M. M. Ill: WINGED CREATIONS AND 'FLYING GALLOP' 721

Of this evidence and the corroborative data supplied by the goldsmith's Gold-
ornamentation, the vessels in precious metals and many other relics of the w™rk &c
Mycenae Shaft Graves, including- the earlier Stelae themselves, more will be
said in the opening Chapters of the succeeding Volume of this book. Here
it ma)' be sufficient to remark that, among all the objects evincing a high
degree of artistic culture and civilized life brought to light in those royal
sepulchres, there are few indeed not directly imported from Minoan Crete,
and there is scarcely a single specimen of which the antecedent stages cannot
be traced back on Cretan soil by a continuous line of descent from an im-
memorial past. Many of these objects were in all probability derived from
Knossos itself and are unmistakably the products of the artistic school that
grew up round the great Palace.

The religion and cult forms of its Priest Kings were in the same way Minoan
introduced at Mycenae by the founders of the new Mainland Empire. The s^nM^aT
Great Goddess of Minoan Crete is still supreme. Her sacred doves still at Mv-
perch on pillar shrines and altars, and, as a visible sign of possession, on the
votaries themselves. On two remarkable seal-stones brought to light by the
recent excavations of the British School at Mycenae, her guardian lions
stand beside her as on the Palace seals of Knossos and she bears above
her—here combined with the sacred weapon-—the snakes that symbolize her
Underworld dominion. The Goddess presides over similar sports, held in
the same arena and overlooked by similar ' theatral stands'. With her too
the principal cult object of Minoan divinity, the Double Axe, makes its
appearance both in its liturgic shape and as a celestial emblem in the new
centres of worship now founded overseas.

cenae.

END OF VOLUME I

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