934 REPORT—1896. 
monly assigned to the time about 600 3.c., and to expand the whole series upwards 
in proportion. The fifth period of the Italian Bronze Age is proved by fibule, 
Greek pottery, and Egyptian scarabs to be contemporaneous with Amenhotep IIL, 
of the XVIIIth Egyptian Dynasty, who lived in the X Vth century, B.c. 
3. Pillar and Tree Worship in Mycenean Greece. 
By Anrtuur J. Evans, M.A., F.S.A. 
New evidence, supplied by finds in Crete and the Peloponnese, is brought for- 
ward to show the great part played in the Mycenzan religion by the worship of 
deities in aniconic shape as stone pillars or as trees. On a gold ring obtained by 
Mr. Evans from the site of Knésos in Crete, and dating from the early Mycenzean 
period (about 1500 3.c.), a dual cult of a male and female divinity in their pillar 
shape is illustrated, and an armed Sun-god is being brought down on to his obelisk 
or ‘Beth-el’ by ritual incantation. Parallels to this dual cult of deities in a 
columnar form are cited from Cypriote cylinders of Mycenzean date, and the later 
cone of Aphrodite at Paphos is shown to be a survival of a cult once common to 
prehistoric Greece, and of ‘ Aigean’ rather than Semitic importation into Cyprus. 
Various religious designs on signets recently discovered by Dr. Tsountas at My- 
cenae are described for the first time, which throw additional light on the cult of 
Mycenzan deities in the shape of pillars and trees enclosed in small shrines, and 
the column of the Lion’s Gate at Mycense is identified with the aniconic idol of the 
Phrygian goddess Kybelé, whose anthropomorphic image later supplants the pillar 
form in the same position between the lion supporters. It is pointed out that a 
confusion seems at times to have taken place between the pillar form of the divi- 
nity and the tombstone of the god himself, or some allied hero who is really his 
double ; and reasons are adduced for identifying the traditional ‘Tomb of Zeus’ 
in Crete with the remains of a prehistoric sanctuary visited by Mr. Evans on 
Mount Juktas. Attention is further called to a low-walled building in the great 
Mycenan city of Goulas, in the same island, as probably actually representing 
one of the small shrines which contained a sacred tree. An interesting fragment 
of a Mycenzan steatite vase also obtained by the author from the site of Knésos 
is described, in which an altar appears in front of a stone enclosure containing a 
sacred fig tree, and the cult of this tree, illustrated by other Mycenzan relies, is 
compared with that of the ficws ruminalis in Ancient Rome, where (as in Cyprus) 
the traditional Arcadians represent a Mycenzean influence. The early sanctity of 
the dove is also seen associated throughout Mycenzan Greece with this primitive 
worship, and new evidence is adduced as to the part played by it in the religion of 
prehistoric Crete. Finally, the pillar and tree worship of Mycenzean Greece is 
seen largely to survive in the rustic cult of classical Greece at a time when in the 
more civilised centres the images of the gods had been mainly anthropomorphised. 
This is illustrated by the rural sanctuaries with their sacred trees and stones so 
well represented on the Pompeian frescoes. 
4. The Ornament of N. E. Europe. By G. Corrry. 
5. Manx Crosses as Illustrations of Celtic and Scandinavian Art.' 
By P. M. C. Kermope. 
Nearly a hundred crosses and inscribed stones have been found in the Isle of 
Man, dating from the beginning of the sixth to the first quarter of the thirteenth 
century. 
1 Cumming, Runic Remains, 1854 (poor figures of about forty examples); other 
examples in Trans. Cambrian Society (passim) ; Kermode, Catalogue of Manx Crosses 
(the second edition gives eighty-five examples; a larger, fully illustrated work is in 
preparation). 
