[14] xxiii. 170, 171.
[15] xxiii. 23.
[CHAPTER XII]
RELIGION IN GREECE: PRE-HISTORIC, HOMERIC, AND HISTORICAL
In religion, as in all things, the Homeric world at certain points stands apart from the worlds that preceded and followed it. The Aegeans probably did not give divine honours to the dead. Over Royal tombs in the acropolis of Mycenae was "a small round altar with a well-like opening in the middle, which had doubtless been used for sacrificing to the dead."[1] This is ghost-feeding, not ghost-divinising. We have also a Cretan picture of a ghost standing outside his tomb, while an ox is sacrificed to him, the blood falling into the vessel. But such traces of hero-worship are rare in Aegean art, and Cretan art shows no representations of sacrifice of animals to gods. There was, indeed, an ancient tradition that Minos abolished blood-sacrifices.[2] Certain sites, however, show bones of animals sacrificed in Minoan times.
On the other hand, worship of high gods is frequently represented on Aegean engraved rings and in pictures. While there is no representation of blood-sacrifice to gods, fruit of a sacred tree is often plucked, by attendants, for goddesses, standing or seated.[3]