Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/321

 268 Primitivf Grkf.cr: Mycknean Art. adjacent tombs of NaupHa (Fig. 389) and Laconia ? What makes us pause, at least for Argolis, is the fact that the worship of a lunar goddess, lo, was current there throughout historical times. She was represented under the semblance of a cow whose horns, circling over the head, recalled the crescent moon. This deity seems to have been very popular at Mycenae, for Schliemann says that he found fragments of about seven hundred cow figures on the acropolis,' along with other animals, dogs, boars, and birds {Fig. 390).^ We cannot accept them all as idols. We doubt not but that a goddess with this bovine appendage was worshipped there ; but Fir. sSg.^Tcrm-oK.i cow. A Iride hclon- actual size the horns in our opinion were reminiscent of those of the heifer usually sacrificed to the Argian deity ; in the same way as, later on, Pan was represented with ram's horns, because that animal was immolated to him. Poor folk, however, could not afford so ex- pensive an offering. If, then, the presence on the vases of a cow-head maybe referred to that deity. 1 should be inclined to ' Schliemann, Myceiia. - Ibid.