DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8944#0026
124
ARTHUR J. EVANS
of the Mycenaean paintings had been preserved, something like a complete
view of this imaginative side of the religion might have been unfolded to us.
Apart from the minor relics, to which we shall presently turn, the only real
indication of a cult scene is supplied by the painting on the stucco tablet
found in a private house at Mycenae, in which two female adorants stand
facing on either side an altar, by which is the figure of an armed God, pro-
tected by a great 8-shaped body-shield.1 A figure of a God with rayed
shoulders, holding a similar body-shield, also occurs on a painted ossuary from
Milato,-in Crete.2 So, too, a fragment of a fresco from Mycenae itself also
reproduces some of the strange Mycenaean daemons.3 Considering how very
little has reached us of the pictorial art of this period, these surviving illus-
trations of religious subjects, as seen on these paintings, and still more
on the signet rings, may be taken to indicate that in this way the out-
ward forms of the Gods and their surroundings were fixed and familiarised
by the Mycenaean artists long before they actually affected the shape of the
cult images. Here the Gods or other supernatural beings stood portrayed as
they were described in hymns and incantations, haunting their sacred seats,
feasting in their celestial groves _and gardens, or descending at the prayer of
the votaries before their sacred pillars and altar-stones. On the Knossian
ring already referred to a remarkable illustration will be found of this dual
conception of divinity in its human and its pillar form.4 There an armed God
is seen descending in front of his sacred obelisk, before which the votary
stands in the attitude of adoration. It is the artist's attempt to express the
spiritual being, duly brought down by ritual incantation, so as temporarily to
possess its stony resting-place. Elsewhere we see the figure of a Goddess
seated beside or even upon her rustic shrine, or, as in the case of the great
signet ring from Mycenae, beneath her sacred tree, and tended by her hand-
maidens. In other cases, as in the Lions' Gate scheme, we see the pillar
image between its guardian monsters rejjlaced on other parallel types by a
male or female divinity.5
The coexistence of this more realistic imagery side by side with the
material objects of primitive cult certainly betrays elements of transition.
We discern already foreshadowings of the time, not far distant, when the
mental conception of individual divinities would leave its impress on the
rude stock or stone or more artistically shaped pillar which from time to
time was supposed to become possessed with its spiritual essence. It
is true, as already noticed, that the great mass of the small figurines of bronze
and clay found in votive deposits of Mycenaean age must probably be
regarded as representing the votary himself or his belongings, who were
thus placed in the hands of the divinity. But it is by no means im-
possible that some exceptions exist to this rule, due perhaps in the first
instance to the influence of Egyptian or Oriental practice. There is, for
1 'Eipriiupls 'ApxatoXoyiK-fi, 1887, PI. X. 2, * 'E<pnfiep\s 'Apxa<o\oym-l), 1887, PL X. I.
and p. 162; Tsuntas and Manatt, Myc. Aye, 4 See below, p. 170.
PL XL, p. 291). 5 See below, p. 163 seqq.
- .See below, p. 174.
ARTHUR J. EVANS
of the Mycenaean paintings had been preserved, something like a complete
view of this imaginative side of the religion might have been unfolded to us.
Apart from the minor relics, to which we shall presently turn, the only real
indication of a cult scene is supplied by the painting on the stucco tablet
found in a private house at Mycenae, in which two female adorants stand
facing on either side an altar, by which is the figure of an armed God, pro-
tected by a great 8-shaped body-shield.1 A figure of a God with rayed
shoulders, holding a similar body-shield, also occurs on a painted ossuary from
Milato,-in Crete.2 So, too, a fragment of a fresco from Mycenae itself also
reproduces some of the strange Mycenaean daemons.3 Considering how very
little has reached us of the pictorial art of this period, these surviving illus-
trations of religious subjects, as seen on these paintings, and still more
on the signet rings, may be taken to indicate that in this way the out-
ward forms of the Gods and their surroundings were fixed and familiarised
by the Mycenaean artists long before they actually affected the shape of the
cult images. Here the Gods or other supernatural beings stood portrayed as
they were described in hymns and incantations, haunting their sacred seats,
feasting in their celestial groves _and gardens, or descending at the prayer of
the votaries before their sacred pillars and altar-stones. On the Knossian
ring already referred to a remarkable illustration will be found of this dual
conception of divinity in its human and its pillar form.4 There an armed God
is seen descending in front of his sacred obelisk, before which the votary
stands in the attitude of adoration. It is the artist's attempt to express the
spiritual being, duly brought down by ritual incantation, so as temporarily to
possess its stony resting-place. Elsewhere we see the figure of a Goddess
seated beside or even upon her rustic shrine, or, as in the case of the great
signet ring from Mycenae, beneath her sacred tree, and tended by her hand-
maidens. In other cases, as in the Lions' Gate scheme, we see the pillar
image between its guardian monsters rejjlaced on other parallel types by a
male or female divinity.5
The coexistence of this more realistic imagery side by side with the
material objects of primitive cult certainly betrays elements of transition.
We discern already foreshadowings of the time, not far distant, when the
mental conception of individual divinities would leave its impress on the
rude stock or stone or more artistically shaped pillar which from time to
time was supposed to become possessed with its spiritual essence. It
is true, as already noticed, that the great mass of the small figurines of bronze
and clay found in votive deposits of Mycenaean age must probably be
regarded as representing the votary himself or his belongings, who were
thus placed in the hands of the divinity. But it is by no means im-
possible that some exceptions exist to this rule, due perhaps in the first
instance to the influence of Egyptian or Oriental practice. There is, for
1 'Eipriiupls 'ApxatoXoyiK-fi, 1887, PI. X. 2, * 'E<pnfiep\s 'Apxa<o\oym-l), 1887, PL X. I.
and p. 162; Tsuntas and Manatt, Myc. Aye, 4 See below, p. 170.
PL XL, p. 291). 5 See below, p. 163 seqq.
- .See below, p. 174.