ON HEAD OF GODDESS BETWEEN MONSTERS 169

curving objects with snake-like heads, above the upper of which is seen a
squared version of the Double Axe.

Fig. 130. Chalcedony Bead-seal

FROM PlKTAEAN CAVE.

Fig. 131. Lentoid Bead-seal,
Ialysos.

This difference in level between the cult image, as we may regard it,
and the guardian monsters, thus repeated, is of
special interest as illustrating the ceremonially re-
ligious character of these intaglio designs and their
possible connexions with some actual sanctuary.
The base-lines on which the Griffins are here set
doubtless represent raised cornices. They supply,
in fact, a striking parallel to the painted stucco
bases on which the same sacred monsters were
antithetically grouped in the great East Hall of the

Palace, only that there, between them, the baetylic Pi°- 132- Banded Agate
, , , , r 1 /- i 1 t Eead-seal,Museum,Cassel.

column takes the place ot the Goddess.1

On a banded agate lentoid in the Museum of Cassel, in which the
Goddess with the ' snake frame' is attended by lions, the animals are again
placed on a level above that of the divinity (Fig. 132).2 In examples from
Mycenae referred to below, though both the Goddess and her lion sup-
porters are on the same level, they are all set on the 'triple gradation'
below that marks the architectonic character of the group.

1 P. of M., iii; p. 511, Fig. 355.

" Furtwangler, Antike Gemmcn, PI. VI, 5.
The upper part of the design is indiscernible
in Furtwangler's plate, but a line drawing is
published by Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean
Religion, p. 312, Fig. 92. Fig. 132 above is

from a cast kindly supplied me by Dr. H.
Mobius, Director of the Cassel Museum. The
semicircular line in front of the upper part of
the Goddess most suggests a swing or skipping-
rope.