It is obvious that many of the tablets do consist of bills or inventories. Although we cannot yet understand the language of the script, it has been found possible, by studying the clay tablets, to reconstruct the system of numbers that was used. We have, for instance, what is evidently an inventory of arrows, a record surmounted by a picture of an arrow. From this and other records it is apparent that thousands were expressed by “diamonds,” hundreds by slanting lines, tens by circles, units by straight lines, quarters by a small “v.” The highest number recorded is 19,000.
Although it is true that scholars still wait a clear starting-point for transcribing the Cretan script, there is one interesting and important point already established by Sir Arthur Evans. He has proved to the general satisfaction of classical scholars that the Phœnician alphabet, which had always been supposed to be the original source of the Greek alphabet, and therefore of the Latin alphabet from which comes our own, was itself derived from Crete. This theory, however, is disputed by Egyptologists.
There are in existence three fragmentary inscriptions, two of which were found not long ago by Professor R. C. Bosanquet at Præsos, in Crete—near to Mount Dicte, and not far to the north-east of the boundaries of Knossos—which are written in Greek characters, and are therefore quite legible to us, but which contain a language which is not Greek. Is it the language of the Minoans? It is not yet possible to say, although Professor Conway, who has examined the inscriptions at length in the Annual of the British School at Athens (vol. viii, p. 125, and vol. x, p. 115), may some day be able to give an answer.
Chapter 10: Cretan Religion
Cretan religion differed from that of classical Greece in that the chief deity worshipped was a goddess, Mother Nature or Earth-Mother, some at least of whose characteristics we find embodied in the Rhea of Greek mythology. Matriarchal religion seems to have been specially characteristic of very early times; through it primitive man expressed his veneration of womanhood. The Cretan Mother Goddess held an exalted position. She had supreme power over all Nature; was associated with doves, which symbolized her power in the air; was accompanied by lions, the strongest animals of the earth; brandished snakes, that live under the earth. Among the various “cult objects,” or ritualistic forms used in worship, that have been found in her shrines are included representations of cows with calves, goats with suckling kids, and the like.
There was a god as well as a goddess in Minoan religion, but he was of relatively little importance. Velchanos, the Cretan Zeus—if we may assume that the Minoan god was the original of this figure of the Greek legends—was represented as both the son and the husband of Mother Nature. He was suckled, so the tradition ran, by Amalthea the goat in the cave of Dikte, and brought up by his mother Rhea on the slopes of Mount Ida. His insignificance in comparison with the goddess appears from the fact that he was drawn on a smaller scale whenever represented in her company. The two deities probably constituted, as Mr. Hogarth has suggested, a “Double Monotheism”—a double godhead, that is, worshipped to the exclusion of all minor deities. If this was the case, the various Cretan prototypes of later Greek divinities must be regarded as variant forms of the Mother Goddess herself. Aphrodite, for instance, the goddess of Love, was worshipped generally in the Levant, being known in Canaan as Ashtaroth-Astarte, and in Egypt as Hathor; her Cretan name is unknown. The Greek Artemis, goddess of the Wild Beasts, was foreshadowed in the Cretan Dictynna.
One great difference between the Cretan and the Hellenic Zeus was that the Cretan Zeus was mortal, and was said to have died on Mount Juktas. The mortality of their gods was one of the striking conceptions which differentiated the Southern peoples of the Near East from the later Greeks, who came from the North. The Egyptian Osiris, for instance, could die, but not any of the Greek gods. The Cretan Mother Goddess is depicted on seal stones and rings dressed like an earthly queen, while Velchanos is seen descending from the heavens to the earth, a young warrior with a spear and an enormous shield.
Another difference between Cretan and classical Greek religion was that, as far as one can see, Cretan religion did not give rise to any great temples, nor left behind any more substantial traces of its activity than the small figures of the Earth Goddess to whom I have referred. It may be sound to regard the palace of Knossos as itself a temple, and it is true that legend makes of Minos a High Priest as well as a King. There seems, however, to be little room for doubt that the only places set aside specifically for worship were small private shrines used for family worship. All the evidence tends to indicate that it was the family idea that predominated in Cretan worship. Private houses had their shrines, and the Knossian palace-temple itself had its lesser family shrines. These sanctuaries were always distinguished by a sort of sacred pillar, a sign which in Minoan art is often used as the only indication of a sacred place. There is an example of it on a fresco painting found at Knossos. Another emblem associated with the cult is that of sacred trees, which on rings and seal stones usually form the background for the “choros,” or dance. The actual dance, no doubt, would be performed in sacred groves.
Many cult-objects have been found in the shrines, the commonest being the mysterious Double Axe. The fact that this emblem was also specially associated with the Carian Zeus at Labraunda has led to a generally accepted theory that the Cretan “Labyrinth” corresponds to the Carian “Labraunda,” or place of the “Labrus” or Double Axe; for the Knossian palace must have been, in fact, the chief seat of the cult.
Side by side with the Double Axe one finds the constantly-recurring sign of the Bull, an animal which was sacred not only because of its physical strength, but of its use in sacrifice. A sarcophagus or coffin of terra-cotta, found at Hagia Triada, contains a picture of a sacrificial bull following a procession of women priests. In view of the prominence given to the Bull in Minoan worship, one need not seek far for an explanation of the Cretan legend of the Minotaur, a monster half man, half bull, which lived in the labyrinth and exacted its human victims. Nor is it impossible that the dangerous and cruel sport of bull-fighting formed part of the same cult. Bulls’ heads were made in pottery, and sometimes of gold, and used as votive offerings. The horns of the bull—Horns of Consecration—are found in shrines among ritual objects.