DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0519
466
LATER INFLUENCE OF SYRIAN RESHEPH
Later
appear-
ance of
images of
Syrian
Kesheph :
exotic
character.
Idea of
male con-
sort
foreign
to matri-
archal
religion.
Foster -
parents
of Divine
Child.
growing influence of Oriental models. A good example of this is supported
by a jasper signet-ring found by Tsountas at Mycenae,1 on which we may
certainly recognize Gilgames in a Minoan guise, grappling with two lions.
It is noteworthy, indeed, in this connexion, that at a somewhat later date
we have abundant evidence of the diffusion throughout the Minoan and
Mycenaean world of small metal images that clearly reflect the influence of
a Syrian warrior divinity—the Lightning-God Resheph.
Examples of some of these are given in the note appended to this
Section (p. 477 seqq-, below), side by side with their Semitic prototypes and
the parallel derivations of the same that occur in the Hittite regions North
and West of Taurus. The importance of these Resheph figures in their
bearing on the true products of Minoan religious art is really the contrast
that they afford. They represent a wholly un-Minoan type. The stiff
conventional attitude is as foreign as their Egyptian garb, which has no con-
nexion with the traditional Minoan and no relation to any later costume of
Early Greece. Better than any other part of our material, they illustrate
the fact that cult images of an adult male God were a late and exotic
intrusion.
The matriarchal stage of society, to which the Minoan religious system
owes its origin, was itself incompatible with the idea of a male consort, since,
by its very essence, the fatherhood of children was an unknown or at any
rate a non-essential element. In his fundamental work demonstrating the
intensive survival of Minoan Religion in that of the Greeks Professor Martin
Nilsson—delving down through the Hellenic strata—has laid great stress
on the large part which foster-parents, both animal and human, play in
primitive legends regarding the upbringing of divine children. In their
Greek form the tale of the birth and upbringing of the Cretan Zeus, the
hiding in a cave from Kronos, the guardianship of the Kouretes, are all of
this class.
In view of the frequent records in the Island, both from literary sources
and on coin types, of the nurture of the holy babe of Rhea by a goat and wild
bees, or occasionally by a cow, and of other divine offspring by a bitch or she-
wolf,2 and, indeed, of the universality of such stories, still renewed in our
1 Tsountas, Mw^rot, PI. V, 5 (cf., too, Perrot
etChipiez,Hist. dei'Arf,v\, p. 845, Fig.428.21).
A further illustration of the influence of such
scenes is to be found on the signet-ring in the
PerOtine Museum (ibid., vi, p. 846, Fig. 430),
where two divine heroes are seen struggling
with lions. In the second of these we must
recognize the companion of Gilgames(Isdubar),
Hea-bani (cf. J. Menant, JRecherches sur la
Glyptique Orieniale, i, p. 84 seqq.).
2 The evidence is collected by Nilsson,
op. cit., pp. 466-9.
LATER INFLUENCE OF SYRIAN RESHEPH
Later
appear-
ance of
images of
Syrian
Kesheph :
exotic
character.
Idea of
male con-
sort
foreign
to matri-
archal
religion.
Foster -
parents
of Divine
Child.
growing influence of Oriental models. A good example of this is supported
by a jasper signet-ring found by Tsountas at Mycenae,1 on which we may
certainly recognize Gilgames in a Minoan guise, grappling with two lions.
It is noteworthy, indeed, in this connexion, that at a somewhat later date
we have abundant evidence of the diffusion throughout the Minoan and
Mycenaean world of small metal images that clearly reflect the influence of
a Syrian warrior divinity—the Lightning-God Resheph.
Examples of some of these are given in the note appended to this
Section (p. 477 seqq-, below), side by side with their Semitic prototypes and
the parallel derivations of the same that occur in the Hittite regions North
and West of Taurus. The importance of these Resheph figures in their
bearing on the true products of Minoan religious art is really the contrast
that they afford. They represent a wholly un-Minoan type. The stiff
conventional attitude is as foreign as their Egyptian garb, which has no con-
nexion with the traditional Minoan and no relation to any later costume of
Early Greece. Better than any other part of our material, they illustrate
the fact that cult images of an adult male God were a late and exotic
intrusion.
The matriarchal stage of society, to which the Minoan religious system
owes its origin, was itself incompatible with the idea of a male consort, since,
by its very essence, the fatherhood of children was an unknown or at any
rate a non-essential element. In his fundamental work demonstrating the
intensive survival of Minoan Religion in that of the Greeks Professor Martin
Nilsson—delving down through the Hellenic strata—has laid great stress
on the large part which foster-parents, both animal and human, play in
primitive legends regarding the upbringing of divine children. In their
Greek form the tale of the birth and upbringing of the Cretan Zeus, the
hiding in a cave from Kronos, the guardianship of the Kouretes, are all of
this class.
In view of the frequent records in the Island, both from literary sources
and on coin types, of the nurture of the holy babe of Rhea by a goat and wild
bees, or occasionally by a cow, and of other divine offspring by a bitch or she-
wolf,2 and, indeed, of the universality of such stories, still renewed in our
1 Tsountas, Mw^rot, PI. V, 5 (cf., too, Perrot
etChipiez,Hist. dei'Arf,v\, p. 845, Fig.428.21).
A further illustration of the influence of such
scenes is to be found on the signet-ring in the
PerOtine Museum (ibid., vi, p. 846, Fig. 430),
where two divine heroes are seen struggling
with lions. In the second of these we must
recognize the companion of Gilgames(Isdubar),
Hea-bani (cf. J. Menant, JRecherches sur la
Glyptique Orieniale, i, p. 84 seqq.).
2 The evidence is collected by Nilsson,
op. cit., pp. 466-9.