TA-URT ON SCARAB FOUND IN M. M. I TOMB 439

Fig. 3C3. Scarab from Platanos

SHOWING FIGURE OF Ta-URT.

Horns is seen aiming his spear at it in Fig. 362. Often the sign is bordered
by the seven polar stars. The fuller representation of the constellation
as the whole animal certainly suggests a comparison with the seven ' plough-
ino- oxen '—scplemtrioues—of Roman astral lore.

Versions of these scenes are given in Figs. 360-K2 since they illustrate
the most prominent function of the Hippopo-
tamus Goddess during the period when she
influenced the rise of the Minoan Genii with
which we are here concerned. The possible
reaction of elements from this cycle must
therefore always be borne in mind.

In this connexion, indeed, the recent
discovery of one of these astronomical pieces
in an inner chamber of the Tomb of Sen-
mut, the great Minister of Hatshepsut and
Thothmes I, is of special interest, since the
Keftiu tributaries and their offerings on the walls of this tomb supply, as
has been already shown,1 the first illustration of the intimate connexion at
this epoch between Crete and Egypt. The ceiling of this room presents an
elaborate astronomical scene of this kind in which the Hippopotamus
Goddess plays the principal part (Fig. 362). She is there depicted as if
controlling the principal polar star by means of a pulley. She holds a knife
and small crocodile in her hands, as usual, and another crocodile is on her
back. Often a jar is set in front of her.

That the figure of the Goddess was known to Crete by the beginning
of the Middle Minoan Age is apparent from the already recorded discovery
of a white steatite scarab depicting her in the smaller tholos at Platanos,
Fig. 363,2 the main contents of which were M. M. I, and which included a
Chaldaean cylinder of the time of Hammurabi. The Goddess in this case
has her hand raised in the act of adoration, and in front of her is part of the
loop of an ankh or life sign, with which she was also associated."

It is not, however, till the early part of the 'New Era' that we find

Scene on
ceiling of
Sen-mut
Tomb.

Early im-
ported
scarab
with
Ta-urt
type.

1 See especially, Vol. ii, Ft. II, p. 737
seqq.

' Xanthudides., Vaulted Tombs of Mesari,
Fl. XIV, No. 1075, and p. 117. When first
published by me, P. of M., i, p. 200, Fig. 118,
I accepted the view taken by Dr. H. R. Hall
that the scarab was a Minoan imitation. But

his maturer judgement pronounced it—no
doubt correctly—as of Egyptian fabric. (See
his observations on The Civilization of Greece
in t/ie Bronze Age, 1927, p. 69, note r.)

3 The sketchy animal figure behind may
represent, as Hal! suggests, loc. eit., a monkey.