900 REPORT — 1900. 



version Is preserved by Ilesiod. A thorougli exploration of it, Undertaken in May 

 and June of the current year, by Mr. D. G. Hogarth, on behalf of the British 

 School at Athens, aided by the Cretan Exploration Fund, has served fully to con- 

 nrm this view. The cave is double. On the north is a shallow grotto, the upper 

 part of which was cumbered with immense fallen fragments of the roof. The 

 lower part contained deep black earth, partly ransacked by previous diggers. This 

 was thoroughly dug out this year, and when the great blocks had been broken up 

 with blasting powder and removed, the deposit on the higher slope was also 

 searched. The result was the discovery of a rude altar in the middle of the grotto, 

 surrounded by strata of ashes, pottery, and other refuse, among which many 

 votive objects in bronze, terra-cotta, iron, and bone were found, together with 

 fragments of some thirty libation tables in stone, and an immense number of 

 earthenware cups used for depositing oiferings. The lowest part of the Upper 

 Grotto was found to be enclosed by a wall partly of rude Cyclopean character, 

 and partly rock-cut ; and within this Temenos the untouched strata of deposit 

 ranged from the early Mycenaean Age up to the Geometric period of the ninth cen- 

 tury B.C. or thereabout. Only very slight traces were found of later offerings. The 

 earliest votive stratum belongs to the latest period of the pre-Mycenjean Age, 

 that marked by the transition between the ' Kamaraes ' fabric of pottery and the 

 earliest Mycenaean lustre- painted ware. But below all is a thick bed of yellow 

 clay, containing scraps of primitive hand- burnished black and brown pottery, 

 mixed with bones of animals. This bed seems to be water-laid, and to be prior to 

 the use of the cave as a sanctuary. Probably, when it was in process of formation, 

 the cave was still a swallow-hole of the lake which once occupied the closed Lasithi 

 basin • but before the Mycenaean period the present outlet had opened, and the 

 plain was dry. 



The southern or Lower Grotto falls steeply for some 200 feet to a subterranean 

 pool, out of which rises a forest of stalactite pillars. Traces of a rock-cut stairway 

 remain. Much earth had been thrown down by the diggers of the Upper Grotto, 

 and this was found full of small bronze objects. But chance revealed a more 

 fruitful field, namely, the vertical cbinks in "the lowest stalactite pillars, a great 

 many of which were found still to contain toy double axes, knife-blades, needles, 

 and other objects in bronze, placed there by dedicators, as in niches. The mud 

 also at the edge of the subterranean pool was rich in similar things, and in statu- 

 ettes of two types, male and female, and engraved gems. These had probably 

 been washed out of the niches. 



The knife-blades and simulacra of weapons are probably the offerings of men ; 

 the needles and depilatory tweezers of women. The frequent occurrence of the 

 double axe, not only in bronze, but moulded or painted on pottery, found in the 

 cave, leaves no doubt that its patron god was the ' ( Jarian ' Zeus of Lahranda, or 

 the Labyrinth, with whom perhaps his mother, the Nature jroddess, was associated, 

 and the statuettes probably represent the two deities. Here was the primitive 

 scene of their legend, transferred in classical times to a cave on Mount Ida. 



2. On the Japanese GoJiei arid the Ainu Inao. By W. G. AsTON. 



The paper illustrates a principle in the history of religion by which the object 

 which is at tirst simply an offering has a tendency to become conceived of as the 

 embodiment of the God, or even as a distinct and independent deity. 



In ancient Japan the offerings to the gods were of the most varied description. 

 Among them were included hemp and bark fibre, together with cloth made from 

 these materials. In later times there was substituted a small quantity of paper 

 made of the same bark fibre and attached to a wand in the form known to us as 

 gohei. With the change of form the original character of the ,170/;^} as offerings 

 was forgotten. They were looked upon as receptacles or embodiments of the God, 

 and honour was paid to them accordingly. At festivals the God descended into 

 the gohei on a certain formula being pronounced by the priest. Hypnotic prac- 

 titioners also used tliese objects in their stances, the deity who inspired them in 



