Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult  

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Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult (1901) is a work by Arthur Evans.

PREFATORY NOTE

Thi8 work is reproduced by permission from the Jou7vial o ^ Hellenic Studies. It was communicated in its present form to the Hellenic Society in November, 1900, but the views here expressed regarding the character of Mycenaean worship and such external features as the baetylic pillars within the shrines and the ' horns of consecration ' were, in their main outlines, first put forth by me in a paper on ' PillcM- and Tree Worship in Mycenaean Greece,' read in the Anthropological Section of the British Associa- tion at Liverpool in 1896. A short abstract of this was published in the Annual Report of the Association. In November, 1899, the part specially affecting Dr. Reichel's theory of the ' Thronkidtus ' was read to the Oxford Philological Society.

It had been my original intention to incorporate the present study in a work, in course of preparation by me, on the Mycenaean gems and signets, but the fresh evidence supplied by the Cretan discoveries has induced me to put it forth in, a separate form. This seemed the more desiral)le, since the most recently expressed views on the subject, as for instance those contained in Dr. H. von Fritzc's essay, ' Die Mykenischen Goldringe und Hire Bedeutung filr das Sacrahuesen' {Strena Helhigiana, 1900, p. 73 seqq.), though in certain respects supplying a welcome corrective to Dr. Reichel's system, stil], as I venture to think, betray a very imperfect recognition of

V PREFATORY NOTE

some of tlie most essential features of the cult. The Author moreover still maintains the now antiquated and wholly untenable position that the engraved Signet-Rings found at Mycenae and elsewhere are imported ' Phoenician ' fabrics. So far, on the other hand, as my own views are confirmatory of those expressed by Dr. von Fritze in the paper above cited, by Dr. Wolters in his remarks on the Knossian fresco, and again l:)y Dr. Furtwangler in his monumental work on Ancient Gems, they have at least the value of having been independently arrived at.

Great pains have been taken in this work to secure adequate reproductions^ of the Mycenaean gems and signets, which are here, in almost all cases, enlarged to three diameters. For this purpose magnified photographs of the casts were first made, which (checked at the same time by the casts) have formed the l;)asis of drawings by Mr. F. Anderson and Mr. C. J. Praetorius. In the case of the more convex intaglios photographic reproductions by themselves yield imperfect representations of the designs, owing to the deep shadow which, with a single light, is thrown over a large part of the field. It is hoped however that, by the double process referred to, the greatest possil)le measure of clearness and accuracy may have l)een attained. A few drawings were executed by Monsieur E. Gillieron at Athens, who also made the very careful copy of the Temple Fresco reproduced in the Plate by Mr. Griggs.

§ 1. — Cretan Caves and Hypaethral Sanctuaries.

Among the greater monuments or actual structural remains of the Mycenaean world hitherto made known, it is remarkable how little there is to be found having a clear and obvious relation to religious belief. The great wealth of many of the tombs, the rich contents of the pit-graves of Mycenae itself, the rock-cut chambers, the massive vaults of the bee-hive tombs, are all indeed so many evidences of a highly developed cult of departed Spirits. Tlie pit-altar over grave IV. of the Akropolis area at Mycenae, antl the some- what similar erection found in the Court-yard of the Palace at Tiryns, take us a step further in this direction  ; but it still remains possible that the second, like the first, may have been dedicated to the cult of the ancestors of the household, and it supplies in itself no conclusive evidences of a connexion with any higher form of worship. In the great South-Western Court, and again in the Central Area of the Palace of Knossos, have now, however, been brought to light the foundations of what seem to have been two rectangular altars ; and the special relation in which this building stood to the God of the Double Axe makes a dedication to the Cretan Zeus in this case extremely probable.

In Crete indeed we are on somewhat different ground. Throughout the island are a series of caves, containing votive and sacrificial deposits, going back from the borders of the historic period to Mycenaean and still more remote antiquity. The two greatest of these, on the heights of Ida and Dikta, are connected by immemorial tradition with the cult of the ancient indigenous divinity later described by the Greeks as the Cretan Zeus, whose special symbol was the double axe. The colossal rock-hewn altar at the mouth of the Idaean Cave was unquestionably devoted to the service of this God.i In the steatite libation-table found at the. bottom of the votive stratum of the Diktaean Cave ^ we have an article of cult the special

1 F. Halbherr and P. Orsi, Antro di Ztuh "- J.H.S. xvii. (1897), p. 350 se^'/.

/(ho, p. 3 and Tav. xi.

B  !i

2' ARTHUR J EVANS [100

significance of which will be pointed out in a succeeding section.^ The thorough exploration of this cave, now carried out by Mr. D. G. Hogarth,^ on behalf of the British School at Athens, has conclusively proved that the old traditions of the birth-place and oracular shrine of the Cretan Zeus attached themselves to this spot. The blasting away of the fallen rocks that encumbered the upper part of the grotto has in fact revealed a rude sacrificial altar and temenos covered with a votive deposit some seven feet deep, while the character of the divinity worshipped was suffi- ciently indicated by the large number of votive double axes found both here and in the inner sanctuary below. These double axes, as we shall see, may have actually embodied the presence of the God himself. His actual image in anthropomorphic shape was not needed by the religion of that time. The great mass of votive figures found in the sacrificial deposits of these Cretan caves bear no distinctive attributes of divinity. They seem, for the most part at least, to be simply miniature representations of human votaries and their domestic animals, who thus, according to a wide- spread practice, placed themselves and their belongings under the special protection of the higher powers.

It is possible, as I have elsewhere suggested,^ that in a small building which occupies a most conspicuous position in the great prehistoric city of Goulas, in Crete, we have actually before us the remains of one of these Mycenaean shrines, originally containing a sacred tree. This is a small oblong building, about nine yards long by four wide, with walls originally breast high, consisting of two tiers of large roughly-squared blocks, the upper of which shows externally a projecting border, which recalls on a smaller scale the parapet of a great terrace wall that rises beyond it. The. entrance to this low-walled enclosure on the small side to the north has mortised slabs on either side for the insertion of jambs, and must have consisted of a door-way higher than the walls themselves, and which may therefore have served some sacral purpose, the sanctity of the trilith or ritual doorway being widely prevalent in early religious cult, notably among the Phrygians.^ Here, as in the case of a Knossian cult-scene, to be described below, the doorway of the enclosure may have had either in it or before it a sacred pillar, while the tree itself stood within the hypaethral shrine, spreading its boughs over its low walls and lintel. In front of this entrance is a large rock-cut cistern, originally no doubt, like other cisterns of Goulas, roofed in with the aid of lime- stone beams. In this connexion it may be noticed that the ritual watering of sacred trees, either from a natural or artificial source, is a regular feature of this form of worship. In the Mycenaean cult this is illustrated by the Vapheio

^ See below, p. 15 seqq. conducted l)y M. De Margne, have shown that

^ ^ee Annual of the British School at Athens, a part of it at least was occupied by the

1900. inland Lato. But the fact remains incontest-

^ See my letter to the Academy, July 4, able that tlie overwhelming mass of existing

1896, p. 18, and ' Goulas, tlie City of Zeus' remains belongs to the prehistoric period.

(Annual of the British School at Athens, 1896). ** See below, p. 83.

The recent French excavations on this site.

101] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 3

gem, representing two lion-headed daemons, who have filled two high-r,poutcd

vases from the basin of a fountain, and raise them above what appears to be a

nurseling palm-tree^ (Fig. 1). It may be noted

that this religious cultivation of the young palms

— then no doubt being largely introduced on to

Greek soil by the cosmopolitan taste of the

Mycenaean rulers — finds a later parallel in the

Assyrian representations, first explained by Dr.

Tylor, of winged genii fertilising th.e adult palm

with the male cones. The parallelism is very

suggestive.

It is not necessary, indeed, to suppo.se that the sacred tree enclosed e,x hypothesi in the Goulas shrine was a palm. A palm column, it ^lo i —Gem from Vapheio is true, appears on a gem from this site ^ with Tomb  : Daemons Waterino two deer as supporters, in a scheme to be de- Nurseling Palm. scribed below. But in Crete, as elsewhere in

the M3'cenaean world, there seems to have been a considerable variety of sacred trees. We recognise the pine and the cypress ; and the abiding traditions of Knossos and Gortyna show how intimately the plane tree, which so often marks the presence of a spring, was bound up with the cult of the Cretan Zeus. The globular bunches of the tree, beneath which the Goddess sits on the signet from the Akropolis Treasure at Mycenae, have naturally suggested a vine. It will be seen from an interesting fragment from the site of Knossos that the fig must also be included among the sacred trees of the Mycenaeans.

§ 2. — Sacred Fig- Tree and Altar on a Fyxis from Knossos.

The object in question (Fig. 2) is a portion of a cylindrical vase or pyxis of dark steatite, decorated with reliefs, found on the slope of the hill known as Gypsades, which rises opposite to that on which the Palace of Knossos stands.^ A remarkable feature of this fragment is that its lower margin is perforated by a rivet-hole, and shows other traces which indicate that the bottom of the cup was in a separate piece. The fact that at Palaeokastro, in Eastern Crete, an intaglio exhibiting dolphins and rocks in the same dark steatite, origin- ally the bezel of a Mycenaean ring, \iias found covered with a thin ]AixtQ of gold beaten into the design, suggests that in this case too the dull-coloured core may have been coated with the same brilliant material, and that the rivet holes may have partly served to attach the gold plate. It can be shown that the returning spiral designs of the oldest Mycenaean gold work are

^ Apparently in a large pot : recalling the Pope,

cultiire of nurseling palms at Bordighera, - See p. 56, Fig. 32.

where they are largely cultivateJ for religious ^ It was obtained by me on the spot in

purposes, owing to a special privilege from the 1894.

ARTHUR J. EVANS

[102

simply the translation into metal of the much more ancient steatite reliefs representing the same ornamentation. We may well believe that the steatite reliefs, like those of the fragment before us, gave birth in the same way to the figured designs in repousse work, such as those that decorate the Vapheio vases, and that we here in fact see the intermediate stage of soft-stone carving, originally coated with a thin gold plate, which led up to more perfected art.

The design itself, so far as it is possible to study it in its fragmentary condition, presents so much naturalism and spirit that we may well believe that had the whole been preserved to us it would have afforded the nearest parallel to the marvellous gold cups from the Spartan tomb.

In the lowest zone of the composition, or, as we may call it, the fore- ground, appear parts of two male figures. The foremost of the two is in violent action, his right arm raised and his left thrown behind him. He is clad in the Mycenaean loin-clothing, and his feet were apparently swathed in the usual manner. Under his left shoulder fall long tresses of hair, recalling those that appear in the same position on the figures of the Vapheio cups and those of the Kefti tributaries on the tomb of Rekhmara. The prominent treatment of the sinews and muscles resembles that of the leaden figure from Kampos.^

Behind this is a second male figure, who appears to be kneeling on one knee, and holding his right arm forwards, with his fingers and thumb together, as if in the act of sprinkling grain. Immediately behind him is a square block of isodomic masonry, with coping at top, which, from the two-horned object above it, is evidently an altar. It will be shown in the course of this study that this horned adjunct is a usual article of Mycenaean altar furnitvire.^

The altar, with its regular isodomic structure, recalls the limestone walls of some of the better constructed parts of the Palace at Knossos. It prob- ably reproduces the original form of the rectangular altars in its Courts already referred to, of which only the bases now remain.

In striking contrast to the isodomic construction of the altar a,re the two low walls of the enclosure represented above. Here we see a series of irregular, mostly more or less diamond-shaped, blocks, which may be taken to represent the earlier roughly polygonal style of wall building. It is not possible, however, to be sure whether we have here a rustic survival of the older style, or whether the irregular character of the masonry is intended to indicate that it is of more ancient date than the altar outside. If, as I venture to believe, we have here to deal with the temenos of a sacred grove, the latter hypothesis may appear the more probable.

The tree within is certainly a fig-tree, the characteristic outline of the leaves being clearly defined. On a signet-ring, to be described below,^ also found on the site of Kno.ssos, a group of sacred trees is seen within the temenos wall of a sanctuarv which, from the trifid character of their foliage,

' Tsuntas, Mv:cr}vai, PI. XI. ^ ^gg below, p. 37 segg. ^ See p. 12.

103j

MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

Yia, 2.— Fhagment of Steatite Pvxrs— Knossos.

6 ARTHUR J. EVAKS [104

may also with some isrobability be recognised as fig-trees. This analogy, coupled with the walled enclosure and the altar in front of it, leads to the conclusion that here too we see before us one of a grove of sacred trees within its sanctuary wall. It is probable tliat the gold plates in the shape of fig-leaves found in the Acropolis tomb at Mycenae^ — tlie thin foil of which jDroclaims their connexion with funereal cult^are also connected with the special sanctity of this tree.

The traditional sanctity of the fig-tree is well marked in the later cult of Greece. The Sacred Fig, the gift of Demeter, is well known, which stood on the Eleusinian Way beside the tomb of Phytalos, and gave his spirit an undying habitation.^ Fig-leaves as religious types ajDpear on the coins of Kameiros in Rhodes and of the Carian Idyma. In Laconia Dionysos was worshipped under the form of a fig-tree.^ A fig-tree is said to have sprung where Gaia sought to ward off the bolts of Zeus from her son Sykeas, and the prophylactic powers of these trees against lightning were well known.* The sanctity of the fig-tree among the primitive elements of the Peloponnese, as well as in Mycenaean Crete, will be shown to have a special value in relation to the Ficus Ruminalis at Ronie.^ Both on the score of fruitfulness, and from the character of the spots where it is found, the fig-tree may well have inspired a special veneration in primitive Aegean culc. In Crete it still grows wild where no other tree can fix its roots, at the mouth of the caves of indigenous divinities and in the rocky mountain clefts beside once sacred springs.

The post-like object to the right of the fig-tree in the steatite relief fragment remains enigmatical. It may well be some kind of sacred jjost or ' Ashera ' — perhaps the sacral object which recurs with religious subjects on several Mycenaean gems ^ — an upright post impaling a triangle. The attitude of the man apparently engaged in sprinkling grain in front of the altar seems capable of a very probable explanation. When we recall the fact that the altar, with the same horn-like ajjpendages, that surmounts the small gold shrines from the shaft-graves at Mycenae, is accompanied on either side by two figures of doves, and that the shrines themselves stand in close relation to small gold images of a naked Goddess with doves perched on her head and shoulders, it becomes highly probable that the kneeling man on the cup is engaged in sprinkling grain for sacred birds of the same kind. That the dove had become domesticated in Crete before the great days of Mycenae appears probable from the discovery which I made in an early house .beneath the Palace at Knossos of a painted vase in the form of a dove, belonging to the prae-Mycenaean or Kamares class of pottery.

1 Schliemann, Mycenm, pp. 191, 192, Figs. ' Athenaeus, iii. U  : Aiui'vffos S.vK'm^s. Cf. 290, 291. These form part of a cruciform Botticher, Bcmmkultus, p. 437.

ornaiiieiit. Schliemanndiil not notice that they * See Botticher, op. cit. p. 440.

were fig-leaves, but their outline is quite •' See below, p. 30 sf.qq.

naturalistically drawn. e ggg below, p. 56, Fig. 31.

2 Paus. i. 37.

105] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 7

§ 3. — The Dove, Cult of Primitive Greece.

It must not be fuigotteii that birds of various kinds \Any an imj^ortant part in this early cult of sacred trees and pillars. Among primitive races at the present day the spiritual being constantly descends on the tree or stone in the form of a bird, or passes fiom either of them to the votary himself in the same bird form, as the agent of his inspiration.

It is certain that much misconception as to the part played by sacred birds in ancient religion has been produced by the thoroughly unscientific habit of looking for the origin of the associated phenomena through the vista of later highly specialised cults, instead cf from the standpoint of primitive ideas. Especially has this been the case with the sacred doves of Greece. Even the dove cult associated with Semiramis was, as has been well pointed out by M. Salomon Reinach,^ in its origin un-Semitic. Nor in its early stage was there any special connexion with Aphrodite. In the Odyssey the dove bears nectar to Zeus.'*^ His soothsaying wild doves at Dodona go back to the beginnings of Hellenic religion. The dove is equally connected with Dione, who represented the consort of the ' Pelasgian ' Zeus long before she was assimilated with Aphrodite. It may be noted that where the sacred doves appear in their simplest European form they are generally associated with a sei^ulchral cult. It is in fact a favourite shape, in which the spirit of the departed haunts his last resting-place, and in accordance with this idea we see the heathen Lombards ornamenting their grave-posts with the effigy of a dove.^ Nor was it otherwise in prehistoric Cyprus. The figures of doves that adorn the rims of certain vases from the early Copper Age tombs of the island,* accompanied with cone-like figures and small libation vases, are most probably connected with a sepulchral cult.

§ 4. — The Association of Sacred Tree and Pillar.

In succeeding sections attention will be called to a whole series of Mycenaean cult scenes in which the sacred tree is associated with the sacred pillar. This dual cult is indeed so widespread that it may be said to mark a definite early stage of religious evolution. In treating here of this primitive religious type the cult of trees and pillars, or rude stones, has been regarded as an identical form of worship.^ The group

1 Aufhropoloyie, vi. pp. 562, 563. primitive cult I need only refer to Tyler,

- Od xii. 62, 63. Priniitii-e Culture, ii. p. 160 .ieqq. and p. 215

«  Paul Diac. Be Ge.'ilis Lawjohardorum, -feqq. The spirit is generally forced to enter

V 34 tlie stone or pillarby charms and incantations,

■* Ohnefalsch-Richter, Ki/pros, die Bibel und and sometimes also passes into the body of the

//omer, p. 283, Figs. 181, 182, 186. Tombs priest or worshipper. The ' possession ' itself

of the early class in which these vases occur of the material object is only in its nature

go back, if we may judge from the discovery temporary. ' When tlie spirit departs the

in one of them of a cylinder of Sargon (3800 "idol " remains only a sacred object. When

B.C.), as early as the fourth millennium before a deity is thus brought down into a tree it

our era.

5 For the ideas underlying this widespread

blends wii h the tree life.

a ARTHUR J. EVANS [106

is indeed inseparable, and a special feature of the Mycenaean cult scenes with which we have to deal is the constant combination of the sacred tree with pillar or dolmen. The same religious idea — the possession of the material object by the numcn of the divinity — is common to both. The two forms, moreover, shade off into one another ; the living tree, as will be seen, can be converted into a column or a tree-pillar, retaining the sanctity of the original. No doubt, as compared with the pillar-form, the living tree was in some way a more realistic impersonation of the godhead, as a depositary of the divine life manifested by its fruits and foliage. In the whispering of its leaves and the melancholy soughing of the breeze was heard, as at Dodona, the actual voice of the divinity. The spiritual possession of the stone or pillar was more temporary in its nature, and the result of a special act of ritual invocation. But the presence of the tree or bush which afforded a more permanent manifestation of divine life may have been thought to facilitate the simultaneous presence of the divinity in the stock or stone, just as both of them co-operate towards the ' possession ' of the votary himself.

In India, where worship of this primitive character is perhaps best illustrated at the present day, the collocation of tree and stone is equally frequent. The rough pyramidal pillars of the Bhuta Spirit, the dolmen shrines with their sacred stones, and many other rude " baetyls " of the same kind, such as those of the Horse God and the Village God among the Khonds, are commonly set up beneath holy trees. In the Druidical worshijj of the West, the tree divinity and the Menhir or stone pillar are associated in a very similar manner, and lingering traditions of their relationship are still traceable in modern folklore. To ilhistrate indeed this sympathetic conjunction of tree and pillar we have to go no further afield than the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Beside the pre-historic stone fence of Rollright the elder tree still stands hard by the King Stone, about which it is told that when the flowery branch was cut on Midsummer Eve, the tree bled, the stone ' moved its head.' ^

§ 5, — The ' Labyrinth' and the Pillar Shrines of the God of the DouUe Axe-.

It will be shown in the course of this study that the cult objects of Mycenaean times almost exclusively consisted of sacred stones, pillars, and trees. It appears, however, that certain symbolic objects, like the double axe, also at times stood as the visible impersonation of the divinity. A valu- able illustration of this aspect of primitive cult, which has hitherto escaped attention, is supplied by the subject of a painted Mycenaean vase (Fig. 3), now in the British Museum, found during the recent excavations at Old Salamis in Cyprus.^ We see here the repeated delineation of a double axe

^ See my paper on ' The Rollright Stones appearance of a Zeus Labranios in Cyprus,

and their Folklore,' p. 20, Foil-lore Journal, I. H. Hall, Jovrn. American Oriental Sac.

1895. 1883. Cited by 0. Richter, Kypros, &c. p. 21.

2 It is worth noting in this connexion the

107]

MYCENAEAH TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

9

apparently set in the ground between pairs of bulls, which also have double axes between their horns. But this representation contains a still more inter- esting feature. At the foot of the handle of axe, namely, appears in each case that distinctive piece of Mycenaean ritual furniture elsewhere described as 'the horns of consecration.' It occupies the same position in relation to the double axe as in other cases it does to the pillar or tree forms of the divinity. We have here therefore an indication that the double axe itself was an object of worship, and represented the material form or indwelling-place of the divinity, in the same way as his aniconic image of stoue or wood. It is a form of worship very similar to that described by Ammianus as still existing in his days among the Alans of the East Pontic coasllands, who simply fixed a naked sword into the ground with barbaric ritual, and worshipped it as the God of War.^ A curious parallel to this is to be found in a Hittite relief at Pterium,- which represents a great sword with the blade stuck in the ground. The handle here has come to life, and portrays the divinity himself and his lion supporters.

Fig. 3. — Doublr Axe with 'Horns of Consecration' between Bulls' Heads with SIMILAR Axes, Mycenaean Vase, Old Salamis.

The idea of the double axe as the actual material shape of the divinity, the object into which his spiritual essence might enter as it did into his sacred pillar or tree, throws a new light on the scene represented on the large gold signet from the Akropolis treasure at Mycenae (Fig. 4). Here, above the group of the Goddess and her handmaidens, and beneath the con- joined figures of the sun and moon, is seen a double axe, which is surely

1 Amm. Marc. xxxi. 2, 21. ' Nee templum apud eos visitur aut dehibrum. . . . sed gladius barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus eumqiie at Martem regionum quas cireumcir- cant praesulem verecundius colunt.' Prof. Ernest Gardner also calls my attention to a

passage of the Schol. A on Iliad A 264 ; (Kaiveus) irij^as aK6vTiov iv rif ufaaiTarcfi ttjj ayopas Oehv tovto itpoaira^iv apiBfiuv.

- Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art dans VAntiquite, t. iv. p. 642 and p. 647, Fig. 320.

10

ARTHUR J. EVANS

[108

something more than a mere symbol. It stands in a natural relation to the small figure of the warrior God to the left, and probably represents one of the cult forms under whicli he was worshipiDed. The small, apparently descending, image of the God himself may be compared with a similar armed figure on a ring from Knossos, to be described below, in which the cult form of the divinity is seen in the shape of an obelisk. Tlie tree behind the Goddess on the sionet-rins:, the small stone cairn on which one of tlie attendants stands and the double axe probably reproduce for us the external aspect of the scene of worship, into which religious fancy has, here, also pictorially introduced the divine actors. The curious reduplica- tion of the axe blades suggests indeed that it stands as an image of the conjunction of the divine pair — a solar and a lunar divinity. This primitive aspect of the cult, in which the double axe was actually regarded as a pair

Fig 4.— Gold Signet from AKUoruus Tueasuke, Mycenae {■;).

of divinities, receives in fact a curious illustration from the human imagery of later Greek cult. On the reverse of the coins of Tenedos, as on so many Carian types, the old double axe form of the divinity is still preserved, while on the obverse side appears its anthropomorphic equivalent in the shape of a janiform head, which has been identified with Dionysos and Ariadne.^ It may be noted that in Tenedos Dionysos is the solar Sabazios of the Thraco-Phrygian cult.

With the evidence of this primitive cult of the weajDon itself before our eyes it seems natural to interpret names of Carian sanctuaries like Labranda in the most literal sense as the place of the sacred labrys, which was the

^ Head, Historia Numormn, pp. 476, 477.

109]

MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

11

Lydian (or Carian) name for the Greek TreXe^f?, or doubled-edged axe.^ Oa Carian coins indeed of quite late date the lahrys, set up on its long pillar-like handle, with two dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a cult image.'^ The name itself reappears in variant forms, and notably connects itself with Labranda near Mylasa, which was a principal scene of the worship of the Carian Zeus. A traditional connexion between the Carian and old Cretan worship is found in the name Labrandos applied to one of the Curetes who was said to have migrated to the neighbourhood of Tralles,^ and whose associate, moreover, Panamoros preserves another form of the name of the Carian divinity.*

The appearance of the divine double axe on the vase between the two bulls finds a close parallel in the Mycenaean lentoid gem from the Heraeum, on which a double axe is seen immediately above a bull's head. The connexion of the God of the Double Axe with the animal is well brought out on the Anatolian side by the figure of Jupiter Dolichenus, a Commagenian var- iant of the Carian god, who stands, after the old Hittite manner, on the back of the bull. Once more we are taken back to Crete, and to the parallel associations of Zeus-Minos and the Minotaur. These comparisons, moreover, give an extraordinary interest to an identification already arrived at on philological grounds. It was first j)ointed out by Max Mayer *^ that the Carian Labrandos or Labraundos in its variant forms is in fact the equivalent of the Cretan Labyrinthos. The Cretan Labyrinth is essentially ' the House of the Double Axe.' 7

1 Plutarch, Qiiaest. Graec. 45.

- See especially the revei'.se of a coin of Aphrodisias, struck umler Augustus, B. 31. Cat. Caria, kc, PL VII. 2. Zeus Labraundos is often represented in f>nly partially anthropo- morphised form.

^ Et. Marjn. s.v. Ei'Soi^/oF. Cf. Reseller's Lcxikon, Art. ' Kureten,' p. 1599.

■* Uavaixapos is the more usual form. See Kretschmer, EinJeitung in d. Gefsch. d. griech. Sprache, p. 303, n. 2.

^ Schliemann, Sfyccnae, p. 362, Fig. 541  ; FurtwJingler, Ant ike Gemmen, PI. II. 42.

fi Jahrlmch d. K. D. List. vii. (1892), p. 191. He derives Aa^vpivQos from Aa0piiv9ios (Zevs), a possible adjectival form of Aa/3pus. A similar but somewhat variant view is put forth by Kretschmer [EinJeitung, p. 404), to whom it had occurred independently. He makes Aa^vpivBos a Cretan corruption of the Carian Aa^pavpSos, or its alternative form Aa^pavvvSos. Dr. W. Spiegelberg, indeed, has lately (Orientalistische Litteratur- Zeitung, Dec. 1900, pp. 447—449), revived the view, suggested by Jablonsky, that the name Aa^ipivdos took its origin from the Egyptian building known to the Greeks by that name, the Mortuary Temple, namely of Amenemhat III, whose more lasting monu-

ment is the Fayum Province. The official form of Amcnemhat's name N -m;H - i?e' was Grecised into Aa&apis and Spiegelberg would deri^^e Aa&vpivdos from this + the - irflos end- ing of place-names, as YL6p-ivdos. But the obvious objection to this is that this termina- tion, which in related forms can be traced through a large Anatolian region as well as Greece, belongs to the prae-Hellenic element of the Aegean world, to the same element, in fact, to which lahrys itself belongs. On the other hand it is quite natural to suppose that the Greeks having taken over the word Aa^vpivQos applied by the earlier race to the Cretan Iniilding, should by a kind of Vollsety- mologie transfer the term to the Temple of ' Labaris.'

Max Mayer and Kretschmer [locc. cift.) derive the names of the places Ad^pavSa and Aa^vpiv6os from the names of the God, and thus indirectly from the \a^pvs. But the numerous terminations of local Carian names in -nda -ndos, on the one side, and of prae-Hellenic sites in Greece in -inthos or -yn(th)s, make it probable that both the Labyrinth and Labranda may have taken their name directly from the sacred axe, meaning simply " the place of the lahrys."

12

ARTHUR J. EVANS

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In the great prehistoric Palace at present partially excavated by me at Knossos I have ventured on many grounds to recognise the true original of the traditional Labyrinth. It is needless here to speak of its long corridors and succession of magazines with their blind endings, its tortuous passages, and maze of lesser chambers, of the harem scenes painted on its walls, and its huge fresco-paintings and reliefs of bulls, grappled perhaps by men, as on a gem impression from the same site, the Mycenaean prototype of Theseus and the

^ ^

Fig. 5. — Pillar of the Double Axes in Palace, Knossos.

Minotaur. All this might give a local colour to the mythical scenes with which the building became associated. But there is direct evidence of even a more cocfent nature. It was itself the ' House of the Double Axe,' and the Palace was at the same time a sanctuary. The chief corner stones and door- jambs, made of huge gypsum blocks, are incised with the double axe sign, implying consecration to the Cretan Zeus. More than this, in the centre of the

Ill] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 13

building are two small contiguous chambers, in the middle of each of which rises a square column, formed of a series of blocks, on every side of each of which in one case and on three sides of the other is engraved a double axe (Fig. 5). There can, I venture to think, be little doubt that these chambers are shrines, probably belonging to tfhe oldest part of the building, nnd the pillars thus marked with the sign of the God are in fact his aniconic images. The double axe is thus combined with the sacred pillar.

This view is corroborated by the occurrence in a Mycenaean building excavated by Mr. Hogarth on the opposite hill of Gypsades^ of a small room with a pillar of the same construction, on either side of which were more or less symmetrically arranged rows of clay cups turned upside down, such as are otherwise so abundantly associated with the votive deposits of the Cretan Cave sanctuaries. In this case the blocks forming the central pillar are not incised with the double axe symbol ; but if the addition of any special religious attribute is now wanting, it may originally have been supplied by means of the painted coating of plaster so generally employed in Mycenaean Knossos.

These Cretan pillar shrines find an interesting parallel in two contiguous chambers excavated by the British School at Phylakopi,^ which were also exceptionally provided with free-standing square pillars. The presence of a curious type of painted vessel of the earlier Aegean class, apparently used for the receiDtion of libations, had already made it probable to the excavators that these columnar chambers should be regarded as shrines. In this case, as probably in the Palace at Knossos, this pillar shrine in its original form goes back to the pre-Mycenaean period. In the presence of the Cretan parallels the full value of the free-standing pillar here as a vehicle of divine presence must now be recognised. It will be shown fron\ a variety of evidence that the most typical form of the Mycenaean sacred pillar is represented as actually performing a structural function, and is in fact a ' Pillar of the House.'

A useful commentary on these more or less domestic pillar shrines of the Mycenaeans is supplied by a vase fragment from a tomb at Enkomi (Old Salamis) ^ in which female votaries are seen within a two-storeyed building, their hands raised in the act of adoration on either side of what appear to be square columns like those in the Knossian chambers (Fig. 6).

The recent exploration of the inner sanctuary of the Diktaean Cave has produced an interesting discovery which may be taken to illustrate the Mycenaean pillar worship in its most primitive and naturalistic form. In the lower vault of the Cave, and partly out of the waters of its subterranean pool, rises a forest of stalactite columns, stuck into the crevices of which Mr. Hogartli found hundreds of votive bronzes, and among them a quantity of double axes declaring the special dedication to the Cretan Zeus. In these votive objects, thrust into the crevices of the stalactite, we may, I venture to think, see something more than a convenient way of disposing of offerings. They clearly indicate

' ^ce Annual of the British School at Athens, 1897-8, p. 15. 2900. •' A. S. Murraj', etc. Excavations in Cyprus,

'^ Annual of the British School at Athens, p. 73, Fig. 127.

14

ARTHUR J. EVANS

[112

that in this case the natural cokimns of this Cavern shrine were regarded as the baetylic forms of the divinity, just as the Cave itself is here his temple. It may be observed, moreover, in this connexion that some of the shorter stalagmitic formations of this ' Holy of Holies ' are perfect representations of the omphalos type, and perhaps supply the true exj)lanation of the origin of this form of sacred stone.

It will be shown in the succeeding section that the inscribed libation table found in the upper sanctuary of the same Cave is in a similar way associated with a baetylic form of the God as an artificial column or cone.

§ 6. — llie ^aiTv\o<i and Baetylic Talks of Offering.

There will be repeated occasion for observing the close correspondence of the Mycenaean and Semitic cult of sacred pillars. The best known

Fig. 6.— Pillar Shrines and Votaries on Vase Fragment from Old Salamis, Cyprus.

instance of the kind is the pillow set up by Jacob, which was literally Bethel, the House of God. It has been suggested that these Semitic words, or some parallel form of the same — indicating the stone as the temporary place of indwelling for a divinity — supplied the Greeks with the term ^alrvXo or ^anvXiov} and applied in a special way to the stone which, according to the

' Lenormant, Art. ' Baetylia ' in Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des Antiqiut^a, i. 642 neqq.  ; Baudissin, S/udien znr Semitischen Rcluiion, ii. 232 seqq.  ; Dr. H. Lewy, Die Semitischen

Fremdworter im Griechischen, pp. 255, 256, who prefers the derivation ' het 'eloah.' The word was derived by the ancient grammarians from the Cretan $alT7i = goat or goat-skin, in

113] MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT. 15

Cretan legend, was swallowed by Kronos under the belief that it was his son. But this stone, as Lenormant has well pointed out, is in fact nothing else than the material form of the Cretan Zeus himself. The name was equally applied to the black cone representing the Sun God at Baalbec.^

In the stalactite pillars of the inner sanctuary of the great Diktaean Cave with their votive double axes, the emblems of the Cretan Zeus, we have already ventured to recognise baetylic shapes of the God in a purely natural form. But, over and above this, there remains a remarkable piece of evidence which assuredly imjslies the existence of an artificial pillar image of the divinity, it may be even the actual 'baetylos' of remote tradition.

In the great upper hall of the Cave, near the small temenos more recently explored by the late Director of the British School, was found the fragment of a steatite table with cup-like receptacles for libations, and bear- ing upon it part of a prehistoric inscription, described by me in a previous publication.^ The evidence of a triple libation was there compared with the old Arcadian rite, the offering to the Dead before the falls of Styx.^

Upcora fxe\iKpr]TM, f-iereTreira 8e rjSe'i otv(p, ^S^ To Tplrov avd' vSari.

The special appropriateness was pointed out of such a rite in the case of the Cave shrine of the infant Zeus, where, according to the legend, he had been fed by the Nymphs with mingled milk and honey.'* But there remains another feature of the Libation Table which brings it into still closer relation with the primitive baetylic image of the God.

The slab of offering, in this case, with its triple receptacle, is in fact a part of a table. Its angles on the under side show projections which fitted on to four legs. But over and above these corner supports, which for a table of such dimensions would have been amply sufficient, the under surface of the offertory slab also displays a larger circular prominence, which shows that it was set over a small central column. The analysis of the original cult object now becomes clear. The Table of Offerings itself is only a secondary feature. The slab with the cups for libation was simply placed over the pillar, — here, perhaps, as shown in the reconstruction of the whole in Fig. 7, of slightly conical outline, — which in fact represents the aniconic image of the divinity, the actual baetylos of Zeus.

The corner posts of the libation table were only added to afford additional security ; they give to the whole the appearance of a small shrine resembling the Mycenaean pillar shrines to be described in succeeding

special allusion to the stone substitute of Heliopolis.

Zeus swallowed by Kronos. This view has ^ Etymol. Mag. s. v.

been revived by Svoronos, Zeitschrift filr ^ ' Further Discoveries of Cretan and

JVwmsma^il-, 1888, p. 222, and is preferred by Aegean Script,' J.H.S. xvii. (1897) p. 350

Maximilian Mayer, Art. ' Kronos,' in ,segg.

Roscher's Lexikon, ii. p. 1,524. But it is not ^ Od. x. 519, 520.

explained how the word came to be applied * Cf. Diod. v. 20.

(according to the Etymol. M.) to the stone of

ARTHUR J. EVANS

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16

sections.! i^ ^ sense, too, the table here has a real analogy with these, the top slab of such baetylic shrines being used either as a resting place for votive objects or as the support of a Mycenaean altar. It is to be noted, however, that in both cases the centre of the whole religious construction is the aniconic image within. The term ' altar,' which has been so usually applied to these Mycenaean structures, is quite inadequate, though, as we shall see, these baetylic tables gave rise in later days, wlien the aniconic imao-e itself had been superseded, to a Cretan form of altar, and to certain types of tripod.

In the most primitive form of this pillar cult the offerings are simply

Fig. 7. — Baetylic Table of Offering from the Diktaean Cave, RESTOURn.

placed on the holy stone.^ In other cases a basket or some temporary receptacle is laid on top of it, containing the offering. Thus, for example, in a Greco-Roman relief,^ the shovel-shaped basket of Bacchus — the Liknos or

^ The analogy between these and the Diktaean Libation Table as reconstructed has been noted by Dr. P. Wolters [Jahrhuch d. L d. Ind. 1900, pp. 147, 148); but the explanation given by him, that both the Diktaean structure and those represented on the signets are ' altars,' falls, as I venture to believe, short of the truth. The view again and again put forward in the course of the present study, is that they are in reality small shrines, the central columnar support of which

is the aniconic image of the divinity. They are only ' altars ' in a secondary sense.

^ I have actually seen egg offerings thus placed on the top of a sacred stone in Finnish Lapland. The stone itself was soliigh that for the convenience of the votaries a primitive form of ladder in the shape of a notched pine trunk was laid against it.

^ 3Ion. Inediti, ii. PI. 37  ; Botticher, Baum- huJhifi, PI. 56.

115]

MYCENAEAN- TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

17

— Baetylic Cones and Offering Slabs on Hittite Seals.

Vannus — laden with grapes and other fruit, is placed on the coniform summit of a divine pillar, which, as is so often the case, is associated with a holy tree and sacral arch. It is interestini; to note that the most typical form of the Hittite altars represents the super- position of a receptacle of the same shape as this offertory basket on what must certainly be recognised as a bae- tylic cone (Fig, 8 a). In other cases the same conical base supports a small flat slab with offerings up)on it (Fig. 8 h), and at times again it is simply surmounted by a rayed disk indicative of the divinity of the stone (Fig. 8 c)} The cup-shaped receptacles of the Diktaean

slab represent, in a more developed form, the cup-like hollows worked for the recep- tion of offerings in the capstones of some of our Dolmens, which themselves served as the shrines of departed human spirits.

A very interesting parallel to the baetylic libation table of the Diktaean Cave is supplied from a quarter which has perhaps a special significance in connexion with the primitive monuments of Cretan religion. The Libyan God Zeus Amnion was represented in his oracular shrine of the Oasis as a kind of cone or omphalos, a survival of aniconic worship which recalls the obelisk of his Egyptian impersonation, Amen-Ra. But a limestone object (Fig. 9) obtained by Dr. Dennis in the Cyrenaica ^ reproduces the essential features of the pillar table of the Diktaean Cave. The central column is here of conical form, which on Libyan soil we should naturally connect with the native Zeus. The table above has the four subsidiary legs of the Cretan type, while its upper surface is surmounted by a kind of receptacle open

Fig.

9. — Small Baetylic Altak FROM Cyrenaica.

1 Figs. 8 a, and S b, Tarsus seal, haematite. Arch. Inst. Journ. 1887, p. 348 (Ashinolean Museum)  ; cf. cylindrical seal from Caisarea in Cappadocia, Dresden Mu- seum (L. Messerschmidt, Orienfu/istische Lit- ter atur-Z tit mig, 1900, p. 442, Fig. 1). Fig. 8, c, seal from Yiizgat, S.E. of Boghaz Kioi, Budge, Proi: Soc. Bibl. Arch. ix. Nov. 1886,

(in the British Museum). Cf. another seal from Yiizgat (T. Tyler, Internat. Conyr. of Orienl- alids, 1892, p. 267, Fig. 13), where the winged disk surmounts a somewhat more primitive cone. On several examples the God himself is seen in anthropomorphic form before his baetylic cone and altar slab.

" Now in the British Museum. Mr. Dennis

C 2

18

ARTHUR J. EVANS

[116

on one side, and in this respect resembling the basket or Vannus placed on the sacred pillar already described.

It is possible that the cult object from the Cyrenaica is of considerably later date than that from the Diktaean Cave, but there can be no doubt as to the parallelism presented by its constituent parts. Here, too, we have, — moulded, it is true, into a single piece, — the central object of worship, in this case a sacred cone, with the table placed above it and the receptacle for offerings on the upper surface.

Two interesting pieces of evidence seem to show that this baetylic table formed a special feature in the indigenous Cretan cult, and even survived to lloman times. On a Mycenaean lentoid gem found in Crete, and present- ing in a variant form the Lions' Gate type,^ the sacred object on whicli the forefeet of the animals rest is neither the columnar image nor the usual Mycenaean altar with incurving sides, but an object consisting of a short central column, with a slab above it, further supported by side legs (Fig. 10). Here once more we recognise the essential features of the offertory table placed above the sacred pillar.

Fig. 10. — Baetylic Table used as a Base FOR Saceal Lions on Cretan Gem.

Fig. 11. — Baetylic Altar on Coin of Cretan Community.

In a much later shape, and with the original idea of the pillar idol merged in the sanctity of the whole block as a vehicle of offering, we find the same religious element surviving in a form of altar which occurs on certain coins of the Cretan community ^ as a badge of their common worship. On these coins (Fig. 11), struck under the Roman dominion, and bearing in an abbreviated form the legend KOINON KPHTHN, we still clearly distinguish the central baetylic column and the offertory slab above, with the legs at its angles. The table itself is here surmounted by a central akroterion, and lateral excrescences which rej)resent here, as elsewhere, the tradition of the typical cult object of Mycenaean times, ' the horns of consecration.'

obtained it when Consul at Bengazi, but no account exists of the exact place or circum- stances of its discovery.

^ More fully described below. See p. 63. - Svoronos, Numhmatiqut de la Crete an- cienne, PI. XXXV. 36.

117]

MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

19

Some impressed glass plaques recently found by Dr. Tsuntas in tombs of the Lower Town at Mycenae i supply three different examples of the ancient pillar cult in association with the strange lion- headed daemons of Mycenaean religion.^ Elsewhere^ we have seen the same monsters in the ritual act of watering the nurseling palms. In the present case they are engaged in pouring libations over sacred stones and pillars. In Fig. 12/ we see them holding the usual prochous vases, or beaked ewers, over what appears to be a cairn formed of natural stones, with a larger block on the top. This primitive form of stone worship recalls the setting up of stones from the bed of the Jordan by Jacob at Gilgal. It also receives a iwssible illustration in the stone heap on which a small figure stands in the scene presented by the great signet from Mycenae. In Fig. 13 ^ the same daemons are similarly engaged on either side of square pillars, which in form recall those with the incised double axes in the Palace of Knossos. The third example (Fig. 14)*^ is of a somewhat ditferent kind, and supplies a most interesting analogy to the ' baetylic table ' described above.

Here the ritual libation is poured into what appears to be a kind of bowl/ resting on a column of the Mycenaean architectural type, decreasing in

KiG. 12. — Impkksskd (Ilass Plaquk fi;om iMycenae  : Daemons ruuRiNG Libations ox Sac];ed Cairn.

Fig. 13. — Impiiesseu Glass Plaq-ue fkom Mycenae  : Daemons pouring Libations on

SACP.ED PiLLAK.

Fig. 14. — Impeessed Glass Plaque fPvOM

Mycenae  : Daemons pouring Libations on

A Uaetylic Tiupod-Lebes.

diameter towards its base. The bowl has two further supports on either side, answering to the legs of the offertory slab in the types above described. It

^ Tlianks to the kindness of Dr. Tsuntas I am able to reproduce these objects from drawings made by M. Gillieron.

- See below, p. 70 seqq.

3 See Fig. 1, p. 3.

■* From a dromos tomb, with rock-cut square chamber, some distance north of the Acropolis.

• Found in a plundered tholos tomb west of

the ridge leading from the Acropolis to Charvati.

8 Found in the same tomb as the preceding.

' Dr. Tsuntas intei'prets this feature in the same manner. It might be also regarded as a capital of the column, but this would not explain the side supports. It is obviously a receptacle

20 ARTHUR J. EVANS [118

is possible that in this case there were only three legs, and that what we see before us is in fact a tripod with a central stem. This religious tyj)e again supplies the prototype of a class of tripods that survived to later times, where it also assumes an anthropomorphic form. The interior baetylic pillar indeed could hardly be thus treated, and the anthropomorphic element was trans- ferred to the outer supports. A well known example of this kind is supplied by the Oxford tripod,^ in which the basin, in addition to its central stem, is supported by three figures of Goddesses standing on the backs of lions. In a zoomorphic form the same underlying idea is illustrated by the three serpents of bronze, which formed the central prop of the golden tripod dedicated to the Delphian God out of the spoils of the battle of Plataea.^

§ 7. — Zeus Kajppotas and the Meteoric Element in Baetylic Stones.

The sanctity of baetylic stones and pillars is due to a variety of causes. It may be connected with some particular manifestation supposed to be of a spiritual nature — to the interpretation of a sign, or of a dream, as in the case of Jacob's pillar. Artificial pillars may owe their indwelling spiritual being to the holiness of the spot where they are set up, to religious symbols like the double axe carved on their surface, or to some special rite of consecration, of which, in Mycenaean religion, the two-horned cult object set before them is often the external symbol. Wooden columns, as we shall see, often take over their sanctity from the sacred tree out of which they are hcAvn,

There is also a good deal of evidence to show that certain natural blocks derived their baetylic qualities from the fact that they were of meteoric origin. According to Sanchoniathon ^ * Baetylos ' is ' the son of Ouranos,' in other words sky-fallen. The phenomena associated with aerolites seem indeed to a certain extent to have attached themselves to the whole class of sacred stones. The early cults of the Greek world supply a good illustration of this class of ideas in the ' rude stone,' or dpyb<; \i6o Pans. ii. 23, 7.

op. cit. p. 33 and p. 27 seqq. "^ Plutarch, Theseus, 20.

•* Tatian, adv. Grace. 8, 25. 'O 5e 6/j.(pa\os ^ 'Ek rod 'A/xvKAaiov. ['E(pr]/j.. 'ApxaioA. 1892,

Toc^os eerrl Aiovvcrov. p. 1 veqq.^

5 Philoch. fr. 22 in Malala, ^anv 15^7^ T^qv Cf. Polybios, 1. viii. c. 30, 2. TBi^V ttuToO eV A€\<^or? Ttapa'Thv hi^iK\<>iva rhv

121]

MYCENAEAN TREE AND PILLAR CULT.

23

associated hero or mythical being, in reality simply representing a dual type of the God himself.

But the conception of the mortal God and the cult of his sepulchral monument is most familiar in the abiding traditions of the Cretan Zeus. The ' tomb of Zeus ' was shown in Crete down to at least the fourth century of our era, and it was indeed the preservation of this piece of primitive religion, so foreign to later notions, that gained for the Cretans the distin- guishing epithet applied to them by Kallimachos ^ and St. Paul. Possibly more than one locality claimed to possess the sepulchre, as the records preserved of it sometimes seem to couple it with the Cave of Zeus on Mount Ida, sometimes with Knossos. Lactantius places it at Knossos, and adds that it bore the inscription in early Greek characters, Zeus, son of Kronos  ; but according to one version, which clearly fits on to the prae-Hellenic tradition of the island, the original name on the tomb was that of Minos.^ According to one legend Pythagoras was said to have written on the tomb :

'^nSe Oavcov Kelrai Zay ov Aia KtK\7]crK0vcnv}

Lucian speaks of a tomb and stele ^ and the continued veneration of the monument is attested by Christian writers down to Julius Firmicus,*^ who wrote in the first lialf of the fourth century. After this there is a break in the written records till the eleventh century, when Michael Psellos speaks of the legend as still living, and relates that the Cretans show a cairn or heap of stones above the grave of Zeus.^ This might be taken to show that the older monument was then a heap of ruins. It is certain that later Cretan tradition has persistently connected the tomb of Zeus with Mount Juktas which rises as the most prominent height on the land side above the site of Knossos.^ Personal experiences obtained during two recent explorations of this peak go far to confirm. this tradition. All that is not precipitous of the highest point of the ridge of Juktas is enclosed by a ' Cyclopean ' wall of

1 Hymn i.  :^ KpTJTes ael ipevarai, kol yap rafpov, ai ava, (Te7o KpiJTes iTreKTT)vavTO- ah S' oh daves, eVffi yap aei.

- Be Falsa Reli'jione, lib. i. c. 11. ' iSepul- chrum eius (sc. Jovis) est in oppido Giioso. . . . inque sepulchro inscriptum antiquis Uteris Graecis 6 Zeus toD Kp6vov.^

3 Scliol. in Callimachum. Hymn. i. Ac- cording to this version the original description was Wivaios Tov Aihs ra<pos — then the name of Minos was omitted. This version may, of course, be set down to Euhemerism, but it seems to record a true religious process by which the cult of Minos passed into that of Zeus. That this explanation should have o]> tained currency is another indication that a tomb of Zeus was shown at or near Knossos.