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 4,1): Emergence of outer western enceinte, with new illustrations, artistic and religious, of the Middle Minoan Phase (London, 1935)

i8 TRADITIONS ON SITE OF CULT OF MINOAN GODDESS

Greek
interpret-
ation of
Minotaur.

A Minoi-
zing bead-
seal.

Haunted
site left
derelict
except by
' House
of Rhea'.

Fig. 9. Late Greek Bead-seal from
Crete : Minoizing Type.

Ea-bani—that had already played a part in Minoan cult scenes.1 /\
remarkable cornelian intaglio from Crete (Fig. 9) 2 of late Greek work

though with Minoizing features, shows Theseus—a sea-serpent behind__

attacking the Minotaur with a short sword, much as Oedipus is depicted
stabbing the Sphinx on the gold
Minoan bead-seal from Thisbe.3

It was, as already pointed out,*
some thirty metres beyond the
walled outwork of the Northern
entrance that an intrusive well was
struck containing pottery of the
Geometrical Greek Period —the
nearest evidence of later Greek
settlement that occurred in the
wholecircuit of the site. Elsewhere
such remains lay well outside not
only the Palace but its immediate borders and the surrounding Minoan
houses. A Roman cement pavement had blocked the level space of the
Theatral Area—Greco-Roman wells had intruded themselves to the borders
of the House of the Frescoes, and elsewhere in the outer radius other
sporadic intrusions of late date were traceable. But from the end of the
partial re-occupation of the building by humbler denizens of the same
Minoan race—alike on the Palace site and its precincts—no sign of later
settlement has come to light. Only, off the Central Court, hard by the
borders of the Central Sanctuary of the old Priest-kings, the sealings of
which record its lion-guarded Goddess, some five centuries later, at a time
when her cult had been largely assimilated by Hellenic Knossos, the small,
plain temple of which we have the foundations,5 was set up, as if to
reconsecrate to later religious uses the site haunted now by the monstrous
creation of popular fancy. It is natural to identify the later shrine with
the ' House of Rhea'—the Minoan Goddess in her Greek guise—of which,
according to Diodoros, the foundations were shown in his day by Knossos.'
Her Cypress grove, the straggling remains of which still survive in the
glen below, may then have covered the whole hill of Kephala.

1 See especially the haematite cylinder found
in Crete, p. 459, Fig. 383 below, where the
man-bull is coupled with a Minoan Genius.

"- Central Crete: A. E. Coll. The stone is
mostly covered with a calcareous enamel, due

to running water.

' P. 514, Fig. 457 a below.
' P. of M., i, p. 404.
5 Ibid., ii, Pt. I, pp. 5, 6, ai
* Diod. v. 66.

d Fi