Evans, Arthur: The Mycenaean tree and pillar cult and its Mediterranean relations: with illustrations from recent Cretan finds (London, 1901)

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ARTHUR J. EVANS

that in this case the natural columns of this Cavern shrine were regarded as
the baetylic forms of the divinity, just as the Cave itself is here his temple.
It may be observed, moreover, in this connexion that some of the shorter
stalagmitic formations of this ' Holy of Holies' are perfect representations
of the omphalos type, and perhaps supply the true explanation of the origin
of this form of sacred stone.

It will be shown in the succeeding section that the inscribed libation
table found in the upper sanctuary of the same Cave is in a similar way
associated with a baetylic form of the God as an artificial column or cone.

§ G.—The /ScttViiXo? and Baetylic Talks of Offering.

There will be repeated occasion for observing the close correspondence
of the Mycenaean and Semitic cult of sacred pillars. The best known

Fig. 6.—Pillar Shrines and Votaries ox Vase Fragment fi:om Oi.o Salamis, Cyrnus.

instance of the kind is the pillar set up by Jacob, which was literally
Bethel, the House of God. It h is been suggested that these Semitic words,
or some parallel form of the same—indicating the stone as the temporary place
of indwelling for a divinity—supplied the Greeks with the term /SaiViAo? or
/3cutv\iov} and applied in a special way to the stone which, according to the

1 Lenormant, Art. ' Baetylia ' in Daremberg
and Saglio, Diet, des AntiquiUs, i. 642 seqq. ;
Baudissin, Sludien zur Semitisehen Religion,
;i. 232 seqq. ; Dr. H. Lewy, Die Semititehm

FremdwOrler im Oriechischen, p]>. 255, 256,
who prefers the derivation ' het 'eloah.' The

word was derived by the aneient grammarians

from the Cretan fraWi) = goat or goat-skin, in