Evans, Arthur J.: "The ring of Nestor". A glimpse into the Minoan after-world and a sepulchral treasure of gold signet-rings and bead-seals from Thisbê, Boeotia (London, 1925)

'THE RING OF NESTOR/ ETC.

13

flounced skirts on either side of her, standing before a pillar shrine containing
a sacred tree 26 (Fig, 13). Both the Goddess and her child companions hold
their hands near their sides in a curious attitude which recurs in other versions
of the same group, and finds a parallel in a figure of the Goddess on a gold

Fig.

13.—Goddess asd Girl Attendants before Shrine :
Seal Impression, H. Triada. (f)

Fig. 14.—Goddess and Girl At-
tendants. Lentoid Bead-
seal, Pedeada. (!)

Fig. 15.—Goddess wearing Sacral
Knots and Girl Attendants.
Lentoid Bead-seal, Mycenae, (J-)

signet-ring from Mycenae, where a male attendant pulls down towards her
the fruit-laden branches of a tree, seen, as here, within its pillar sanctuary.
In that case I have ventured to compare a hunger gesture known to primitive
races.27 A similar group of figures with the Goddess in the same attitude

26 F. Halbherr, Mon. Ant. xiii. (1903), p.
43, Fig. 37 and PI. VI.

27 Myc. Tree and Pillar Cult, p. 79,
Fig. 53, and note 2. I compared the
common gesture for hunger among the
North American Indians made ' by passing
the hands towards and backwards from the

sides of the body, denoting a gnawing
sensation.' Cf. Garrick Mallery, Picto*
graphs of the North American Indians
(Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, 1886), p. 236, and Fig. 155,
p. 235, the celebrated rock painting on
the Tule River, California.