The figure of the votaress is somewhat similar;
but her skirt is flounced all the way down in the regular Minoan
style, and she holds a snake in her right hand. The characteristic
feature of both figures is the modernness of their lines, which
are as different as possible from those of the statues of classic
Greece. The waist is exceedingly slender, and altogether 'the lines
adopted are those considered ideal by the modern corset-maker rather
than those of the sculptor.'
There can be little doubt that these tiny figures point to the
worship of an earth goddess, whose emblem is the snake--the other
aspect of the heavenly divinity whose symbols are the doves. It may
be noted that at Gournia Miss Boyd (Mrs. Hawes) found a primitive
figure of a goddess, twined with snakes and accompanied by doves,
together with a low, three-legged altar, and the familiar horns
of consecration. Strangely enough, along with the Snake Goddess
of Knossos there was found in the Temple Repositories a cross of
veined marble, with limbs of equal length, which Dr. Evans believes
to have actually been the central object of worship in the cult,
and which he has placed in this position in his reconstruction
of the little shrine. This discovery, 'pointing to the fact that
a cross of orthodox Greek shape was not only a religious symbol
of the Minoan cult, but an actual object of worship, cannot but
have a profound interest in its relation to the later cult of the
same emblem which still holds the Christian world.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128