
which we have to deal is the constant combination of the sacred tree with pillar
or dolmen. The same religious idea—the possession of the material object by
the mimen of the divinity—is common to both. The two forms, moreover
shade off into one another; the living tree, as will be seen, can be
converted into a column or a tree-pillar, retaining the sanctity of the
original. No doubt, as compared with the pillar-form, the living tree was in
some way a more realistic impersonation of the godhead, as a depositary of
the divine life manifested by its fruits and foliage. In the whispering of
its leaves and the melancholy soughing of the breeze was heard, as at
Dodona, the actual voice of the divinity. The spiritual possession of the
stone or pillar was more temporary in its nature, and the result of a special
act of ritual invocation. But the presence of the tree or bush which afforded
a more permanent manifestation of divine life may have been thought to
facilitate the simultaneous presence of the divinity in the stock or stone,
just as both of them co-operate towards the ' possession' of the votary
himself.
In India, where worship of this primitive character is perhaps best
illustrated at the present day, the collocation of tree and stone is equally
frequent. The rough pyramidal pillars of the Bhuta Spirit, the dolmen
shrines with their sacred stones, and many other rude "baetyls" of the
same kind, such as those of the Horse God and the Village God among the
Khonds, are commonly set up beneath holy trees. In the Druidical worship
of the West, the tree divinity and the Menhir or stone pillar are associated
in a very similar manner, and lingering traditions of their relationship are
still traceable in modern folklore. To illustrate indeed this sympathetic
conjunction of tree and pillar we have to go no further afield than the borders
of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Beside the pre-historic stone fence of
Rollright the elder tree still stands hard by the King Stone, about which it is
told that when the flowery branch was cut on Midsummer Eve, the tree bled,
the stone ' moved its head.'1
§ 5.— The ' Labyrinth' and the Pillar Shrines of the God of the Doiible Axe.
It will be shown in the course of this study that the cult objects of
Mycenaean times almost exclusively consisted of sacred stones, pillars, and
trees. It appears, however, that certain symbolic objects, like the double
axe, also at times stood as the visible impersonation of the divinity. A valu-
able illustration of this aspect of primitive cult, which has hitherto escaped
attention, is supplied by the subject of a painted Mycenaean vase (Fig. 3),
now in the British Museum, found during the recent excavations at Old
Salamis in Cyprus.2 We see here the repeated delineation of a double axe
appearance of a Zeus Labranios in Cyprus.
I. H. Hall, Jourii. American Oriental Soc.
1883. Cited by 0. Richter, Kypros, &c. p. 21.