DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1066#0077
THE SITES: KNOSSOS
was rendered again habitable. At the other point
there remains a pathetic relic of the aftermath,
a shrine to the Mother Goddess, piously tended
until the final overthrow, c. 1375 B.C. Dr. Evans
has saved the shrine with its contents almost
intact. It is a small room or cell, smaller even
than the tiny chapels that dot the hills of Crete
to-day—a place where one or two might pray,
leave an offering, and enjoy community with the
divinity rudely represented on the altar. To us
the small clay figures of the Goddess are grotesque ;
but what stranger to the Christian religion would
find beauty or dignity in the chromos cherished
by thousands at the present time ? In this late
Minoan shrine at Knossos, one-third of the space
was for the worshipper, another third for his
gifts, the last third for the Goddess. Three crude
images in the form of a woman occupy the place
of honour on the low altar. Their arms are
uplifted or crossed over the breast. Dr. Evans
thinks that one is a goddess, distinguished from
her votaries by being semi - anthropomorphic,
the body rising from a clay cylinder which looks
like a survival from the columnar form of the
earlier ' baetylic' stones; but other scholars
consider the cylinder to be a crude convention
for the bell-skirt. A dove rests on the head of the
goddess, and there is also a clay statuette of a
male votary, holding out a dove as if to offer it
to the goddess. Stucco ' horns of consecration'
with the double-axe rising between them, stood on
the altar beside the images. Gifts were ranged on a
low platform before them : a three-legged table^of
offering, several stone lamps, and small stone bowls
63
was rendered again habitable. At the other point
there remains a pathetic relic of the aftermath,
a shrine to the Mother Goddess, piously tended
until the final overthrow, c. 1375 B.C. Dr. Evans
has saved the shrine with its contents almost
intact. It is a small room or cell, smaller even
than the tiny chapels that dot the hills of Crete
to-day—a place where one or two might pray,
leave an offering, and enjoy community with the
divinity rudely represented on the altar. To us
the small clay figures of the Goddess are grotesque ;
but what stranger to the Christian religion would
find beauty or dignity in the chromos cherished
by thousands at the present time ? In this late
Minoan shrine at Knossos, one-third of the space
was for the worshipper, another third for his
gifts, the last third for the Goddess. Three crude
images in the form of a woman occupy the place
of honour on the low altar. Their arms are
uplifted or crossed over the breast. Dr. Evans
thinks that one is a goddess, distinguished from
her votaries by being semi - anthropomorphic,
the body rising from a clay cylinder which looks
like a survival from the columnar form of the
earlier ' baetylic' stones; but other scholars
consider the cylinder to be a crude convention
for the bell-skirt. A dove rests on the head of the
goddess, and there is also a clay statuette of a
male votary, holding out a dove as if to offer it
to the goddess. Stucco ' horns of consecration'
with the double-axe rising between them, stood on
the altar beside the images. Gifts were ranged on a
low platform before them : a three-legged table^of
offering, several stone lamps, and small stone bowls
63