Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

CHAPTER VI.
THE DITHYRAMB, THE SPRING-FESTIVAL AND THE
HAGIA TRIADA SARCOPHAGOS.
hA6 nA9e xeAiAtoN,
k&A&c cop&c AroycA;
kaAoyc eNiAYToyc
Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites,
Et nemus comam resolvit de mantis inibribus.
The painted stone sarcophagos 1 which forms in a sense the
text of the present chapter is now in the museum of Candia,
but it was found, in 1903, not at Knossos but close to the palace
of Hagia Triada at Phaistos, on the southern coast of Crete.
Immediately on its discovery its great importance was recognized,
and, as there was fear of the frescoes fading, it was promptly
carried, on the shoulders of men, a three days' journey across the
island to the museum at Candia, where it could be safely housed.
The tomb in which the sarcophagos was found is of a type
familiar in Lycia but not in Crete 2 . It consisted of a walled,
square chamber with a door at the north-west corner, somewhat
after the fashion of the Harpy-Tomb now in the British Museum.
This analogy is not without its importance, as the scenes repre-
sented, if we rightly interpret them, embody conceptions familiar
1 First published with full commentary and illustration by R. Paribeni, II
Sarcofago dipinto di Hagia Triada in Monumenti Antichi della R. Accademia dei
Lincei, xis. 1908, p. 6, T. i—in. and reproduced here by kind permission of the
Accademia. See also F. von Duhn, Der Sarkophag aus Hagia Triada in Archiv
f. Religionswissenschaft, xn. 1909, 161, and E. Petersen, Der Kretische Bildersarg
in Jahrbuch Arch. Inst. xxiv. 1909, p. 162, and Rene Dussaud, Les Civilisations
Pri-Helleniques dans le bassin de la mer Egee, 1910, p. 261. I follow in the
main Dr Petersen's interpretation, though, in the matter of the bull-sacrifice, my
view is independent.
2 Paribeni, op. cit. p. 9; for the Lycian tombs see Perrot-Chipiez, Hist, de VArt,
v. p. 361 ff.