Horse sacrifice
Ο-Ε797
Bone
Good
Maximum dimensions of heap: 67 Χ 52 Χ 15 cm. approx.
Phourni
Phourni, Cemetery, Tholos Tomb A, tholos
Late Bronze Age, Final Palatial period. Late Minoan IIIA1 period:
1400 - 1350 BC:
Gallery:
XCase:
Self-standing table case, no number (between cases 107 and 108)Exhibition thematic unit:
Late Bronze Age - Neopalatial period (1700-1450 BC) - Final Palatial period (1450-1300 BC).The cemeteriesKnossos and Archanes. The Graves with Bronzes
Description
Horse bones gathered together and arranged in a circle. The dismembered body of a young horse (Equus caballus) with knife marks (cut-marks made by a sharp tool) on the backbone and elsewhere, and partial severing of body parts (the head is severed from the neck, the jawbone from the head, and the halves of the jawbone from each other). The bones were carefully piled together, as the deliberately bent legs indicate, while the flesh on them was preserved. The excavation data show that these were the butchered remains of a horse sacrifice, which were placed in a specific location as a sacred offering. The horse sacrifice was found in an undisturbed part of the central tomb, in association with an offering pit and the blocked entrance to the burial chamber, in one of the most important tholos tombs of Mycenaean Crete. The presence of a horse among the funerary offerings is valuable evidence both of the importation of horses to Crete and of the establishment on the island of customs of Mycenaean origin attested in the Homeric epics. The tomb must have belonged to an important figure, as we see from the other grave goods as well as the best-preserved horse sacrifice discovered in Crete to date.Bibliography:
Sakellarakis J., 1970, “Das Kuppelgrab A von Archanes und das kretisch-mykenische Tieropferritual, Prahistorische Zeitschrift 45, 1970, 135 – 218. Sakellarakis, J. and E. Sakellaraki,1997. Αρχάνες: μια νέα ματιά στη μινωική Κρήτη, Athens: Ammos Editions. Vol. Α, p. 158 – 168, 263 – 4, fig. 119, 205, 207, σχ. 39.Author:
D. S.Photographs' metadata