Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 1): The Neolithic and Early and Middle Minoan Ages (London, 1921)

M.M. III. WEST PALACE REGION; DOUBLE AXE CULT 431

nexion with Minoan ritual usage is illustrated by a series of examples on
signets and seal impressions.1

On a gold signet ring from a tomb of the Lower Town of Mycenae ' Sacral
a pair of these objects are seen suspended from the entablature on either side signets,
of the capital of a Sacred Column, to which are chained two lion guardians
(Fig. 310, b). On a clay impression of a seal-stone of amygdaloid form found
in a M.M. Ill stratum in the Court of the Stone Spout at Knossos, a similar
fio-ure hangs on either side of a palm-tree, evidently as an indication of its

Fig. 309 a, />, c. Sacral Knots in Faience from Fourth Shaft Grave, Mycenae.

d. Loop of one curving forwards, (c. f).

sanctity. On another Minoan signet-ring2 (Fig. 310, a) two well-defined
knots of the same fringed kind recur again, in front of a charging bull.
It depicts an episode of the favourite Minoan sport, and the cowboy who had
endeavoured to seize the bull's horns has here been badly thrown. From
the appearance of a rock border round the field above, the scene is evidently
laid in some natural glen, but the Sacral Knots here certainly indicate that the
sport was as much under the patronage of the Minoan Goddess as the acro-
batic feats of a similar nature that in other cases were carried out in arenas
actually overlooked by her shrine.

1 See my Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, emigrants after 1898. The core of the ring is
p. 61, Fig. 39, and p. 62. of bronze originally, no doubt covered by gold

2 Acquired at Smyrna, but probably brought plating, since replaced by gilding. This signet-
from Crete by one of the numerous Moslem ring is in my own Collection.