Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and its Mediterranean Relations

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. AMONG the greater monuments or actual structural remains of the Mycenaean world hitherto made known, it is remarkable how little there is to be found having a clear and obvious relation to religious belief. The great wealth of many of the tombs, the rich contents of the pit-graves of Mycenae itself, the rock-cut chambers, the massive vaults of the bee-hive tombs, are all indeed so many evidences of a highly developed cult of departed Spirits. The pit-altar over grave IV. of the Akropolis area at Mycenae, and the somewhat similar erection found in the Court-yard of the Palace at Tiryns, take us a step further in this direction ; but it still remains possible that the second, like the first, may have been dedicated to the cult of the ancestors of the household, and it supplies in itself no conclusive evidences of a connexion with any higher form of worship. In the great South-Western Court, and again in the Central Area of the Palace of Knossos, have now, however, been brought to light the foundations of what seem to have been two rectangular altars; and the special relation in which this building stood to the God of the Double Axe makes a dedication to the Cretan Zeus in this case extremely probable.In Crete indeed we are on somewhat different ground. Throughout the island are a series of caves, containing votive and sacrificial deposits, going back from the borders of the historic period to Mycenaean and still more remote antiquity. The two greatest of these, on the heights of Ida and Dikta, are connected by immemorial tradition with the cult of the ancient indigenous divinity later described by the Greeks as the Cretan Zeus, whose special symbol was the double axe. The colossal rock-hewn altar at the mouth of the Idaean Cave was unquestionably devoted to the service of this God.1 In the steatite libation-table found at the bottom of the votive stratum of the Diktaean Cave 2 we have an article of cult the special 1 F. Halbherr and P, Orsi, Antro di Zeus Ideo, p. 3 and Tav. xi. SJ.H.S. xvii. (1897), p. 350 seqq. 11H2 This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:16:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 100 ARTHUR J. EVANS significance of which will be pointed out ini a succeeding section.' The thorough exploration of this cave, now carried out by Mr. D. G. Hogaith,2 on behalf of the British School at Athens, has conclusively proved that the old traditions of the birth-place and oracular shrine of the Cretan Zeus attached themselves to this spot. The blasting away of the fallen rocks that encumb...

The Cult of the Dead, Fetishism, and the Genesis of an Idea: Megalithic Monuments and the Tree and Pillar Cult of Arthur J. Evans

“…The concept of the TPC first made its appearance in 1896 in a lecture given to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Evans 1896b). 7 Only an abstract of this 1896 lecture was printed in the British Association's annual report, but Evans covered the topic again in a lengthy article published in 1901 in the Journal of Hellenic Studies incorporating new material from his first year's excavations at Knossos on Crete (Evans 1901). The TPC has had its greatest impact on the study of Minoan religion:…”

“…Small shrines or 'baetylic cells' such as the Indian dolmens -Southeast Asian Bhuta stones in the megalith lectures (Evans 1885a iii:10) -were used as an analogy for the Mycenaean type of shrine and as another rationale for sepulchral origins (Evans 1901:123). Also, the 'triliths of a primitive cult' such as Stonehenge were examples of the 'sanctity of the portal or doorway' (Evans 1901:181 n.1), recalling Evans' triumphal arches of the dead in the megalith lectures (Evans 1885a iii:7). The Stonehenge article offered Greco-Roman iconography as evidence for the pairing of trees with arches (Evans 1889:328).…”

“…The views in the lectures were heavily influenced by the evolutionary theories of John Lubbock, the leading theorist on ancient society in the late nineteenth century (Kuper 1988(Kuper :78-79, 2005, and by his own father, John Evans, as well as many of his father's contemporaries. Second, I trace concepts within Evans' views developed in the megalith lectures that profoundly affected his later thought on Minoan religion, exemplified in an influential article 'Mycenaean tree and pillar cult' published in 1901, as he was processing the results of his first season's excavations at Knossos (Evans 1901).…”

El betilo estiliforme de Torreparedones

“…Es probable que el cordón sogueado que ciñe la columna por dos partes sea la traslación en piedra de verdaderos cordones que vestirían el betilo, al modo de las bandas y cintas enrolladas alrededor del fuste que vistieron los betilos en Creta (vide por ejemplo Evans 1901:141 o Wesenberg 1971) y las que continuaron vistiéndolos en Grecia (Ejemplo típico es el Apolo de Ambracia, enmarcado por cintas terminadas en borlas (fig.5); para un tipo iconográfico menos conocido en lo que a columnas vestidas respecta (y en el que hay quien ha querido ver una-improbable-aljaba con basa y capitel) vide e.g. las acuñaciones de Panticapea del Quersoneso Táurico, donde la cinta se recoge en grandes lazadas a ambos lados del fuste), e incluso en el mundo romano imperial (Rostowzew 1911).…”

Helène Whittaker. Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 291pp., 14 figs., 7 maps, hbk, ISBN 978-1-04987-1)

“…Of course, the small number of contributions to Mesohelladika on religion is not surprising given that it is a field of study that has at times been neglected by scholars of the Bronze Age. After the early works of Evans (1901Evans ( , 1921Evans ( -1936, Nilsson (1927), and Persson (1942), religion was hardly touched upon for decades. It was really the pioneering conference Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age (Hägg & Marinatos, 1981) and the innovative work of Renfrew (1985) on the sanctuary at Phylakopi that created a foundation for the modern study of Bronze Age religion.…”