NATURE 



6i 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER i, 1917. 



STONE WORSHIP IN THE NEAR EAST. 

 The Annual of the British School at Athens. 

 No. xxi. Sessions 1914-15, 1915-16. Pp. viii + 

 J38 + plates XV. (London: Macmillan and Co., 

 Ltd., n.d.) Price 215. net. 



THE ranks of scholars and archaeologists 

 trained in the British School at Athens have 

 been sadly thinned by the war. It will be difficult 

 to replace G. L. Cheesman, Guy Dickins, R. M. 

 Heath, and W. Loring. To the present volume 

 Mr. Cheesman contributes a translation of a 

 pathetic Greek folk-song-, and Mr. Dickins a 

 learned study of Greek art as represented in the 

 so-called "school" of Praxiteles. 



The most interesting article is that by Mr. 

 F. W. Hasluck on " Stone Cults and Venerated 

 Stones in the Graeco-Turkish Area," which strikes 

 new ground and brings together much useful in- 

 formation for the study of primitive beliefs in the 

 ^gean and its hinterlands. Over the Semitic 

 area stone worship survived later and more gene- 

 rally than among races more prone to anthropo- 

 morphism. Here and elsewhere the faiths which 

 succeeded the primitive animism tacitly adopted 

 this form of worship. Islam sanctioned it by 

 allowing the reverence paid by the pagan Arabs 

 to the Black Stone of the Kaaba to be perpetuated 

 on the rather far-fetched hypothesis that the 

 Angel Gabriel had brought it to Mecca. In the 

 same way Christianity has permitted or encour- 

 aged it in the case of the Stone of Unction at 

 Jerusalem, and by associating the cult of sacred 

 I stones with sacred personages or events. Many 

 I stones, again, are valued in a secular way, not 

 necessarily more ancient chronologically, though 

 ; more openly primitive in spirit, as magic and 

 ,_ witchcraft to which this reverence is due are 

 more primitive than religion. 



These sacred stones fall into certain well-defined 

 classes. 



First we have those selected for their natural 

 qualities, such as the Black Stone of the Kaaba, 

 supposed to be an aerolite. The selection of 

 such stones as objects of veneration often de- 

 pends upon the unusual material of which they 

 are composed. But in some instances colour is 

 an important factor, as in the case of the Yellow 

 Stones at Constantinople used for the cure of 

 jaundice, or the white stones from Melos or 

 Crete used as milk charms. The principles 

 of sympathetic or homoeopathic magic regulate 

 their use. 



Next come the pierced stones used in a super- 

 stitious way all over the Near East. Mr. Has- 

 luck, with some probability, suggests that their 

 virtue is bound up with the conception of holes 

 as "entrances" or "new starts." All entrances 

 or beginnings mark a new departure, a "change 

 of luck," and the mere act of passage may change 

 the luck of the patient for the better. To this 

 Is added the fact that the sanctity attributed to 

 NO. 2 SOS, VOL, lOOl 



the stone surrounds the sick person with bene- 

 ficent influences as he makes his passage through 

 it. When the passage itself is too narrow to 

 admit the patient, the difficulty is got over by 

 passing some small object through the orifice. 

 This, by absorbing the virtue of the holy stone, 

 may by juxtaposition transfer it to the sufferer. 

 Thus, at a saints' grave in Monastir, women who 

 desire children pass two eggs through the orifice, 

 and by eating them gain their desire. 



Stones with external markings, such as the 

 footprints of a god or of a saint, are naturally 

 revered. Abraham left his footprints at Mecca, 

 the Prophet at Constantinople and Jerusalem. 

 In such cases, also, the dominant faith has taken 

 over the objects venerated by its predecessors. 

 A footprint in Georgia is attributed to a legendary 

 Queen Tamar, to a Christian priest flying from 

 persecution, to a Musalman saint who converted 

 the district to Islam. 



Worked stones, again, are often utilised for 

 religious purposes. Islam, of course, has no place 

 for reliefs or statues, and if they are venerated 

 by its adherents it is as the abode of Djinns pos- 

 sessed of power, but this power is evoked by 

 secular magic. The Eastern Church has been 

 to some extent influenced by the Moslem view 

 of graven or molten images, but reliefs of the 

 Thracian horseman are used as eikons of St. 

 George in Thrace. The so-called Demeter statue 

 is worshipped at Eleusis to secure good crops, 

 on the supposition that the headdress of the figure 

 represents ears of corn. "In all probability," 

 says Mr. Hasluck, ''the finding of the statue 

 chanced to coincide with an abundant harvest, 

 and the inference was that the talisman was 

 ' white ' or favourable." Columns are everywhere 

 objects of veneration, the isolation or consplcuous- 

 ness of the object, and in some cases phallic asso- 

 ciations, contributing to secure its sanctity. 

 Stones with inscriptions in an unknown tongue 

 are believed to possess magical powers. 



Stones of many kinds have sometimes been 

 treated as survivals of some ancient cult. But 

 the chance of finding a stone venerated by dif- 

 ferent faiths from ancient times to our own is 

 so slight as to be negligible. Where the evidence 

 adduced in support of such survivals can be 

 properly tested it usually breaks down. Sir W. M. 

 Ramsay describes the worship paid to a stone 

 or altar dedicated to Hermes, and assumes that 

 the worship paid to It was continuous from the 

 Greek period. But the real fact seems to be that 

 it was removed in comparatively recent times to 

 a Turkish cemetery, and its potency arises from 

 its use as a tombstone, and from the fact that 

 it bears an inscription In a tongue not " under- 

 standed of the people " ; therefore it was as- 

 sumed to possess magical qualities. A case even 

 stronger than this is that of the Black Stone 

 which used to be preserved at the tomb of Daniel 

 at Susa. It was found about 120 years ago, 

 and was rolled down the river bank by the Dervish 

 who kept the tomb some sixty years ago; then 

 a Frank Is said to have blown it to pieces In 



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