DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8944#0052
150
ARTHUR J. EVANS
is not the place to enlarge. It may be sufficient to observe that in this
period of Cypriote history the "golden Aphrodite" of the Egyptians seems to
play a much more important part than any form of Astarte or Mylitta.
These Cypriote examples are of special interest in their bearing on certain
religious types and associations from the Aegean area of the Mycenaean world.
The more specialised forms of the rayed, fantastic, tree pillar are peculiar
to Cyprus, but even these find analogies in some hitherto unexplained figures
on Mycenaean vases, and we shall also see rayed divinities. On the other
hand a simple form of the palmette pillar, approaching a fleur-de-lys in
outline, is found on Mycenaean signets and the same group of guardian
monsters recur in association with a whole series of Mycenaean pillars. The
Cypriote parallels will be found to have a fundamental importance as demon-
strating in detail that these are in fact taken over from the cult of Mentu-
Ra the Warrior Sun-God of Egypt, of Hathor, and of Horus.
It is reasonable to believe that in the Aegean area as well as in Cyprus
this taking over of the external elements from the Egyptian solar cycle was
facilitated by underlying resemblances in the characters of the indigenous
divinities to whom these attributes were transferred. The surviving attach-
ment of some of these solar monsters to certain later divinities bears out
this conclusion. The griffin and the lion remained in the service of Apollo.
Fig. 29.—HathOBIO Uuaeus Pillar and C\tro-Myuenaean and Oriental Analogies.
1. .Egyptian Uracils Pillar. 2 and 3. Cyi>ro-Myeeiiauaii Comparisons. 4. Dual Urauus Stall' of
Is tar.
It is further noteworthy that a certain mystic duality visible in the
Hathorie pillars was taken over in a simpler form by Cypriote religion. The
head-piece of Hathor represents the meaning of her name as the ' House of
Horus,' and may therefore be considered as at the same time implying the
internal presence of her divine son. It is sufficient to compare the annexed
figure (Eig. 21), 1) of a Hathorie pillar with an uraeus snake curving up and
confronting it on either side, taken from an Egyptian signet1 of seventeenth
or eighteenth Dynasty date with the two following designs of the Cypro-
Mycenaean class,- the latter, to make complete the comparison, on a flat
rectangular bead-seal of the same form as the Egyptian. In both of these
derivative designs we see a double column. In Fig. 29, 2, the incurving
Hathorie sprays become two snakes whose coils on another Cypro-Mycenaean
1 Found in an intrusive burial at Kaliun,
Petrie, Kaluui, Ourob, and Hawara, PI. X.
79, and p. 32.
1 Fig. 29, 2 is from a cylinder, Cesnola,
Salaminia, 'PI. XII. 7. Fig. 29, 3 op. tit.
\>. 14o, Fig. 128. Both aro from Salamis.
ARTHUR J. EVANS
is not the place to enlarge. It may be sufficient to observe that in this
period of Cypriote history the "golden Aphrodite" of the Egyptians seems to
play a much more important part than any form of Astarte or Mylitta.
These Cypriote examples are of special interest in their bearing on certain
religious types and associations from the Aegean area of the Mycenaean world.
The more specialised forms of the rayed, fantastic, tree pillar are peculiar
to Cyprus, but even these find analogies in some hitherto unexplained figures
on Mycenaean vases, and we shall also see rayed divinities. On the other
hand a simple form of the palmette pillar, approaching a fleur-de-lys in
outline, is found on Mycenaean signets and the same group of guardian
monsters recur in association with a whole series of Mycenaean pillars. The
Cypriote parallels will be found to have a fundamental importance as demon-
strating in detail that these are in fact taken over from the cult of Mentu-
Ra the Warrior Sun-God of Egypt, of Hathor, and of Horus.
It is reasonable to believe that in the Aegean area as well as in Cyprus
this taking over of the external elements from the Egyptian solar cycle was
facilitated by underlying resemblances in the characters of the indigenous
divinities to whom these attributes were transferred. The surviving attach-
ment of some of these solar monsters to certain later divinities bears out
this conclusion. The griffin and the lion remained in the service of Apollo.
Fig. 29.—HathOBIO Uuaeus Pillar and C\tro-Myuenaean and Oriental Analogies.
1. .Egyptian Uracils Pillar. 2 and 3. Cyi>ro-Myeeiiauaii Comparisons. 4. Dual Urauus Stall' of
Is tar.
It is further noteworthy that a certain mystic duality visible in the
Hathorie pillars was taken over in a simpler form by Cypriote religion. The
head-piece of Hathor represents the meaning of her name as the ' House of
Horus,' and may therefore be considered as at the same time implying the
internal presence of her divine son. It is sufficient to compare the annexed
figure (Eig. 21), 1) of a Hathorie pillar with an uraeus snake curving up and
confronting it on either side, taken from an Egyptian signet1 of seventeenth
or eighteenth Dynasty date with the two following designs of the Cypro-
Mycenaean class,- the latter, to make complete the comparison, on a flat
rectangular bead-seal of the same form as the Egyptian. In both of these
derivative designs we see a double column. In Fig. 29, 2, the incurving
Hathorie sprays become two snakes whose coils on another Cypro-Mycenaean
1 Found in an intrusive burial at Kaliun,
Petrie, Kaluui, Ourob, and Hawara, PI. X.
79, and p. 32.
1 Fig. 29, 2 is from a cylinder, Cesnola,
Salaminia, 'PI. XII. 7. Fig. 29, 3 op. tit.
\>. 14o, Fig. 128. Both aro from Salamis.