DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7518#0029
22
HANDBOOK TO THE PALACE OF MINOS
enclosures on hill-tops or caves on mountain-sides. They
appear to have been places of pilgrimage, where worshippers
could offer sacrifice or deposit votive offerings. Provision for
religious ritual is also found in the palaces and private houses,
but these were probably royal or domestic cults. There is only
one representation of a sacrifice, painted on a stone coffin from
Hagia Triada. Libations of blood are being poured by a
priestess, to the music of lyre and flute, between two garlanded
poles crowned with double-axes on which birds are perched.
The blood is drawn from the throat of a bull which lies bound
on a table. Other offerings are being brought to a dead man
who stands at the door of his tomb, but the man was probably
a king, and since kings were identified with gods, the ritual
may be a regular form of divine worship.
The few religious pictures that survive give only a partial
and superficial view of Minoan deities, which may to some
extent be supplemented by analogies drawn from contemporary
cults in Western Asia or probable survivals in Hellenic Greece.
The objects of worship were the powers of nature controlling
earth and sky and sea. They are represented in the forms of men
and women so like their human counterparts that the deity
cannot always be distinguished from the worshipper. Female
figures are armed with spear or shield, or associated with the
double-bladcd axe, with snakes and various animals and birds.
A young male figure is also armed with bow and spear and
similarly associated with animals. These representations supply
no evidence of the identity of the figures: they may show one
god or goddess in several aspects, or different members of a
divine company. Trees, poles and pillars were worshipped as
the visible abodes of deities. The tall pole belonged to the
young god, the short pillar associated with it would be that of
the goddess, on the analogy of the biblical stocks and stones
which stood for Thammuz and Ishtar. Pillar-worship had a
material application in domestic cults, where main supporting
piers in basements are marked with double-axes and equipped
HANDBOOK TO THE PALACE OF MINOS
enclosures on hill-tops or caves on mountain-sides. They
appear to have been places of pilgrimage, where worshippers
could offer sacrifice or deposit votive offerings. Provision for
religious ritual is also found in the palaces and private houses,
but these were probably royal or domestic cults. There is only
one representation of a sacrifice, painted on a stone coffin from
Hagia Triada. Libations of blood are being poured by a
priestess, to the music of lyre and flute, between two garlanded
poles crowned with double-axes on which birds are perched.
The blood is drawn from the throat of a bull which lies bound
on a table. Other offerings are being brought to a dead man
who stands at the door of his tomb, but the man was probably
a king, and since kings were identified with gods, the ritual
may be a regular form of divine worship.
The few religious pictures that survive give only a partial
and superficial view of Minoan deities, which may to some
extent be supplemented by analogies drawn from contemporary
cults in Western Asia or probable survivals in Hellenic Greece.
The objects of worship were the powers of nature controlling
earth and sky and sea. They are represented in the forms of men
and women so like their human counterparts that the deity
cannot always be distinguished from the worshipper. Female
figures are armed with spear or shield, or associated with the
double-bladcd axe, with snakes and various animals and birds.
A young male figure is also armed with bow and spear and
similarly associated with animals. These representations supply
no evidence of the identity of the figures: they may show one
god or goddess in several aspects, or different members of a
divine company. Trees, poles and pillars were worshipped as
the visible abodes of deities. The tall pole belonged to the
young god, the short pillar associated with it would be that of
the goddess, on the analogy of the biblical stocks and stones
which stood for Thammuz and Ishtar. Pillar-worship had a
material application in domestic cults, where main supporting
piers in basements are marked with double-axes and equipped