DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8755#0094
Kxossos Excavations, 1903.
83
suggests the conventional lotus clumps of Egyptian religious art. We
have here a clear example of the translation of a Nilotic subject into
indigenous Minoan terms.
The height of the upper and lower robes together is in this case
23 centimetres (about g\ in.). There was also found a part of a larger
votive dress of the same character which when complete must have been
about 30'5 centimetres in height.
The smaller robes seen in Fig. 58 were, when complete,1 about 14
centimetres in height. Their general features resemble those of the first
described. The skirt exhibits the same reserved decorative space analogous
to the ' Watteau panel' of much later fashions. The crocus tuft is here
more elegant and the cinquefoil arch above it with its four cusps presents a
curiously Gothic aspect.
It may safely be said that had it not been for the light thrown on the
subject by the complete sets of vestments above described the remaining
articles of votive apparel illustrated in Fig. 58 might have remained a
lasting enigma. As it is, they are at once seen to represent the double
girdle which divides the skirt from the body of the robe. One of these
votive girdles is decorated with crocus flowers like those of the ' Watteau
panels' above mentioned, terminating in spirals; the other displays a
design consisting of asterisks and rosettes. A third, of which only a
fragment is preserved, shows a vandyke pattern.
The parallelism between these girdles in the shape of double rolls and
the snakes encircling the hips of the Goddess has been already noticed.
The fact that miniature reproductions of such girdles were used by them-
selves as votive objects seems to invest them with a special ritual signi-
ficance. They are not themselves made to represent serpents, but the
suspicion arises that the original rolls from which these are copied may
actually have contained some form of mummied snake.
The cult of the Snake Goddess, with which we have here to deal,
has been already illustrated, under a ruder aspect, indeed, on Cretan
soil. In the Minoan Settlement at Gournia Miss Harriet Boyd found
the remains of a small shrine containing some coarse images of a
Goddess rising from a cylindrical base,'2 about which serpents were
1 The upper part of the jacket is restored in Fig. 58.
2 Compare the Dove Goddess found in the shrine of the Double Axes at Knossos (Report, &c.,
1902, p. 98 seqq.).
G 2
83
suggests the conventional lotus clumps of Egyptian religious art. We
have here a clear example of the translation of a Nilotic subject into
indigenous Minoan terms.
The height of the upper and lower robes together is in this case
23 centimetres (about g\ in.). There was also found a part of a larger
votive dress of the same character which when complete must have been
about 30'5 centimetres in height.
The smaller robes seen in Fig. 58 were, when complete,1 about 14
centimetres in height. Their general features resemble those of the first
described. The skirt exhibits the same reserved decorative space analogous
to the ' Watteau panel' of much later fashions. The crocus tuft is here
more elegant and the cinquefoil arch above it with its four cusps presents a
curiously Gothic aspect.
It may safely be said that had it not been for the light thrown on the
subject by the complete sets of vestments above described the remaining
articles of votive apparel illustrated in Fig. 58 might have remained a
lasting enigma. As it is, they are at once seen to represent the double
girdle which divides the skirt from the body of the robe. One of these
votive girdles is decorated with crocus flowers like those of the ' Watteau
panels' above mentioned, terminating in spirals; the other displays a
design consisting of asterisks and rosettes. A third, of which only a
fragment is preserved, shows a vandyke pattern.
The parallelism between these girdles in the shape of double rolls and
the snakes encircling the hips of the Goddess has been already noticed.
The fact that miniature reproductions of such girdles were used by them-
selves as votive objects seems to invest them with a special ritual signi-
ficance. They are not themselves made to represent serpents, but the
suspicion arises that the original rolls from which these are copied may
actually have contained some form of mummied snake.
The cult of the Snake Goddess, with which we have here to deal,
has been already illustrated, under a ruder aspect, indeed, on Cretan
soil. In the Minoan Settlement at Gournia Miss Harriet Boyd found
the remains of a small shrine containing some coarse images of a
Goddess rising from a cylindrical base,'2 about which serpents were
1 The upper part of the jacket is restored in Fig. 58.
2 Compare the Dove Goddess found in the shrine of the Double Axes at Knossos (Report, &c.,
1902, p. 98 seqq.).
G 2