The Palace of Knossos: Provisional Report for the Year 1903 (in: The Annual of the British School at Athens, 9.1902/1903, S. 1-153) (London, 1903)

92

A. J. Evans

here placed in the centre. The Snake Goddess stands on one side of it and
the votaries on the other, while the votive robes are suspended above, and
various articles of altar decoration are distributed about. In place of the
rounded pebbles that paved the other base, a few of the artificially tinted
sea-shells are here placed in the foreground.

That the small Marble Cross, which, in this view, formed the central
cult object in this particular shrine, was placed in an upright position,
though doubtless applied to .some other material, appears probable from

Fig. 63.—Shrine ok Snake Goddess with Marm.e Cross as Central Cult
Object. Conjectural Arrangement.

another interesting piece of evidence. A pair of schist moulds found at
Karydi, near Palaikastro, in East Crete,'in 1899,1 show a series of
objects and figures illustrative of Minoan cult. There are here a figure
of a Goddess holding a Double Axe in either hand ; another similar figure
of a Goddess holding a kind of spray in either hand and with another

1 Described mid illustrated by Dr. Stephanos a. Xanthudides in 'E<p. 'Apx. 1900, p. 26, sei/g.,
Plates 3 and 4.