DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8755#0098
Knossos Excavations, 1903.
87
of Minoan Crete as a whole. It may therefore be preferable to regard the
Snake Goddess not as a separate religious entity but rather as a chthonic
version of the same matronly divinity otherwise so well represented
on this and other Minoan sites. According to this view we have here the
contents of a small separate shrine, forming part of the larger Sanctuary,
the evidence for which has been sketched in a former Section. But
the Goddess herself seems to be essentially the same as she who is else-
where shown in the seal impressions of a neighbouring chamber of this
Sanctuary, standing on her sacred peak with her pillar temple behind her.
Sometimes we see a similar figure bearing a double axe, sometimes it is
held aloft by her votaries, and on the great signet of Mycenae the same
Mother Goddess is shown seated beneath her sacred fruit-tree, while the
labrys emblem appears in the sky above.
In this connexion it must further be observed that the female figures
found elsewhere at Gournia with snakes ascending their cylindrical bases are
the ruder counterparts of the semi-anthropomorphic Goddess of the small
shrine of the Double Axes found in the South-Eastern Quarter, save that
in this case she stands in association with the dove in place of the serpent.
It would even appear that the lion-guarded Goddess is essentially the
same as she whose emblem is the dove. The Cypro-Mycenaean cylinders,
which supply an illuminating commentary on many religious types of
Minoan Crete, are here specially valuable. On these the Goddess, guarded
or adored by lions, is also seen at times holding a dove, while in many cases
she is associated with the sacred rayed pillar—her alternative aniconic
shape—round which two serpents twine. Thus the earliest records of the
Lady of Paphos show that we have to do with essentially the same Nature
Goddess that was worshipped in Minoan Knossos, while the Paphian temple
itself, as traditionally figured, with the doves settled above its opening,
seems to represent the survival of the pillar shrines of Knossos and Mycenae.
Only at Knossos the records of this cult reach back far earlier than in
Cyprus, and the evidence as it at present stands certainly tends to support
the tradition preserved by Diodoros that it was from a Cretan source
that the cult of Aphrodite spread alike to Paphos and to the Syrian
coast; to Kythera and to Eryx.1 The Cretan Aphrodite Ariadne, as is
well known, was worshipped at Amathus.2
1 Diod. v. 77. 5.
1 Paeon of Amathus, in Plut. Thes. c. 20. Ariadne had there a sacred grove and grave.
87
of Minoan Crete as a whole. It may therefore be preferable to regard the
Snake Goddess not as a separate religious entity but rather as a chthonic
version of the same matronly divinity otherwise so well represented
on this and other Minoan sites. According to this view we have here the
contents of a small separate shrine, forming part of the larger Sanctuary,
the evidence for which has been sketched in a former Section. But
the Goddess herself seems to be essentially the same as she who is else-
where shown in the seal impressions of a neighbouring chamber of this
Sanctuary, standing on her sacred peak with her pillar temple behind her.
Sometimes we see a similar figure bearing a double axe, sometimes it is
held aloft by her votaries, and on the great signet of Mycenae the same
Mother Goddess is shown seated beneath her sacred fruit-tree, while the
labrys emblem appears in the sky above.
In this connexion it must further be observed that the female figures
found elsewhere at Gournia with snakes ascending their cylindrical bases are
the ruder counterparts of the semi-anthropomorphic Goddess of the small
shrine of the Double Axes found in the South-Eastern Quarter, save that
in this case she stands in association with the dove in place of the serpent.
It would even appear that the lion-guarded Goddess is essentially the
same as she whose emblem is the dove. The Cypro-Mycenaean cylinders,
which supply an illuminating commentary on many religious types of
Minoan Crete, are here specially valuable. On these the Goddess, guarded
or adored by lions, is also seen at times holding a dove, while in many cases
she is associated with the sacred rayed pillar—her alternative aniconic
shape—round which two serpents twine. Thus the earliest records of the
Lady of Paphos show that we have to do with essentially the same Nature
Goddess that was worshipped in Minoan Knossos, while the Paphian temple
itself, as traditionally figured, with the doves settled above its opening,
seems to represent the survival of the pillar shrines of Knossos and Mycenae.
Only at Knossos the records of this cult reach back far earlier than in
Cyprus, and the evidence as it at present stands certainly tends to support
the tradition preserved by Diodoros that it was from a Cretan source
that the cult of Aphrodite spread alike to Paphos and to the Syrian
coast; to Kythera and to Eryx.1 The Cretan Aphrodite Ariadne, as is
well known, was worshipped at Amathus.2
1 Diod. v. 77. 5.
1 Paeon of Amathus, in Plut. Thes. c. 20. Ariadne had there a sacred grove and grave.