p 



Supplevient to "Nature^' November 14, 1901. 



minute knowledge of even the most out of-the-way hints 

 in the classical writers which in any way bear upon the 

 problem which he seeks to elucidate ; perhaps, therefore, 

 it should be accounted to him as a virtue rather than as 

 a vice. VVe have said that Mr. Evans has discovered 

 the veritable Labyrinth of Minos. Unless the reader is 

 well read in the voluminous literature, scattered through 

 a hundred learned periodicals, of Mycen;tan archaeology, 

 it will perhaps be difficult for him to appreciate all the 

 various items of evidence which render this clear, but 

 it is a fact which it is difficult to dispute. On p. no of 

 the work under review Mr. Evans writes : — 



" In the great prehistoric Palace at present partially 

 excavated by me at Knossos I have ventured on many 

 grounds to recognise the true original of the traditional 

 Labyrinth. It is needless here to speak of its long 

 corridors and succession of magazines with their blind 

 endings, its tortuous passages, and maze of lesser 

 chambers, of the harem scenes painted on its walls, and 

 its huge fresco-paintings and reliefs of bulls, grappled 

 perhaps by men, as on a gem impression from the same 

 site, the Mycenivan prototype of Theseus and the 

 Minotaur. AH this might give a local colour to the 

 mythical scenes with which the building became associ- 

 ated. But there is direct evidence of even a more cogent 

 nature. It was itself the ' House of the Double .-Xxe,' 

 and the Palace, was at the same time a sanctuary. The 

 chief cornerstones and door-jambs, made of huge 

 gypsum blocks, are incised with the double axe sign, 

 implymg consecration to the Cretan Zeus. More than 

 this, in the centre of the building are two small con- 

 tiguous chambers, in the middle of each of which rises a 

 square column, formed of a series of blocks, on every side 

 of which in one case and on three sides of the other is 

 engraved a double axe fFig. 5;. There can, I venture to 

 think, be little doubt that these chambers are shrines, 

 probably belonging to the oldest part of the building, 

 and the pillars thus marked with the sign of the god are 

 in fact his aniconic images." 



Now the double axe is known to us as the syinbol of a 

 deity, the Karian Zeus of Labranda; it occurs also on 

 Carian coins and on coins of Tenedos, where it is also a 

 god-symbol. 



" With the evidence of this primitive cult of the 

 weapon itself before our eyes," says Mr. Evans (p loS), 

 " it seems natural to interpret names of Carian sanctu- 

 aries like Labranda in the most literal sense as the 

 place of the sacred labrys, which was the Lydian (or 

 Carian) name for the Greek TriXfxvs, or double-edged 

 axe. On Carian coins indeed of quite late date the 

 labrys, set_up on its long pillar-like handle, with two 

 dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a cult- 

 image." 



Now we have traditional evidence for the fact that the 

 prae-Hellenic or Eteokretan population of Crete was 

 ethnically connected with the inhabitants of .Asia Minor, 

 that it was, in fact, of " kleinasiatisch " stock. Many 

 place-names in south-western Asia Minor end their 

 Gr;tcised forms in -vSa or -i/8or, which is generally 

 regarded as a typically Karian and Lycian termination. 

 The Lycian language can be to a great extent read, and 

 •we know that a typically Lycian nominal affix was iiiia. 

 This is the -vha, -vbos of the Greek transliteration. 

 Labra-wrfiz or Labrau-wf/^ is then "The Place of the 

 Double Axe." Now in Crete, originally inhabited by a 

 NO. 1672, VOL. 65 J 



people ethnically connected with the speakers of Lycian 

 and Karian, we have at Knossos a legendary Labyrinthos, 

 identified with the worship of a Zeus in connection with 

 whom the bull was venerated. Also, one of the Curetes 

 of Cretan legend was named Labrandos. Now, as Mr. 

 Evans points out (p. 1091, Jupiter Dolichenus, a Comma- 

 genian form of the double-axe god of Asia Minor, is 

 represented standing, armed with his axe, upon the back 

 of a bull. Further, on a Mycenaean gem from Argos a 

 double axe is seen immediately above a bull's head. It 

 is then evident that in Greece as in Asia the god of 

 the double axe was also the god of whom the bull was 

 an emblem, to whom the bull was sacred. In all cases 

 this god is identified with Zeus. At Knossos Mr. Evans 

 finds a temple-palace devoted to the service of a god 

 witli whom the bull is constantly brought into connection 

 and of whom the double axe is the symbol. It is a 

 " Place of the Double Axe." At Knossos we have the 

 Labyrinth of legend ; AalSvpt-vdos is then naturally con- 

 cluded to be the Cretan equivalent of Labranda ; in 

 the prs-Hellenic " kleinasiatisch " language of Crete 

 the name signified " Place of the Double A.xe." The 

 palace of Knossos is then the veritable Labyrinth of 

 Minos. 1 



Now the double axe of the Knossian Zeus is often 

 found on Mycenaean gems placed above a two-horned 

 object, which must, since the axe was an object of 

 worship, be a horned altar. When, therefore, he finds 

 that pillars and trees are often represented in the same 

 position as the axe, above a two-horned altar, Mr. Evans 

 naturally concludes that the Pillar and the Tree were, 

 equally with the Double Axe, objects of veneration to the 

 Mycena^ans of Greece proper as well as of Crete. 

 Traces of such worships are, as he exhaustively shows, 

 abundant in classical Greece, and there can be little 

 doubt that in Mycen>.can days they flourished exceed- 

 ingly. When, however, Mr. Evans, rightly ascribing 

 their origin to an "aniconic" period of religious develop- 

 ment, proceeds to argue that the religion of the highly- 

 civilised Mycenreans, the progenitors of Greek culture^ 

 had remained exclusively aniconic, it may be permissible 

 to join issue with him : because no large Mycena-an 

 idols have yfl been found, we cannot say that none will 

 ever be found, and we know that the barbaric ancestors 

 of the MycenKans, the " Pra;-Mycen;Eans " of the 

 " Island-Graves " of the Cyclades, actually did venerate 

 rude marble idols, which are found in their tombs. And 

 glyptic representations of Mycenxan deities are common 

 enough. It seems preferable to hold that while anthropo- 

 morphic images of deities were probably made and 

 worshipped by the Mycenxans, at the same time their 

 symbols, the Pillar, the Tree, the Axe, &c., continued to 

 be venerated. 



Mr. Evans speaks of the Myceniean altar-horns as the 

 " Horns of Consecration," and naturally compares this 

 article of religious furniture, as well as the Pillar and the 

 Tree, with the horned altar, the Massebhdh or sacred 

 stone {baitylos), and the Aiherah of the Semites. There 

 is obviously a connection here, but, as Mr. Evans points 

 out (p. 131), this connection is by no means necessarily 



1 The various portions of Ihe argument will be found discussed in Mr. 

 Evans's monograph, by Mayer (" Mykenische Beitrage," in the Jahrbitch 

 ties kgl. (Uutschen Institnis, vii. (1892) p. ipi), and in Kretschmer's. 

 " Einleitung in die Geschichle der griechischen Sprache," ch. .v. p. 289 j?". 



