Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

792
The thunderbolt of Zeus
point are the parallels adduced from the Indian area, where the
association of iron tridents with ' thunderstones '
is a very note-
worthy fact. But most cogent of all is the analogy of the hypaethral
trident-mark to the hypaethral bidcntal, and indeed the whole history
of the Athenian Erechtheion.
The marks beneath its northern porch (fig. 756)' comprise
Fig. 756.
three small holes lying on a curve together with a fourth, larger
and more irregular, at a little distance from them. These marks
I am disposed to conjecture—were originally a series of neolithic
' cup-marks-.' If so, they are of peculiar interest as being the oldest
traces of cult on the Athenian Akropolis. The exact significance
of 'cup-marks' is unknown'; but it is noticeable that, wherever
' The plan given in the npa(CTt»ra riyj iirl roO'Epex^fiov iirirpoiTTJf Athens 1853 pi. 3
is improved and completed by A. Michaelis in the Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. hist.
1902 xvii. 19 fig. 5 ( = my fig. 756). Of the three trident-holes /•' is 1-25'" deep, -t* is 279'",
while >('•' is plugged at a depth of 070'". These dimensions imply that the original ' cupmarks
' had at some later time been bored much deeper to suit the trident-story. The
Athenians were not above a '/iwa-Xov \f/tvdoi.
2 Bibliography in J. Schlemm IVorterbiich zur Vorgesthichte Berlin 1908 pp. 500
504 figs a—d, J. Dechelette Manuel d"archMogie prihistorique Paris 1908 i. 618 n. 1.
See also T. Rice Holmes Ancient Britain and the Invasiotis ofJulius Caesar Oxford 1907
p. 205 n. 4.
' The Abbe Breuil suggested to me once in conversation that concentric circles with
a prolonged radius may be highly stylised human figures, such as are met with in the
neolithic and aeneolithic art of Spain (M. C. VtwxVxiy. Prehistory Cambridge 1921 pi. 38).