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Cave Deities and their Symbols

Demeter and the Nameless Fates--Forms of Mother-goddess--The "Eagle Lady" with Snake Girdle--Prototype of Hittite and Assyrian "Winged Disk"--How Composite Monsters became Symbols--The Caves of Zeus--Lasithi Plateau--The Dictæan Votive Offerings--The Chariot of a Deity--Cave of Kamares--The Plain of Nida--Sacred Cave of Mount Ida--Mountain Religion --Well Worship--The "Seven Sleepers" Belief--Cretan Tammuz a Cave God --Pillar Symbols in Crete, Egypt, and Babylonia--Pillars as Mountains and "World Spines"--The Osirian Spine Amulet--Tree and Pillar Worship--"Horns of Consecration" as Sky Pillars--Double-axe Symbol--Spirits in Weapons--The God of the Axe.

"THE Cretans say", Diodorus Siculus wrote, "that the honours rendered to the gods, the sacrifices and mysteries, are of Cretan origin, and other nations took them from them. Demeter passed from the Isle of Crete into Attica, then into Sicily, and thence into Egypt, carrying with her the cultivation of corn." 1


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In another phase the goddess has a goat's head, wings, a short columnar body, and spreading skirt. A god is similarly depicted with pants and waist girdle. A ram's head appears on another seal impression of like character, and in a variant the head of a "sea horse". Winged sphinxes recall Egyptian forms. Of special interest is a bull-head deity with female breasts, wings, crouched-up legs and fan tail, which may have been bisexual. This form tends also to grow into a decorative symbol. The Minotaur was a bull-headed god.

Composite monsters include deities with human bodies and lions' heads resembling those of Egypt, two dogs'

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heads divided by a wing and united by a fan tail, a female sphinx with human breasts, butterfly wings and lion's legs, a human head with wings and lion's legs, and so on. The form of the Hittite and later Russian double-headed eagle is suggested by a conventionalized lion's head with birds' heads protruding from the ears, curving inward in opposition. In almost all cases the animal and composite animal forms tend to become decorative symbols.





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On one of the ridges of Mount Dicte are the ruins of the city of Lyttos, and on another, right opposite, the modern village of Psychro. Five hundred feet above Psychro is the double cavern associated with the legends of Zeus--the famous Dictæan cave. As far back as the "eighties" it was known to contain archaeological relics. The earliest finds were made by goatherds who were accustomed to shelter in it, and after these passed into the hands of dealers, various archæologists paid visits to Psychro and the cave. It was not, however, until 1900 that thorough and systematic exploration of it was conducted by Mr. D. G. Hogarth.

This accomplished archæologist did not achieve success without overcoming considerable difficulties. Rock-falls had occurred in the cave, and he had to have recourse to blasting operations. Besides, part of it is ever flooded. "Water flowing in from the east has", writes Mr. Hogarth, "penetrated in two directions right and left. The main flow to southward has excavated an abyss, which falls at first sheer and then slopes steeply for some 200 feet in all to an icy pool, out of which rises a forest of stalactites." 1

Inside the cave were found portions of walls, a paved way, and bits of sawn marble an inch thick which may have covered it, an altar-like edifice beside which lay a small stone "table of offerings" and fragments of about thirty other "tables", lamps, cups, broken vases and ashes. Professor Myres found one of the cave "tables" in 1896, and another was purchased from dealers by Sir Arthur Evans in the same year.


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Zeus were identical. Animal figurines include rams, bulls, and oxen. An ox and a ram with projections from their shoulders fit into a miniature chariot which may have been a god's vehicle. On a gem in Sir Arthur Evans's collection a chariot is drawn by goats, as was the car of Thor, the Germanic Zeus. Models of weapons are comparatively numerous. These include the double axe, lance-heads, darts, and knives. A knife with a slightly curved blade has a human head finely carved at the end of the handle. Among the ivory and bone ornaments special interest attaches to "three volute-like objects" which, as Mr. Hogarth remarks, "are closely paralleled by Bosnian fibula plates". They also suggest the well-known "spectacle" symbols on Scottish sculptured stones. Hairpins, needles, and brooches figure among the finds.



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The group shown above was taken from a carpenter's kit which had been concealed in a house in Gournia. The implements include axes, chisels, adzes, nails, &c.


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subterranean outlet. For a considerable interval afterwards the cave may have been completely filled with water. If so, it was probably regarded as sacred on that account. Elsewhere sacred caves have invariably wells, and some of these are supposed to be possessed of curative properties. Drops of water falling from roofs are said to cure deafness, restore fading eyesight, and heal wounds. In these islands "wishing wells" receive offerings of pins and other objects, especially on May Day. Rags of clothing are attached also to trees or bushes overhanging wells anciently sacred. This practice obtains in Crete as well as in the British Isles and throughout Western Europe. Writing at Aghia Triadha, Angelo Mosso has recorded: "Every day . . . I passed a curious tree covered with fetishes. . . . Near a ruined church stands an olive-tree hung with bits of rag which the peasants tie on the branches, hundreds of shreds of every colour, worn by rain and wind. . . . I asked what the curious decoration of the tree was, and was told that anyone who suffered from malarial fever binds it to the tree with a shred of his clothing, a handkerchief, or a ribbon, and says a prayer, hoping to be cured thereby. . . . Witchcraft is common in Crete. Rags and dirty bits of stuff, into which the witches profess to have banished diseases, are constantly found in the walls of churches." 1 Here we have one reason why offerings were deposited in caves and thrown into the fire at Petsofa, near Palaikastro. The "wishers" affected a ceremonial connection with a sacred place to "switch on" the good influence and "switch off" the evil influence, which was negatived by being bound.

The "seven sleepers" of various countries lie in sacred caves. They appear to be identical with the spirits of vegetation, which slumber during the winter and return

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in spring. At the beginning of each year the Greeks held a festival which was called "the awakening of Hercules". The god returned, like Tammuz, from the underworld to bring fertility to the earth. Deities of this class were supposed to be born anew every spring. Mr. Bosanquet found at Palaikastro, in the Hellenic temple of Jupiter Dicteon, a grey marble tablet with the following inscription:--


In this place the Cured received thee, O immortal child, from the hands of thy mother Rhea." 1



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The comparative study of Cretan religious symbols tends to show that, like the Pelasgians, the Minoans worshipped deities of the underworld-the "hidden deities" of Egyptian religion--who were "Fates" or "Disposers", and were originally nameless. That is, they worshipped the spirits of nature and the spirits of ancestors. These symbols include pillars, the "horns of consecration", and the double axe. Withal there were sacred wells and mountains and sacred animals associated with the "Great Mother" which were represented in symbols, as is shown by the evidence of the seal impressions.

The worship of pillars seems to have been connected with the worship of trees and mountains. In Egypt it was believed by certain cults that the iron vault of heaven. was supported by two mountains. "Out of one mountain. came the sun every morning, and into the other he entered. every evening. The mountain of sunrise was called Bakhau, and the mountain of sunset Manu." 1 Another theory was that the sky rested on two pillars, and a later one, which obtained, however, before the pyramid texts; were inscribed, set forth that there were four pillars"--the pillars of Shu"--one at each cardinal point. The pillars in time were regarded as the sceptres of the gods of the four quarters. According to the teachings of the Ra sun cult, the cave-like openings which the sun entered. at evening and emerged from at morning were guarded. by lions, or the deities with lions' bodies and human heads which the Greeks called "sphinxes". The northern Egyptian lion-god was Aker.

In Babylonia it was believed that the sky was supported

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by the world-surrounding chain of hills. Reference is made in the Gilgamesh epic to the mountain of Mashu or Mashi; that is, "the mountain of the Sunset". Its cave-like entrance is guarded by scorpion-men, or a scorpion-man and a scorpion-woman.

Their backs mount up to the rampart of heaven,
From sunrise to sunset they guard the sun. 1

There was a door on the cave, and Gilgamesh was allowed to pass through it to penetrate the dark tunnel leading to the Sea of Death, which only Shamash (the Sun) could cross. 2 Gilgamesh was the first "opener of the way". Like the Indian Yama and the Egyptian Apuatu (Osiris) he discovered the path leading to Paradise, and discovered how mortals could be ferried over the dreaded sea.

The symbols of the Babylonian gods Ea, Anu, and Enlil were tiarras, or mountain-like cones, resembling somewhat the bee-hive-shaped caps on the Zakro sealings. Temples were erected like pillars or peaks. Ea's temple at Eridu, like that of Merodach at Babylon, was called E-sagila, which signifies "temple of the high head", or "the lofty house". Enlil's temple was E-kur, "mountain house". Various deities were symbolized as pillars surmounted by heads. Nergal's symbol was a lion's head on a pillar, Zamama's a vulture's head on a pillar, Merodach's a lance-head on a pillar, and so on. Anshar, "the most high", was, in astronomical lore, the polar star, which was figured as a he-goat, or satyr, on the summit of the peak of heaven. The Assyrian Ashur was sometimes symbolized by a disk enclosing a feather-robed archer,

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resting on a bull's head, with spreading horns, on the summit of a standard.

Ea, in one of the myths, built the world "as an architect builds a house". 1 According to the Rigveda the Aryo-Indian god Indra similarly constructed the house of the universe, which appears to have been supported by the "world tree". 2 The world-supporting tree, Ygdrasil, figures in Teutonic mythology. Mount Meru, the Indian Olympus, which supports the Paradise of Indra, is "the world spine". In Egypt the ded (dad, or tet) amulet is the spine of Osiris in his character as the world-god.

According to Wiedemann ded means "firm", "established". This amulet was laid on the neck of the mummy to ensure resurrection. In Chapter CLV in the Book of the Dead the picture of the symbol is given, and the deceased, addressing Osiris, says: "Thy back (backbone) is thine, thou who art of the still heart (Osiris) . . . I bring unto thee the ded, whereupon thou rejoicest. These are the words to speak over a gilded ded made from the heart of the sycamore and placed on the neck of the glorified one." 3

The ded symbol is a pillar surmounted by four crossbars. Budge says that these bars "are intended to indicate the four branches of a roof-tree of a house which were turned to the four cardinal points". In the story of the search made by Isis for the slain Osiris it is related that a tree grew round his body and completely enclosed it. The King of Byblus had this tree cut down and made it a pillar for the roof of his house. Isis flew round the pillar in the form of a swallow, and was permitted subsequently to carry it away.

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The body of Osiris was afterwards dismembered by Set, but Isis collected the portions. The backbone was found at the Nilotic city of Daddu or Tettu. At this cult centre Osiris was "lord of the pillars", and the hieroglyphic signs of the city include two Osirian pillars with cross-bars. Here a great festival, which the Pharaoh attended, was held once a year, and observance was made of the solemn ceremony of setting up "the pillar symbol of the backbone of Osiris". 1 Like the amulet, the pillar may have been made from "the heart" of the sycamore tree.





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The dolmens and the single standing-stones--the archæological "Bethels"--which were set up in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages throughout Europe, may have been symbols of the god of the pillars, as well as "spirit-houses" of the dead. In India standing-stones are usually erected below trees. The tree spirit may have been believed to sleep for part of the year in the stone.


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the eagle may have been connected with a similar belief.

Sir Arthur Evans, who first threw light on the significance of the pillar and other symbols of Crete, 1 believes that tree and pillar worship in Palestine and Anatolia was "taken over from the older stock" by Semites and Hittites. A later infusion of Minoan ideas into Anatolia and Palestine was caused by the colonizing Philistines, Carians, and Lycians who were of Ægean origin.

"The undoubted parallelism observable between the tree and pillar cult of the Mycenæan (Ægean) and that of the Semitic world", writes Sir Arthur Evans, "should be always regarded from this broad aspect. . . . The coincidences that we find, so far as they are to be explained by the general resemblance presented by a parallel stage of religious evolution, may be regarded as parallel survivals due to ethnic elements with European affinities which on the east Mediterranean shores largely underlay the Semitic. . . . The worship of the sacred stone or pillar known as Massêba or nosb is very characteristic of Semitic religion." There were also Semitic sacred hills and sacred trees. The two pillars, supporting the Philistine temple of Dagon, which were pulled down by Samson, no doubt had a sacred character. In Scandinavian legends the sacred tree supports the chief's dwelling. Sigmund, Volsung's son, draws from the house tree, called "Branstock", the magic sword which Odin thrust into it, saying: "He who draws the sword from the stock shall have it as a gift from me, and it will stand him in good stead". 2


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given, as has been indicated, to animal-headed deities. Pillars were actually worshipped, being the abodes of spirits. On a cylinder from Mycenæ, for instance, a male figure is posed in an attitude of adoration before "five columns of architectural character with vertical and spiral flutings". No doubt the pillars of Egyptian and Grecian temples had originally a religious significance. In Christian churches ancient Pagan symbols have been perpetuated as architectural conventions. The cock, which was supposed to be a charm against demons, and consequently perched as a sentinel on the "world tree" of Teutonic Mythology, still appears on spires, where it indicates how the wind blows. In Scottish Mythology the north wind brings the evil spirits and the south wind the good spirits. "Shut the windows towards the north, and open the windows towards the south, and do not let the fire go out", is an instruction given in a folk-tale by a man who desires his house to be guarded against the visits of demons. The Teutonic Jotuns were in the east. Thor always went eastward to wage war against them.

The "horns of consecration" were originally the horns of the sacred bull or sacred cow. In Egypt the cow-goddess Hathor was a world-deity. Heaven rested on her back, and the under part of her body, which is usually shown covered with stars, formed the firmament. Her four legs were thus the sky pillars. Another belief was that the sky rested on the horns of the sacred animals. Thus we find a reference in the "Book of That which is in the Underworld" to the "Horn of the West", 1 apparently the same as the "pillar of the west" and "Sunset-Hill". The sun-god Ra, who absorbed the attributes of all other deities, is referred to in the "Pyramid Texts" as the deity with "four horns, one toward each of the cardinal

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points". 1 In Crete the horns were of great ritual importance. "At times". Sir Arthur Evans writes, 2 "these have the appearance of being actually horns of oxen, but more generally they seem to be a conventional imitation of what must be regarded as unquestionably the original type-that is, a kind of impost or base terminating at the two ends in two horn-like excrescences. Sometimes this cult object appears on the altar. At other times it rises above the entablature of an archway connected with a sacred tree or on the roof of a shrine. It is frequently set at the foot of sacred trees." Occasionally the double axe is surmounted on a staff between the horns. A horned cult object in terra-cotta, with the eye symbol of Anatolian pottery painted on the base, was found in one of the Cretan votive caves. The horned symbol has been found associated with early Bronze Age relics in Sardinia, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the Balearic Islands, which were probably the Cassiterides Islands in which tin was found. It may be that the Cretan symbol was distributed by early sea-traders. In Syria the altar of Astarte had horns. The "horns of the altar" are referred to in the Bible.

The double-axe symbol was evidently of remote origin. Weapons were in the animistic stage of primitive culture believed to be possessed of spirits, and were given individual names. "Every weapon has its demon" is an ancient Gaelic axiom. The sword of the Scoto-Irish folk-hero Finn-mac-Coul was called "Mac-an-Luin". In the Indian epic, the Mahábhárata, the warrior Arjuna receives a celestial weapon from the god Shiva. "And that weapon then began to wait upon Arjuna", the narrative proceeds.

And the gods and the Danavas (Titans) beheld that




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terrible weapon in its embodied form stay by the side of Arjuna of immeasurable energy." 1 Rama of the Rámáyana is adored by the spirits of his celestial weapons. 2 The Indian weapons were all named.

That this belief goes back to Palæolithic times is suggested by the evidence of Egypt. "The common word given by the Egyptians to God, and god, and spirits of every kind, and beings of all sorts, and kinds, and forms, which were supposed to possess any superhuman or supernatural power, was", says Professor Budge, "'Neter'. The hieroglyph used as the determinative of this word, and also as an ideograph, is the axe with a handle. The common word for goddess is Netert." Professor Budge shows that "from the texts wherein the hieroglyphics are coloured it is tolerably clear that the axe head was fastened to its handle by means of thongs of leather". 3 As holes were bored in axes at an early period, Mr. Legge considers that the fastenings indicate that the symbolic use of the axe "goes back to the Neolithic and perhaps the Palæolithic Age". He adds: "It is now, I think, generally accepted that the use of the stone axe precedes that of the flint arrow-head or flint knife; and it thoroughly agrees with the little we know of the workings of the mind of primitive man that this, the first weapon that came into his hands, should have been the first material object to which he offered worship". An axe is worshipped by a priest in Chaldæan garb on an Assyrian agate cylinder. The axe also appears as a symbol "in the prehistoric remains of the funereal caves of the Marne, of Scandinavia and America". 4 We have already alluded to its appearance on the standing-stones of Brittany, and to

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the theory that Labyrinth is derived from Labrys, "the axe". Professor Maspero shows that in Egyptian "a town neterit is 'a divine town'; an arm neteri is 'a divine arm'". He adds that "neteri is employed metaphorically in Egyptian as is 'divine' in French". 1



293:1 Diodorus Siculus, V. 77.

293:2 Herodotus, II, 52.

295:1 Theog., V, 477.

295:2 V, 170.

295:3 Ant. Rom., II, 61.

295:4 Dial. Mar., XV, 3.

297:1 Annual of the British School at Athens, VI, 96.

298:1 Annual of the British School at Athens, VI, p. 101.

301:1 The Palaces of Crete and their Builders, pp. 200-1.

302:1 Palaces of Crete and their Builders, A. Mosso, pp. 201, 202.

303:1 The Gods of the Egyptians, E. Wallis Budge, Vol. I, pp. 156, 157

304:1 King's Babylonian Religion, p. 166.

304:2 Babylonian Myth and Legend, p. 177.

305:1 Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 88.

305:2 Indian Myth and Legend, p. 10.

305:3 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, p. 290.

306:1 Budge's Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, p. 122.

306:2 Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 53 et seq.

308:1 "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult and its Mediterranean Relations". in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, pp. 99 et seq.

308:2 Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 289 et seq.

309:1 The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, p. 205.

310:1 Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, J. H. Breasted, p. 116.

310:2 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, p. 135 et seq.

311:1 "Vana Parva" section (Roy's translation), p. 127.

311:2 Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 256 and 381.

311:3 The Gods of the Egyptians, E. Wallis Budge, Vol. I, pp. 63 et seq.

311:4 Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, Vol. XXI, pp. 310, 311.

312:1 Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archéologie Egyptiennes, Tome II, p. 215.

312:2 The Dawn of Mediterranean Civilization, pp. 132 et seq.

Next: Chapter XIV. Decline of Crete and Rise of Greece