DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8755#0101
go
A. J. Evans
Fig. 6i.—Ci.ay Seal
Impression with
Cruciform Symbol,
from Temple
Repository.
as a religious symbol of the same kind as the Swastika of the other seal-
types, and to see in this also an adaptation of an original star-sign.1 As an
eight-rayed figure we find the star symbol constantly recurring in con-
nexion with Minoan religious types above or in place of the baetylic pillar.
It has already been noticed2 that a type of cross with a small base to
each foot—the cross pattee—occurs as the distinguishing mark of a small
series of Magazines on the Southern border of the
Palace section that seems to have contained its principal
Sanctuary. On some blocks, apparently belonging to
the Earlier Palace, a plain deep-cut cruciform sign with
equal limbs and others x-shaped are also found, and
these types recur at Phaestos.:i
The Double Axe symbol cut on the Palace blocks
finds its material counterpart in the fetish Double Axes
of the Palace shrines. But even this analogy could
hardly prepare us to bring to light from this Temple
Repository, over and above the sealings with the cruci-
form symbols, an actual cross of fine veined marble
and of orthodox Greek shape (Fig. 62). The colours
of the marble are white and dark grey. The width of the cross is
about 22'2 centimetres (8J inches), and its thickness is very slight,
only 1*2 centimetres, or somewhat less than half an inch. The face
was finely polished, but the under side is less finished, and there are
visible on it incised lines running parallel to the ends of the limbs at
somewhat uneven distances from them.4 A part of one limb had been
broken off, but there can be no reasonable doubt that it finished off as the
others, and as it is restored in Fig. 62. It is evident from the compara-
tively rough back that the cross was applied to some other object.
Taken in connexion with the cruciform symbols with which it was
associated on the seal impressions,—themselves probably originally attached
to priestly documents,—it seems a possible conclusion that, in the small
shrine to which the various objects found here ex liypotliesi belonged, the
1 A similar cruciform figure occurs as a character of the Linear Script. Compare, too, the
Egyptian -j-, the early Dynastic form of which is an equal-limbed cross.
'- See above, p. 36.
" L. l'ernier, Scavi, etc., a Phaeslos (Roma, 1902), p. 90.
4 At a distance, respectively, of 3'S, 3, and 2 centimetres from the edges of the three complete
limbs.
A. J. Evans
Fig. 6i.—Ci.ay Seal
Impression with
Cruciform Symbol,
from Temple
Repository.
as a religious symbol of the same kind as the Swastika of the other seal-
types, and to see in this also an adaptation of an original star-sign.1 As an
eight-rayed figure we find the star symbol constantly recurring in con-
nexion with Minoan religious types above or in place of the baetylic pillar.
It has already been noticed2 that a type of cross with a small base to
each foot—the cross pattee—occurs as the distinguishing mark of a small
series of Magazines on the Southern border of the
Palace section that seems to have contained its principal
Sanctuary. On some blocks, apparently belonging to
the Earlier Palace, a plain deep-cut cruciform sign with
equal limbs and others x-shaped are also found, and
these types recur at Phaestos.:i
The Double Axe symbol cut on the Palace blocks
finds its material counterpart in the fetish Double Axes
of the Palace shrines. But even this analogy could
hardly prepare us to bring to light from this Temple
Repository, over and above the sealings with the cruci-
form symbols, an actual cross of fine veined marble
and of orthodox Greek shape (Fig. 62). The colours
of the marble are white and dark grey. The width of the cross is
about 22'2 centimetres (8J inches), and its thickness is very slight,
only 1*2 centimetres, or somewhat less than half an inch. The face
was finely polished, but the under side is less finished, and there are
visible on it incised lines running parallel to the ends of the limbs at
somewhat uneven distances from them.4 A part of one limb had been
broken off, but there can be no reasonable doubt that it finished off as the
others, and as it is restored in Fig. 62. It is evident from the compara-
tively rough back that the cross was applied to some other object.
Taken in connexion with the cruciform symbols with which it was
associated on the seal impressions,—themselves probably originally attached
to priestly documents,—it seems a possible conclusion that, in the small
shrine to which the various objects found here ex liypotliesi belonged, the
1 A similar cruciform figure occurs as a character of the Linear Script. Compare, too, the
Egyptian -j-, the early Dynastic form of which is an equal-limbed cross.
'- See above, p. 36.
" L. l'ernier, Scavi, etc., a Phaeslos (Roma, 1902), p. 90.
4 At a distance, respectively, of 3'S, 3, and 2 centimetres from the edges of the three complete
limbs.