Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

524
The double axe in relation
if the Cretan Zeus took shape as a woodpecker {PtkosY, the Cretan
Dionysos very possibly figured as a jay. The latter trait brought it
into the company of ravens- and other garrulous birds*: in this
capacity too it was sacred to Dionysos-*. We may, therefore, fairly
conjecture that the jay here represented denotes the soul of the
youth who in his lifetime had played the Dionysiac part. In the
earth-coloured goddess with a plumed head-dress, towards whom
the jay with a characteristic^ flap of its wings is flying, we can
recognise the Cretan Rhea". She, like the Nemeseis of Smyrna",
stands erect in a grifiin-drawn car. In short, it seems probable that
this panel, which formed the head-end of the sarcophagus^, marks the
reunion of the dead man with his divine consort in the other world.
The sarcophagus of Hagia Triada does not stand alone. Several
of its motives are repeated on a painted earthenware Idrnax found
by J. H. Marshall at Palaikastro, thirteen miles north-east of Praisos
and eight miles north o{ Zakro, in eastern Cretel Its two long sides
are divided each into a couple of square panels. Those of one side
show {a) a fish, perhaps meant for a dolphin, upside down with two
stars and a rosette in the field; {b) a bird of uncertain species^'' with
high curled wings and spread tail. The panels of the other side
(fig. 393) are more elaborately decorated. One of them {c) depicts
a large lily-plant with three flowers. Those to right and left have
their stamen-tips shaped like double axes. That in the centre
appears, on closer inspection, to be not a flower at all, but an
arrangement of cult-objects simulating a flower. Instead of a stalk
there is a slender column with base, capital, and abacus complete.
It supports, not a three-petalled lily, but a double axe rising from a
stepped base'^i and flanked by a pair of pillars ^-. The remaining panel
1 Supra i. 158 n. 2, 237 n. i. 2 Pers. sat. prol. 13.
* See D'Arcy W. Thompson A Glossary of Greek Birds Oxford 1895 pp. 39, 85.
"* Cornut. i/ieol. 30 p. 61, 22 f. Lang koI ttjv Kirrav de us \d\ov opveov KaOiepoOaiv adri^
{SC. Ty AlOVVCifl).
^ R. Lydekker T/ie Royal Natural History London 1S94— 95 iii. 320.
^ I cannot subscribe to the bizarre contention of R. Paribeni in the Alon. d. Lincei
1908 xix. 60 f. and F. von Duhn in the Archiv f. Rel. 1909 xii. 1S3 f. tliat the pale
personage is the dead man accompanied by his soul-bird ! A.
Arch. 1908 ii. 285 f. rightly protests.
'' Supra i. 270 fig. 197.
* E. Petersen in XheJahrlK d. kais. deitisch. arch. Inst. 1909 xxiv. 168.
J. Reinach in the Rev.
^ Published by R. C. Bosanquet in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901— 1902 viii. 297 fF.
pis. 18 ( = niy fig. 393) and 19, G. Karo in G. Maraghiannis Antiquites Cn'toises Deuxieme
Serie Candie s. a. p. xii pi. 38.
^^ It appears to belong to the order aitseres, and may be intended for a duck, goose,
or swan. ^' Supra p. 520 n. 4.
12 R. C. Bosanquet in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901—1902 viii. 299 speaks of these
as ' a pair of " sacred horns." ' We
from the horns of the adjacent panel.
should, however, distinguish these cigar-shaped pillars