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)

438

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Ritual
per-
formed
before
Double
Axes from
Hagia
Triada
Sarco-
phagus.

plaster imitation of such polychrome graining, was found in the adjoining

Long Corridor of the Magazines (Fig. 314), and may either have been placed

there as an earnest of divine guardianship or

have reached its present position from some

sanctuary above. It probably belongs to the

early part of the Late Minoan Age.

Part of a stepped socket of black steatite,

originally, no doubt, coated with gold foil, was

found with the Bull's head rhyton of the same

material and other relics in a deposit belonging

to a columnar sanctuary of the Little Palace at

Knossos. A small example of a similar stepped

socket from the Psychro Cave, of the same

soft stone, is shown in Fig. 315, together with

a bronze double axe of the thin ritual type,

found in the same deposit. The upper step

here shows a perforation for the rivet by which

the shaft of the Double Axe was attached.1

Of the actual ritual of the worship of

this sacred symbol we have now a complete

illustration in the sacrificial scenes on the

painted Sarcophagus found in a chamber

tomb at Haeia Triada.2 On one side we

see the blood of the sacrificed ox received in

a vessel below, while a votary clad in the skin of

a victim officiates before an altar, above which

appears a basket of fruit, indicative of offerings fig. 315. Bronze Ritual

of another kind. Here, too, there is a double Double Axe and Socket of
. . r . . ... ,, Black Steatite. Psychro Cave.

object 01 cult—a sacred tree within a small

shrine, above which rise the sacral horns, and a double axe on a trunk-like
shaft resting on an oblong base. The other side of the Sarcophagus is
partly occupied by a scene of offering, including a votive boat or ship, to
a personage, who had evidently been a Sea Captain.3 This Minoan

1 The shaft is here restored. These objects 2 I need only here refer to the original publi-

were due to excavations made by me in 1894 cation, with coloured plates, by Paribeni, Mon.

in a stratum parallel with that in which the in- Ant., xix, pp. 5-86, Pis. I—III.

scribed Libation Table subsequently came to 3 In a tomb of the Zafer Papoura Cemetery

light (see below, p. 625, and Figs. 465, 466). a small ivory boat was found with a similar

The axe-blade and socket are now in the high prow. {Preh. Tombs of Knossos, Archaeo-

Ashmolean Museum. logia, lix, p. 27, Pig. 22.)