DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0108
'SACRAL IVY' ON MINOAN 'TREE OF WORLD' 483
to the lion guardian of the realms below (see Fig. 289), must be identified
with the same 'Sacral Ivy' that climbs the rocky steeps in this cycle of
wall-paintings.1 The heart-shaped leaves and even the double terminal
tufts of flowers are distinctly indicated. These leafy offshoots, moreover,
are not shown as branches of the tree, but are clearly extraneous growths
like ivy or mistletoe, but the latter is here excluded from its very different
form. The tree itself is bare of foliage like the medieval ' Tree of Paradise '2
that prolonged the tradition of some much earlier congener of Yggdrasil.
At its foot here, in place of the 'loathly serpent' Nidhoggr, crouches a dog-like
animal, the Minoan prototype of Cerberus—with a single head.
May we not perhaps go even farther ? This conspicuous spray—with
its green leaves picked out, as we see them in the fresco, by the bright orange
outline of the sacred emblem—springing from the hoar and barren trunk of
the tree that here seems to stand on the borders of the Minoan Under-
world, might it not itself have possessed some mystic power? It is impos-
sible not to recall the Golden Bough, which, when plucked by Aeneas,
opened for him the passage to Avernus.3 But ever, as one was torn away,
another branch of gleaming gold sprang in its place.
Such a connexion with the Elysian Fields of Minoan Religion might itself
be taken to imply that the waz or papyrus wand symbol of the Delta God-
dess—which, through all its developments, formed the essence of this motive
—still imparted to it some sanctifying virtues in its revived vegetable form.
It seems, moreover, to have been known by some special religious 'Sacral
name. A very interesting indication of this is to be seen in the appearance avcharac-
of the ivy-leaf as a frequently recurring sign of both classes of the advanced jj* of
linear scripts, and, in one unique case, in the hieroglyphic series (see Scripts.
Fig. 290). It denoted a single idea, occurring in both the linear classes, not
1 See A. E., The Ring of Nestor {/. H. S., The b«lk had fallen to the earth o'erspun with spider's
1925, and Macmillan and Co.), pp. 67, 68. The "tree was dry and desolate and of all leaves
See, too, above, p. 341, Fig. 194,/ was reft.
2 An account of the 'Tree of Paradise' is, , yjrg A(n yj_ ^ seqq
curiously enough, preserved in a fifteenth-century
, ., ,, . ■ „ . „, Latet arbore opaca
poem by the Cretan writer, Georgios Chumnos Aureus et foliis £t lento vimine ramns>
of Candia (see Old Testament Legends, from ........•
„ , „ . , „ , , Sed non ante datnr telhiris operta subire,
a Greek foem on Genesis and Exodus by Auricomos quam qui decerpserit arbore fetus.
Georgios Chumnos, by F. H. Marshall (1925, Hoc sibi pulchra unm ferri Proserpina munus
,-,,., ., . ,, , 2 , , Instituit. Primo avulso non deficit alter
Cambridge University Press: translated by Aureus, et simili frondescit virga metallo.
him). For the bareness of the Tree, see IV,
75 76 p 26 • Tms ma8'c branch was compared by Virgil
with mistletoe (v. 205, 206). Cf. Frazer, The
Gc
k k 2
'Apax^fair/ifVor, Throve rb <p\ov$iv rovnirffTfifVov
titov frpby Trayrip-nfioi', to. <pi\\a ^Zurixivov. Golden Bough (Ld. l, vol. ii, p. 359 seqq
to the lion guardian of the realms below (see Fig. 289), must be identified
with the same 'Sacral Ivy' that climbs the rocky steeps in this cycle of
wall-paintings.1 The heart-shaped leaves and even the double terminal
tufts of flowers are distinctly indicated. These leafy offshoots, moreover,
are not shown as branches of the tree, but are clearly extraneous growths
like ivy or mistletoe, but the latter is here excluded from its very different
form. The tree itself is bare of foliage like the medieval ' Tree of Paradise '2
that prolonged the tradition of some much earlier congener of Yggdrasil.
At its foot here, in place of the 'loathly serpent' Nidhoggr, crouches a dog-like
animal, the Minoan prototype of Cerberus—with a single head.
May we not perhaps go even farther ? This conspicuous spray—with
its green leaves picked out, as we see them in the fresco, by the bright orange
outline of the sacred emblem—springing from the hoar and barren trunk of
the tree that here seems to stand on the borders of the Minoan Under-
world, might it not itself have possessed some mystic power? It is impos-
sible not to recall the Golden Bough, which, when plucked by Aeneas,
opened for him the passage to Avernus.3 But ever, as one was torn away,
another branch of gleaming gold sprang in its place.
Such a connexion with the Elysian Fields of Minoan Religion might itself
be taken to imply that the waz or papyrus wand symbol of the Delta God-
dess—which, through all its developments, formed the essence of this motive
—still imparted to it some sanctifying virtues in its revived vegetable form.
It seems, moreover, to have been known by some special religious 'Sacral
name. A very interesting indication of this is to be seen in the appearance avcharac-
of the ivy-leaf as a frequently recurring sign of both classes of the advanced jj* of
linear scripts, and, in one unique case, in the hieroglyphic series (see Scripts.
Fig. 290). It denoted a single idea, occurring in both the linear classes, not
1 See A. E., The Ring of Nestor {/. H. S., The b«lk had fallen to the earth o'erspun with spider's
1925, and Macmillan and Co.), pp. 67, 68. The "tree was dry and desolate and of all leaves
See, too, above, p. 341, Fig. 194,/ was reft.
2 An account of the 'Tree of Paradise' is, , yjrg A(n yj_ ^ seqq
curiously enough, preserved in a fifteenth-century
, ., ,, . ■ „ . „, Latet arbore opaca
poem by the Cretan writer, Georgios Chumnos Aureus et foliis £t lento vimine ramns>
of Candia (see Old Testament Legends, from ........•
„ , „ . , „ , , Sed non ante datnr telhiris operta subire,
a Greek foem on Genesis and Exodus by Auricomos quam qui decerpserit arbore fetus.
Georgios Chumnos, by F. H. Marshall (1925, Hoc sibi pulchra unm ferri Proserpina munus
,-,,., ., . ,, , 2 , , Instituit. Primo avulso non deficit alter
Cambridge University Press: translated by Aureus, et simili frondescit virga metallo.
him). For the bareness of the Tree, see IV,
75 76 p 26 • Tms ma8'c branch was compared by Virgil
with mistletoe (v. 205, 206). Cf. Frazer, The
Gc
k k 2
'Apax^fair/ifVor, Throve rb <p\ov$iv rovnirffTfifVov
titov frpby Trayrip-nfioi', to. <pi\\a ^Zurixivov. Golden Bough (Ld. l, vol. ii, p. 359 seqq