DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7477#0038
IN THE LIGHT OF CRETAN DISCOVERIES 31
The subject will be best understood if, as in some other
cases, we regard it as divided into two separate scenes. To
the right the Goddess, as in the parallel subject where the
Fig. 13. Design on gold signet-ring from Mycenae (3 diams.).
Double-Axe and chrysalis emblems appear in the field, is
thrown into an ecstatic state by the fruit of her sacred
tree, a branch of which is here again pulled down for her
by the male attendant.
The other side of the subject depicts a similar figure in
a mourning attitude, leaning over a little enclosure within
which stands a small baetylic pillar while from the upper
part of the balustrade is suspended a diminutive Minoan
shield, seen in profile, clearly belonging to the youthful
personage here interred. In the parallel design already
described the shield refers to an adult warrior.
We seem in these cases, indeed, to have actual illustra-
tions of an aspect of the Religion so prominent in the
later Cult of Adonis and Attis, the child or favourite of
the Goddess, cut off before his prime by some untoward
accident which in Crete, as in Syria, seems also to have
been due to a wild boar.
On another signet from Mycenae there is seen a standing
figure of a youth armed with a spear laying his hand on
the wrist of the seated Goddess. On the Knossian ring
already described (Fig. 5) a similar spear-holding youth
The subject will be best understood if, as in some other
cases, we regard it as divided into two separate scenes. To
the right the Goddess, as in the parallel subject where the
Fig. 13. Design on gold signet-ring from Mycenae (3 diams.).
Double-Axe and chrysalis emblems appear in the field, is
thrown into an ecstatic state by the fruit of her sacred
tree, a branch of which is here again pulled down for her
by the male attendant.
The other side of the subject depicts a similar figure in
a mourning attitude, leaning over a little enclosure within
which stands a small baetylic pillar while from the upper
part of the balustrade is suspended a diminutive Minoan
shield, seen in profile, clearly belonging to the youthful
personage here interred. In the parallel design already
described the shield refers to an adult warrior.
We seem in these cases, indeed, to have actual illustra-
tions of an aspect of the Religion so prominent in the
later Cult of Adonis and Attis, the child or favourite of
the Goddess, cut off before his prime by some untoward
accident which in Crete, as in Syria, seems also to have
been due to a wild boar.
On another signet from Mycenae there is seen a standing
figure of a youth armed with a spear laying his hand on
the wrist of the seated Goddess. On the Knossian ring
already described (Fig. 5) a similar spear-holding youth