DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0423
794 MINOAN 'SPRINKLER' AND ROMAN ASPERGILLUS!
Reap-
pears on
terra-
cotta re-
lief.
Goddess
as special
patroness
of Priest-
Kings.
Fig. 518. Reverse of Dena-
rius of Julius Caesar : show-
ing Aspergillum.
reverse of one of which is shown in Fig. 518.1 It is there coupled with
the apex, or conical cup, and the sacrificial axe with the wolf's head.
A holy-water sprinkler of a similar kind survived into the service of the
Christian Church.2
That this wisp, like the Double Axe, the sacral knot, and the Egyptian
papyrus wand, was from an early date a recog-
nized Minoan symbol, appears from the remains
of a small relief on a sherd found in the M. M.
\\\ b deposit in the 'House of the Sacrificed
Oxen', of which a restored drawing is given in
Fig. 519. In spite of the missing part, there
can be little doubt that it was intended to repre-
sent the same object.
The many suggestions of ceremonies of
lustration afforded by the appearance of sunken
bath-like basins to which the name of ' lustral
areas ' has been applied above, as well as of
font-like stone basins, make it very probable
that some such holy-water sprinkler was in use in the Minoan Palace
Sanctuaries. In ancient Crete, as in Rome, it may well have been a symbol
of priestly functions.
Here, then, the Minoan Goddess with her snake attributes, under the
special guise in which she appears in the Central Palace Sanctuary, as Lady
of the Underworld, holds the same double emblems of secular and religious
authority. These, we may suppose, were on certain ceremonial occasions
either grasped in his own hands by the Goddess's earthly representative, the
Priest-King, or held before him by some attendant as in the case of the
Young Prince on the Hagia Triada vase. If the identification suggested
above 3 of the remarkable objects found in the small chamber of the early
Palace of Mallia beside the royal loggia with the actual regalia of the
Priest-King may be thought to hold good, we have, in that case at least, a
close analogy. The marvellous long-sword with its crystal knob is there
balanced by the steatite axe-head of purely ceremonial and religious use,
carved in the shape of the forepart of a pard.
In the case of the ' Corridor of the Procession' which represents the
1 This coin, a denarius, was struck in Gaul, No. 18 bis; cf. A. Bouche-Leclercq, Darem-
c. 50-49 b. c. (cf. Grueber, Coins of the Roman berg et Saglio, Art. Lustratio (by E. Pottier),
Republic in the B.M., ii, pp. 390, 391). p. 1408, Fig. 4683.
2 Perret, Catacombes de Rome, v, PI. IX, 3 See above, p. 271 seqq.
Reap-
pears on
terra-
cotta re-
lief.
Goddess
as special
patroness
of Priest-
Kings.
Fig. 518. Reverse of Dena-
rius of Julius Caesar : show-
ing Aspergillum.
reverse of one of which is shown in Fig. 518.1 It is there coupled with
the apex, or conical cup, and the sacrificial axe with the wolf's head.
A holy-water sprinkler of a similar kind survived into the service of the
Christian Church.2
That this wisp, like the Double Axe, the sacral knot, and the Egyptian
papyrus wand, was from an early date a recog-
nized Minoan symbol, appears from the remains
of a small relief on a sherd found in the M. M.
\\\ b deposit in the 'House of the Sacrificed
Oxen', of which a restored drawing is given in
Fig. 519. In spite of the missing part, there
can be little doubt that it was intended to repre-
sent the same object.
The many suggestions of ceremonies of
lustration afforded by the appearance of sunken
bath-like basins to which the name of ' lustral
areas ' has been applied above, as well as of
font-like stone basins, make it very probable
that some such holy-water sprinkler was in use in the Minoan Palace
Sanctuaries. In ancient Crete, as in Rome, it may well have been a symbol
of priestly functions.
Here, then, the Minoan Goddess with her snake attributes, under the
special guise in which she appears in the Central Palace Sanctuary, as Lady
of the Underworld, holds the same double emblems of secular and religious
authority. These, we may suppose, were on certain ceremonial occasions
either grasped in his own hands by the Goddess's earthly representative, the
Priest-King, or held before him by some attendant as in the case of the
Young Prince on the Hagia Triada vase. If the identification suggested
above 3 of the remarkable objects found in the small chamber of the early
Palace of Mallia beside the royal loggia with the actual regalia of the
Priest-King may be thought to hold good, we have, in that case at least, a
close analogy. The marvellous long-sword with its crystal knob is there
balanced by the steatite axe-head of purely ceremonial and religious use,
carved in the shape of the forepart of a pard.
In the case of the ' Corridor of the Procession' which represents the
1 This coin, a denarius, was struck in Gaul, No. 18 bis; cf. A. Bouche-Leclercq, Darem-
c. 50-49 b. c. (cf. Grueber, Coins of the Roman berg et Saglio, Art. Lustratio (by E. Pottier),
Republic in the B.M., ii, pp. 390, 391). p. 1408, Fig. 4683.
2 Perret, Catacombes de Rome, v, PI. IX, 3 See above, p. 271 seqq.