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Gold signet ring with cult scene

Χ-Α45
Metal (Gold)
Intact
Bezel length: 1.7 cm. Bezel width: 1.3 cm. Bezel diameter: 1.5 cm.
Phaistos
Kalyvia, Tomb 11
Late Bronze Age. Neopalatial period, Late Minoan ΙB period.:
1500-1450 BC:
Gallery:
VIII
Exhibition thematic unit:
Late Bronze Age - Neopalatial period (1700-1450 BC). Minoan religion. Palace cult
The epiphany cycle - Gold rings
Description
Gold ring with scene of tree-worship and baetyl-worship on the round bezel. On the left of the scene, a female figure is vigorously shaking the trunk of a tree emerging from a wooden enclosure, making the fruit fall. The fruit is depicted as small dots at the edge of the bezel. In the centre of the scene a kneeling man embraces an oval stone. The bird flying behind him is a symbol of the imminent epiphany of the goddess. A relief wavy line on the surface of the stone may represent a strip of cloth or some other perishable material of vegetal origin. At the right end of the scene is a structure with two small oval pillars topped with a cornice, perhaps a conventional depiction of a small shrine (or a pithos or a baetyl altar according to other scholars). The event depicted, marked by two characteristic cult acts, the shaking of the sacred tree and the embracing of the natural stone, is intended to evoke the epiphany of the goddess and forms part of the annual vegetation cycle. The obscure content of these ritual motions, combined with the desired result of the mystical revelation of the divine, indicates the ecstatic nature of the performance.
Bibliography:
Savignoni, L. "Scavi e scoperte nella necropoli di Phaestos". Monumenti Antichi 14 (1904): 577-85, fig. 50, 50a, pl. 40,6. Persson, Α. The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times. California, 1942, 35-36, no. 2. Nilsson, Μ. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion. Lund, 1950, 268, fig. 133, 278. CMS II3, 114. Warren, P. "Of baetyls". Opuscula Atheniensia 18 (1990): 193-206. Marinatos, Ν. "The Tree, the Stone and the Pithos: Glimpses into a Minoan Ritual". In R. Laffineur (ed.), Annales d'arch?ologie de la Gr?ce antique, Aegaeum 6, Li?ge, 1990, 79-92. Mandalaki, S. "Ο χορός στη Μινωική Κρήτη". Αρχαιολογία και Τέχνες 90 (2004): 17-18. Crooks, S. What are These Queer Stones? Baetyls: Epistemology of a Minoan Fetish. BAR International Series 2511. Oxford 2013, 45-46, fig. 41 (with erroneous excavation provenance).
Author:
S. M.


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