DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8757#0081
AND ASSOCIATED GROUP AT KNOSSOS
55
that encircle the 'Snake Goddess' of the Temple Repository of Knossos.
There can be little doubt that these and other attributes are for the most part
connected with varying aspects of the great Nature Goddess of Minoan Crete,
who in later tradition was identified, as the case might be, with Rhea, Artemis
Diktynna,or Aphrodite Ariadne. With her, as in the parallel Anatolian religions,
was grouped a male satellite, who in the hellenized cult of Crete came into
greater prominence as the indigenous Zeus.
A series of examples of Minoan shrines—some, like that of the Re-occupa-
tion Period in the Palace at Knossos and the ' Shrine of the Fetishes' in the
1 Little Palace', practically undisturbed—show that the regular arrangement
was to set out cult objects on a ledge or bench at the further end of the chamber.
It certainly looks as if in the present case the rock-cut ledge in front of the recess
immediately beyond the inner border of the sepulchral cist had been designed
for this purpose. The position in which the ritual double axes and the remains
of the libation vessels lay in the adjoining corner of the floor area agrees very
well with the supposition that they had been swept off the neighbouring ledge at
the time when the tomb was plundered. Moreover, there was found on the ledge
itself the handle part of a chafing-dish or censer of the same form as those
from Tomb i (cf. fig. 18, above), which may well itself have been placed beside
the cult objects. Like the others, it had in all probability served for the ritual
fumigation of the chamber.
It is probable that, as seems to have been more usually the case in
domestic shrines, the shafts of the double axes were in this case socketed in
' sacral horns' of plaster with a clay core. The destruction of such is easily
accounted for by the disturbance due to the plundering of the tomb or the falling
in of parts of the ceiling of the chamber.
The appearance here among the funereal furniture of these ritual double
axes in association with libation vessels is thus a phenomenon of the highest in-
terest. It marks the sepulchral chamber as a sanctuary of the Minoan Goddess,
as well as a tomb. On the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada we see, side by side
with the offering of libations before the sacred Double Axes, another offertory
group directed towards what appears to be a representation of the deceased him-
self, standing at the door of a small building which may perhaps be described as
a herdon. The cult of the dead is thus brought into direct relation with the divinity
or divinities of the Double Axes, and we may infer that in the present tomb
the mortal remains had been placed in some ceremonial manner under divine
guardianship.
But in this case the connexion of the sacred symbol with the sepulchral
religion did not end here. Mr. Doll's minute measurements of the rock-cut cist
itself (fig. 72) brought out a still more surprising phenomenon, which is also
55
that encircle the 'Snake Goddess' of the Temple Repository of Knossos.
There can be little doubt that these and other attributes are for the most part
connected with varying aspects of the great Nature Goddess of Minoan Crete,
who in later tradition was identified, as the case might be, with Rhea, Artemis
Diktynna,or Aphrodite Ariadne. With her, as in the parallel Anatolian religions,
was grouped a male satellite, who in the hellenized cult of Crete came into
greater prominence as the indigenous Zeus.
A series of examples of Minoan shrines—some, like that of the Re-occupa-
tion Period in the Palace at Knossos and the ' Shrine of the Fetishes' in the
1 Little Palace', practically undisturbed—show that the regular arrangement
was to set out cult objects on a ledge or bench at the further end of the chamber.
It certainly looks as if in the present case the rock-cut ledge in front of the recess
immediately beyond the inner border of the sepulchral cist had been designed
for this purpose. The position in which the ritual double axes and the remains
of the libation vessels lay in the adjoining corner of the floor area agrees very
well with the supposition that they had been swept off the neighbouring ledge at
the time when the tomb was plundered. Moreover, there was found on the ledge
itself the handle part of a chafing-dish or censer of the same form as those
from Tomb i (cf. fig. 18, above), which may well itself have been placed beside
the cult objects. Like the others, it had in all probability served for the ritual
fumigation of the chamber.
It is probable that, as seems to have been more usually the case in
domestic shrines, the shafts of the double axes were in this case socketed in
' sacral horns' of plaster with a clay core. The destruction of such is easily
accounted for by the disturbance due to the plundering of the tomb or the falling
in of parts of the ceiling of the chamber.
The appearance here among the funereal furniture of these ritual double
axes in association with libation vessels is thus a phenomenon of the highest in-
terest. It marks the sepulchral chamber as a sanctuary of the Minoan Goddess,
as well as a tomb. On the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada we see, side by side
with the offering of libations before the sacred Double Axes, another offertory
group directed towards what appears to be a representation of the deceased him-
self, standing at the door of a small building which may perhaps be described as
a herdon. The cult of the dead is thus brought into direct relation with the divinity
or divinities of the Double Axes, and we may infer that in the present tomb
the mortal remains had been placed in some ceremonial manner under divine
guardianship.
But in this case the connexion of the sacred symbol with the sepulchral
religion did not end here. Mr. Doll's minute measurements of the rock-cut cist
itself (fig. 72) brought out a still more surprising phenomenon, which is also