Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

I50 Diana-Pillars
disk, from which pendants were danghng. In short, it was an
erection uncommonly Hke our own May-pole, which I illustrate
from a manuscript dated c. 1499 A.D. (fig. 89)^ The comparison
donne a penser-.
The landscape-paintings—not to dwell on the very similar land-
viewed in connexion with the
scape-reliefs (figs. 91, 92)-'— , when
^ R. Chambers The Book of Days London—Edinburgh 1864!. 575 :
' In the illumina-
tions which decorate the manuscript " Hours " once used by Anne of Brittany and now
preserved in the Bibliotheque Royale at Paris, and which are believed to have been
painted about 1499, the month of May is illustrated by figures bearing flower-garlands,
and behind them the curious May-pole here copied, which is also decorated by colours on
the shaft, and ornamented by garlands arranged on hoops, from which hang small gilded
pendents. The pole is planted on a triple grass-covered mound, embanked and strengthened
by timber-work.' Id. ib. p. 577 notes that in the neighbourhood of Salzburg it is the
custom to trick out the May-pole with birds, stags, etc. ('In one instance a stag-hunt is so
hg. 91
Fig. 90.
„MUj:i;iii,i;iiimif:!ii'jjil
represented ') : the resemblance to the Roman pillar of
Diana Neinorensis is curiously close.
^ Supra i. 291, 339 I suggested that the May-pole
was topped by an effigy of the sun (globe, wheel, hoop).
But these horizontal garlands point rather to an effigy of
the sky {infra p. 157 f.).
Analogous forms might be traced yet further afield.
A sacred column {stambha, Idt) of granite (height 53^ ft)
facing a Jain temple at Mudubidery or Morbidry near
Mangalore (E. Moor The Hindu Pantheon London i86r
pi. 77 (=;my fig. 90), id. The Hindu Pantheon^ Madras
1864 p. 368 pi. 44) bears indeed a curious resemblance
to the Diana-pillars of ancient Italy. This may, of
course, be wholly fortuitous. But it is thinkable that
there was some remote connexion between them. For
the Jains were apparently known to the later Greeks
(Hesych. Fewoi' ol VvixvoL(na.'C)\ and the stambha
or Idt in its earliest form has ^z^aj^'-classical traits (see
J.
Fergusson History rf Indian and Eastern Architecture
rev. by J. Burgess and R. Phene Spiers London 1910
i. 54, 56 ff. fig. 5 fif., 346 ff. fig. 202 f., ii. 11 fig. 275, 81 fif.
fig. 308). Moreover, the Jains sometimes compared the
world with a spindle resting on a half spindle (H. T.
Colebrooke Miscellaneotis Essays'- London 1873 ii. 198 f.,
C. Lassen Indische Alterthunisknnde Leipzig 1861 iv.
771). Hence it is tempting to conjecture that the stambha
was, at least originally, a world-pillar.
* A few examples will suffice : Fig. 91, a marble relief
(height c. i'2o'", breadth 075) in the Palazzo Colonna
at Rome (Matz—Duhn Ant. Bildw. in Pom iii 66 f.
no. 3576, Montfaucon Antiquity Explained trans.
D. Humphreys London 1725 Suppl. i. 132 pi. 31 no. 8
with sides reversed, Gerhard Ant. Bildw. p. 287 f. pi. 42,
I, id. Uber den Gott E7-os Berlin 1850 p. 34 f. pi. 2, i,
Boetticher Baumkultus pp. i58f., 539 fig. 26, T. Schreiber
Die hellenistischen Reliefbilder Leipzig 1889 pi. rj^my
id. ' Die hellenistischen Relief bilder und die augusteische Kunst' in X\\e. Jahrb. d.