Of these,
the largest had some resemblance to a woman of ample contours, while
a smaller nodule suggested the figure of an infant, and near it
was a rude representation of a Cretan wild-goat. The third nodule
was of apelike aspect. In view of all the religious associations
of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images,
'not made with hands,' represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and
the goat Amaltheia. The cult of stones, meteorites and concretions
such as these of the Little Palace, has been widespread in all
ages; one has only to remember the black stone which forms the
most sacred treasure of Mecca, the black stone which stood in the
Temple of the Great Mother at Rome, and the image of the great
goddess Diana at Ephesus, 'which fell down from Jupiter.' Hesiod's
story of how Kronos or Saturn devoured a stone under the belief
that he was swallowing the infant Zeus evidently belongs to the
recollections of a worship in which such natural idols as these
were adored.
Hitherto Knossos had yielded only one small and inadequate
representation of that seafaring enterprise upon which the Minoan
power rested, though even this had, in its own way, a certain
suggestiveness of the romance and terror of the sea. It was a
seal-impression, found in 1903, in the Temple Repositories, on
which a great sea-monster, with dog's head and open jaws, is seen
rising from the waves and attacking a fisherman, who stands up in
his light skiff endeavouring to defend himself.
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