The Minoans

Cretan religion differed from that of classical Greece in that the chief deity worshipped was a goddess, Mother Nature or Earth-Mother, some at least of whose characteristics we find embodied in the Rhea of Greek mythology. Matriarchal religion seems to have been specially characteristic of very early times; through it primitive man expressed his veneration of womanhood. The Cretan Mother Goddess held an exalted position. She had supreme power over all Nature; was associated with doves, which symbolized her power in the air; was accompanied by lions, the strongest animals of the earth; brandished snakes, that live under the earth. Among the various “cult objects,” or ritualistic forms used in worship, that have been found in her shrines are included representations of cows with calves, goats with suckling kids, and the like.

There was a god as well as a goddess in Minoan religion, but he was of relatively little importance. Velchanos, the Cretan Zeus—if we may assume that the Minoan god was the original of this figure of the Greek legends—was represented as both the son and the husband of Mother Nature. He was suckled, so the tradition ran, by Amalthea the goat in the cave of Dikte, and brought up by his mother Rhea on the slopes of Mount Ida. His insignificance in comparison with the goddess appears from the fact that he was drawn on a smaller scale whenever represented in her company. The two deities probably constituted, as Mr. Hogarth has suggested, a “Double Monotheism”—a double godhead, that is, worshipped to the exclusion of all minor deities. If this was the case, the various Cretan prototypes of later Greek divinities must be regarded as variant forms of the Mother Goddess herself. Aphrodite, for instance, the goddess of Love, was worshipped generally in the Levant, being known in Canaan as Ashtaroth-Astarte, and in Egypt as Hathor; her Cretan name is unknown. The Greek Artemis, goddess of the Wild Beasts, was foreshadowed in the Cretan Dictynna.

One great difference between the Cretan and the Hellenic Zeus was that the Cretan Zeus was mortal, and was said to have died on Mount Juktas. The mortality of their gods was one of the striking conceptions which differentiated the Southern peoples of the Near East from the later Greeks, who came from the North. The Egyptian Osiris, for instance, could die, but not any of the Greek gods. The Cretan Mother Goddess is depicted on seal stones and rings dressed like an earthly queen, while Velchanos is seen descending from the heavens to the earth, a young warrior with a spear and an enormous shield.

Another difference between Cretan and classical Greek religion was that, as far as one can see, Cretan religion did not give rise to any great temples, nor left behind any more substantial traces of its activity than the small figures of the Earth Goddess to whom I have referred. It may be sound to regard the palace of Knossos as itself a temple, and it is true that legend makes of Minos a High Priest as well as a King. There seems, however, to be little room for doubt that the only places set aside specifically for worship were small private shrines used for family worship. All the evidence tends to indicate that it was the family idea that predominated in Cretan worship. Private houses had their shrines, and the Knossian palace-temple itself had its lesser family shrines. These sanctuaries were always distinguished by a sort of sacred pillar, a sign which in Minoan art is often used as the only indication of a sacred place. There is an example of it on a fresco painting found at Knossos. Another emblem associated with the cult is that of sacred trees, which on rings and seal stones usually form the background for the “choros,” or dance. The actual dance, no doubt, would be performed in sacred groves.

Many cult-objects have been found in the shrines, the commonest being the mysterious Double Axe. The fact that this emblem was also specially associated with the Carian Zeus at Labraunda has led to a generally accepted theory that the Cretan “Labyrinth” corresponds to the Carian “Labraunda,” or place of the “Labrus” or Double Axe; for the Knossian palace must have been, in fact, the chief seat of the cult.

Side by side with the Double Axe one finds the constantly-recurring sign of the Bull, an animal which was sacred not only because of its physical strength, but of its use in sacrifice. A sarcophagus or coffin of terra-cotta, found at Hagia Triada, contains a picture of a sacrificial bull following a procession of women priests. In view of the prominence given to the Bull in Minoan worship, one need not seek far for an explanation of the Cretan legend of the Minotaur, a monster half man, half bull, which lived in the labyrinth and exacted its human victims. Nor is it impossible that the dangerous and cruel sport of bull-fighting formed part of the same cult. Bulls’ heads were made in pottery, and sometimes of gold, and used as votive offerings. The horns of the bull—Horns of Consecration—are found in shrines among ritual objects.

Cult-objects were usually of a rude and inartistic kind. A striking exception is found in some brilliantly-coloured figures of ware which if it were modern would be called “faïence,” belonging to the Middle Minoan III period. Perhaps the best example of this ware is a group consisting of the Snake Goddess and her votaries, which was found by Sir Arthur Evans in 1903, and which was used in a shrine of the royal household.

There was a specially important element in Cretan religion reserved for the cult of the dead.

It is obvious from the many tombs that have been excavated, that in very early times it was the practice to bury the body of the dead in a doubled-up position, the knees being drawn up to the breast. In later times the body was laid out at full length. It is not clear whether or not there was any particular significance in this choice of position. There were various kinds of tombs and graves, all of which were used contemporaneously, and of which, perhaps, the most interesting were the “Tholoi.” The word “tholos” properly means a domed building or rotunda, and the particular kind of tomb to which it is applied is a vaulted chamber to which entrance is effected through an underground tunnel, or “dromos.” It is likely that in form these “tholoi” were based upon the huts used—at some period—by the living. There are both round and square “tholoi” found in Crete. The “tholos” of Hagia Triada has a circular ground plan, while the Royal Tomb at Isopata and other elaborate tombs of the great palace-periods are rectangular. The principle of the tholos-tomb was most in use in Mycenæan times, on the mainland of Greece, where the “beehive tombs” almost all retained in the original round formation. The hilly character of Crete led the people to cut out their “tholoi” in the side of the rocky hills, the “dromos,” or tunnel, in this case being driven into the hillside almost horizontally.

Another style of grave was the shaft or pit-grave, which consisted of a pit sunk into the ground, at the bottom of which was the grave itself, closed over with slabs of stone. Still another kind was a combination of the first two, and is known as the “pit-cave.” This was made by first sinking a pit and then cutting out the tomb in the form of a side-recess from the bottom of the pit. A simpler form of burial, known as the “pot-burial,” was effected by trussing up the body, placing it under an inverted jar, and then burying it in the earth. A sixth form was that of the simple grave, like our own. Cremation was not practised in Minoan times, although it was introduced into Crete from Greece in the Iron Age. Clay coffins were first used in the Middle Minoan period, being made in the form of deep boxes with sloping tops resembling the roofs of houses.

Such were the physical conditions of burial. We knew practically nothing of the cult of the dead until 1913-1914, when Sir Arthur Evans published some important disclosures (Archæologia, 2nd series, vol. xv, 1913-14). It was known before that the dead in their spacious tombs were honoured with gift-offerings, which included weapons, jewellery, and objects closely associated with them in their life; that food and drink offerings were made and coal fires lighted, possibly with the naïve or symbolic object of cheering the traveller on his mysterious way. Now, however, a new series of tombs has been found at Isopata, one of which, called by Sir Arthur Evans “the Tomb of the Double Axes,” is proved to be not only a tomb, but a shrine of the Minoan Great Mother. In this tomb were found libation vessels, including a “rhyton” (or drinking-cup) in the shape of a bull’s head made of steatite, and a pair of double axes; the grave which received the body is cut out in the form of a double axe. “The cult of the dead,” says Sir Arthur Evans, “is thus brought into direct relation with the divinity or divinities of the Double Axes, and we may infer that in the present tomb the mortal remains had been placed in some ceremonial manner under divine guardianship.”