DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0490
WERE THERE IMAGES OF DIVINITIES IN DEPOSIT? 437
fact constantly used, sometimes in a rather mechanical fashion, by Minoan
artists, to convey definite ideas of motion and, apart from the bull-grappling
scenes, the upward flying tresses often serve to give a pictorial idea of the
descent of a God or Goddess.
The" carved figures found in the Deposit, however, were, as already Religious
observed, entirely of an acrobatic character and marked as sui generis by 0f De-
their flying metal curls. There was no trace of ivory images bearing a divine ^^le
character. Axes and
That the Treasure Chamber had contained such ivory; or rather chrys- oPminia-
elephantine figures of the Minoan Goddess or her Votaries—such as were tur.e ,
found in the ' Temple Repositories'—is itself only what we should have shrine,
expected, the more so when the Miniature Fresco is borne in mind depicting
part of a facade of a pillar shrine of the Double Axe Cult.1 The occurrence
indeed of the two Double Axes of the ritual type in gold-plated bronze2
points even more clearly to this religious association. We recall, indeed,
the divine figures found beside the Double Axes that rose from between
the Sacral Horns in the later shrine near by.
To this, too, must be added the discovery of the remains of an ivory The
Sphinx of the finest artistic execution as well as of the imported steatite p
example of the Hittite class.
The richness of the remains as a whole, in spite of most careful plunder-
ing in ancient times, certainly seems to imply that they were derived from
the Treasury of a Shrine. Where precious metals had been so laboriously
abstracted by ancient pillagers, the occurrence of such quantities of gold foil
and of a massive gold pendant, as well as of the beautiful gold fish,
was itself remarkable, and the crystal bowl and /_y;m-cover, and the various
inlays equally bespeak an exceptionally precious hoard. The sports in
which the marvellous ivory figures of the leaping youths must be supposed
to have been engaged were themselves in honour of the Great Minoan Goddess.
Might there have existed remains of some other carbonized chest, con- Were
.... c , . . -. there also
taming images 01 more sacred import ? images
Nothing more came out, in spite of the most exhaustive investigations, °f dmm-
including supplementary excavations beneath the lower floors. Yet the
lacuna in the evidence was only too patent. At the same time the compli-
cated structural environment from which the remains of the original Treasure
had been gradually extracted and reassembled—:below the later pavement
of the small lower store-room, under the floor of a narrow closet beneath the
' Service Stairs', in the lower section of a stone ventilating shaft, and in the
1 See above, p. 207, Fig. 141. 2 See above, p. 414, Fig. 277.
fact constantly used, sometimes in a rather mechanical fashion, by Minoan
artists, to convey definite ideas of motion and, apart from the bull-grappling
scenes, the upward flying tresses often serve to give a pictorial idea of the
descent of a God or Goddess.
The" carved figures found in the Deposit, however, were, as already Religious
observed, entirely of an acrobatic character and marked as sui generis by 0f De-
their flying metal curls. There was no trace of ivory images bearing a divine ^^le
character. Axes and
That the Treasure Chamber had contained such ivory; or rather chrys- oPminia-
elephantine figures of the Minoan Goddess or her Votaries—such as were tur.e ,
found in the ' Temple Repositories'—is itself only what we should have shrine,
expected, the more so when the Miniature Fresco is borne in mind depicting
part of a facade of a pillar shrine of the Double Axe Cult.1 The occurrence
indeed of the two Double Axes of the ritual type in gold-plated bronze2
points even more clearly to this religious association. We recall, indeed,
the divine figures found beside the Double Axes that rose from between
the Sacral Horns in the later shrine near by.
To this, too, must be added the discovery of the remains of an ivory The
Sphinx of the finest artistic execution as well as of the imported steatite p
example of the Hittite class.
The richness of the remains as a whole, in spite of most careful plunder-
ing in ancient times, certainly seems to imply that they were derived from
the Treasury of a Shrine. Where precious metals had been so laboriously
abstracted by ancient pillagers, the occurrence of such quantities of gold foil
and of a massive gold pendant, as well as of the beautiful gold fish,
was itself remarkable, and the crystal bowl and /_y;m-cover, and the various
inlays equally bespeak an exceptionally precious hoard. The sports in
which the marvellous ivory figures of the leaping youths must be supposed
to have been engaged were themselves in honour of the Great Minoan Goddess.
Might there have existed remains of some other carbonized chest, con- Were
.... c , . . -. there also
taming images 01 more sacred import ? images
Nothing more came out, in spite of the most exhaustive investigations, °f dmm-
including supplementary excavations beneath the lower floors. Yet the
lacuna in the evidence was only too patent. At the same time the compli-
cated structural environment from which the remains of the original Treasure
had been gradually extracted and reassembled—:below the later pavement
of the small lower store-room, under the floor of a narrow closet beneath the
' Service Stairs', in the lower section of a stone ventilating shaft, and in the
1 See above, p. 207, Fig. 141. 2 See above, p. 414, Fig. 277.