Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/163

 Rh instances. As the belief was so common in so many parts of the Greek mainland, it is probable that, when Homer's Achæans settled in Crete, they found it already present as to the local cave-birthplace of a god whom they styled Zeus.

Now the contents of one Cretan cave of Zeus, in Mount Ida, show relics of comparatively late non-Minoan art and worship, with an inscription in Greek characters. The pottery is not Minoan, but in the geometric style of decoration influenced by Assyrian art, through Phoenicia. This is an early Dorian style, shown in the excavations at Sparta. Dorians dwelt in Crete in the time of the Odyssey. The other cave, (where, according to the Platonic dialogue Minos, King Minos met Zeus and took his instructions), is that of Dicte, near Psychro and near the ruins of Lyttos. This cave and its legend were already known to Hesiod, say 700 B.c. The cave has been excavated by Mr. Hogarth. The contents prove what representations of worship in Minoan art do not prove, that animals, oxen, goats, and deer were sacrificed, perhaps to the Mother of the Gods, perhaps to her associate, whom the Greeks called Zeus, her child. The double axe, often a symbol of divine power, was present, in art and in bronze votive offerings; all this certainly in Minoan times before the coming of Homer's Achaeans.

That any divine being is represented by a bull-headed man is doubtful. Gods in the art are usually anthropomorphic; by far the most prominent is female. The male gods with haloes have human faces. One monster, with an earless and hornless head, a forked tail, human feet, and an arm ending in a hoof, is seated on a low camp stool, and gods are often seated. Beside him is a man who, contrary to Minoan usage, is short-haired and