SACRED DOGS ON SEAL-TYPES

765

On an impression of a seal of exceptionally fine style from the Treasury
Deposit of the Domestic Quarter, partly restored in Fig. 495, we have
a distinct indication of the sacral character of the animals. In this case the

male custodian stands between two seated
hounds with a short rope crossing the
neck of each, in the same heraldic position
in which the Goddess herself—in other
cases her male satellite—is seen between
her guardian lions. It seems probable
that we have here a representation of the
young God.

It is interesting to recall that both Hounds
Minos and the Cretan Mother Goddess, jans Df
under the name of Europa, are as- s°ddess-
sociated with a legendary hound.1 So,
too, when Apollonios of Tyana, according to his hagiographer, made his
arduous pilgrimage, up the Western promontory on which it lay, to the temple
of Diktynna—an indigenous name for the Minoan Goddess in her quality of

Fig. 493. Clay Impression showing
Collared Bitch.



■»~ • >



Fig. 494. Large Collared Dog
led by Man. Green Jasper Len-
toid, Fast Crete.

Fig. 495. Seal-impression, partly restored,
showing Youth (perhaps Young Male Divinity)
holding Two Cords which cross the Necks of
Two Seated Mastiffs.

of huntress—he found it guarded with great clogs, which the Cretans
boasted to be as strong as bears.2 We may recall the sacred dogs in the
service of the nearly related divinity of Eryx3 and those 'exceeding the

1 AcuAai/r = Hurricane.

2 Philostratus, De Vita ApoHonii, lib. viii.

8 The Elymian Goddess is regularly asso-

ciated with a hound on coins of Fryx, Motya,
and Segesta.