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 2,2): Town houses in Knossos of the new era and restored West Palace Section (London, 1928)

83^

SNOUT OF LIONESS'S HEAD ' RHYTON

Lion-
guarded
Goddess
on seals
and male
consort.

Part of

lioness's

head

' rhyton',

like

Knossian

found at

Delphi.

Identity

in style,

details,

and

materials.

lays her hand (Fig. 5415).1 On another seal-impression from the same deposit
(Fig. 547) a male figure, armed with a spear and shield and wearing a peaked
head-piece, appears beside a lioness or pard. That we have in this case a male
consort or an actual son of the Goddess is made probable by the figure on
a contemporary seal-impression from Hagia Triada (Fig. 548)' who stands
beside her guardian lion and wears, like her, a peaked tiara. What gives
especial interest to this figure is the fact that he is armed with a bow, appar-
ently of the horned type. It looks indeed as if in certain aspects the Minoan
Rhea had approached Leto, the mother of the ' far-shooting' archer God.

On an electrum ring from Mycenae, we see what seems to be, again,
the Cretan Mother Goddess seated on a throne and approached by a youth-
ful figure holding a spear in one hand and crossing her wrist with his
own, the forefinger and thumb being apparently in both cases pressed
together in a familiar gesture of agreement.3 On the gold ring from Knossos
already illustrated,4 where a female figure, in whom we may also possibly
recognize the Goddess, brings down by her incantations a smaller male
figure armed with a spear before a baetylic obelisk, and on the large signet-
ring from Mycenae,5 showing the Goddess and her handmaidens, a descending
warrior God also makes his appearance, holding spear and shield. The Double-
Axe symbol and the lions' heads in the field here proclaim identity with the
Palace cult of Knossos.

The libation vessels in the form of lion's and lioness's heads from the
Treasure Chamber of what was clearly the Central Sanctuary Hall of the
Palace fit in thus with the cult of the lion-guarded Goddess, otherwise
illustrated by seal-impressions found in this area, whose religious attributes
are occasionally reflected by a male consort also attended by lions. But
by far the most interesting connexion of the forms of Minoan worship here
illustrated has been the discovery by the French excavators at Delphi—
where very ancient Cretan relations are already illustrated by the Homeric
Hymn to Apollo—of part of a lioness's head ' rhyton' identical in material
and fabric with the Knossian specimen, Fig. 542, above.

1 Reproduced from P. of M., i, p. 505, p. 65, Fig. 43).

Fig. 363, a. For an almost exact replica from 2 Cf. op. cit., p. 505, Fig. 363, c.

Zakro, and contemporary fabric, see B. S. A., 3 Found by Tsountas in a tomb of the Lower

xvii, p. 265, Fig. 2. In other cases we see Town (see Tsountas and Manatt, Mycenaean

the Goddess with lion supporters in place of Age, p. 51, and A. E., Myc. Tree and Pillar

her baetylic column. (See my Myc. Tree and Cult, pp. 77, 78, and Fig. 51). See, too, Furt-

Pillar Cult, p. 66, Fig. 44, and p. 67, Fig. 45, wangler, Ant. Gemmen, iii, p. 36, Fig. 14.

where she is seated on a lion's head.) At times 4 P. of M., i, p. 160, Fig. 115.

her male consort takes the same place {op. cit., 5 See above, p. 341, Fig. 194, e.