Hercules and the Cretan Bull

According to Jeremy McInerney, the iconography of the bull permeates Minoan culture. The cult of the bull was also prominent in southwestern Anatolia. Bernard Clive Dietrich notes that the most important animal in the Neolithic shrines at Çatalhöyük was the bull. The bull was a chthonic animal associated with fertility and vegetation. It figured in cave cults connected with rites for the dead.  

According to Greek myth, to confirm his right to rule, King Minos of Crete prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull as a sign. Poseidon sent Minos the bull, with the understanding that bull would be sacrificed to the god. Deciding that Poseidon's bull was too fine of a specimen to kill, Minos sent the bull to his herds and substituted another, inferior bull for sacrifice. Enraged, Poseidon had Aphrodite cause Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, to fall in love with the bull. She subsequently gave birth to the half-man, half-bull, Minotaur. Poseidon passed on his rage to the bull, causing him lay waste to the land.

As his seventh labor, Heracles was sent to capture the bull by Eurystheus.  Heracles sailed to Crete and King Minos gave Heracles permission to take the bull away as he had been wreaking havoc on Crete by uprooting crops and leveling orchard walls. Heracles captured the bull, and then shipped him to Eurystheus in Tiryns. The bull later broke loose and wandered into Marathon, becoming known as the "Marathonian Bull" who was later captured and sacrificed by Theseus.

McInerney observes that the story of Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull was not written until after Crete had come under Greek control, however, and despite the fact that the palace at Knossos displays a number of murals depicting young men and women vaulting over a bull, scholars are divided as to whether or not this reflects an actual practice.  There is also no recorded evidence that has been recovered there of any Minoan legend of the famous Cretan Bull or the Minotaur either.

Hercules and the Cretan Bull at Schwerin Castle, Germany courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Jens Burkhardt-Plückhahn

Heracles fighting the Cretan bull, while a siren perches on a branch. Laconian black-figure kylix in the manner of the Arkesilas Painter, ca. 550 BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor ClaireH. (glare removed)

Ivory figure of Hercules capturing the Cretan bull, probably used to decorate a piece of furniture or a box, Roman 1st century CE, ivory, courtesy of the British Museum

Detail of the Mosaic with the Labors of Hercules (Seventh Labour: Cretan Bull), 3rd century AD, found in Llíria (Valencia), National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Madrid courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddatto

Heracles and the Cretan Bull - a metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Nicholas Hartmann

Detail of a Roman sarcophagus from Perge, Turkey depicting the capture of the Cretan Bull, 2nd century CE (?) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Mourad Ben Abdallah

Heracles binds the Cretan bull. Attic black-figure amphora in the manner of the Antimenes Painter, ca. 510 BCE From Vulci, Italy at the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, Germany courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi Saint-Pol.

Architectural terracotta plaque (so-called Campana plaque) representing Hercules capturing the Cretan bull, 1st half of the 1st century CE, discovered in 1828 in Quadraro (Roma Vecchia), Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatican City, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Jean-Pol Grandmont

 

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Crete's Minoan, Mycenaen, and Roman treasures

I noticed this morning that Carole Raddato retweeted a link to her excellent article, "Exploring Western Crete's Archaeological Treasures" that she originally wrote back in May 2019. I must have missed the original post so read it for the first time today and found it fascinating and beautifully illustrated.  So I am featuring an abstract of it as today's "Antiquity Alive" presentation:

"The Minoan civilization emerged on the island of Crete in the Early Bronze Age at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium BCE. It flourished from c. 2000 BCE until c. 1500 BCE with the establishment of centres, called "palaces" by modern archaeologists, that concentrated political and economic powers, as well as artistic activities. Of particular significance was the religious role played by the palaces in the cult of the Mother Goddess."

"The British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the first of these palaces in Knossos in 1900 CE and named the people who built them after the legendary King Minos. It was King Monos who, according to tradition, ordered the construction of a labyrinth in Knossos to hold the Minotaur, the mythical half-man, half-bull creature. The Minoan culture spread throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean world and its stunning art and architecture deeply influenced the Mycenaean Civilization (1600 - 1100 BCE)  that would succeed it. After the downfall of the Mycenaeans, Crete was ruled by various ancient Greek city-states until the Romans conquered the island in 69 BCE and made Gortyn their capital."

"According to tradition, Gortyn is where Zeus, in the guise of a bull, brought the princess Europa from her home in Phoenicia." (Following this affair three children were born, Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, who became the kings of the three Minoan Palaces in Crete.)

 "Homer mentions Gortyn in the Iliad as “having walls” and in the Odyssey as the place where Menelaus and his fleet of ships, returning home from the Trojan War, were blown off course to the Cretan coastline." 

"Under Roman rule, Crete re-emerged as a major cultural centre and became the joint province of Crete and Cyrenaica and a centre of early Christianity. When the Roman Empire split into two, Crete was made part of the Eastern empire. It continued to prosper during the Byzantine era until it faced repeated Arab raids and, ultimately, full conquest in the 820s CE." - Carole Raddato

In 1884, the Gortyn Law Code was discovered on the site of a structure built by the Roman emperor Trajan, the Odeon, which for the second time, reused stones from an inscription-bearing wall that also had been incorporated into the foundation of an earlier Hellenistic structure.  It is both the oldest and most complete known example of a code of ancient Greek law.  Although portions of the inscriptions have been placed in museums such as the Louvre in Paris, a modern structure at the site of the mostly ruined Odeon now houses many of the stones bearing the famous law code.

 https://www.ancient.eu/article/1391/exploring-western-cretes-archaeological-treasures/

Statue group of Persephone (as Isis) and Pluto (as Serapis) with the three-headed dog Cerberus. From the Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods at Gortyn on the island of Crete. Mid-2nd century CE. Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Pluto-Serapis has the modus on his head, a utensil used for the measurement of grain. Persephone-Isis with covered head bears her symbols at the forehead (the crescent moon, the solar disk and the snake (uraeus). She is depicted holding in her right hand the sistrum, an Egyptian musical instrument. The inclusion of Cerberus, guard of the underworld, in the group defines the two deities, despite their Egyptian symbols, as Pluto and Persephone, gods of the underworld.

 

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The Minoan snake goddess and other "mistresses of animals"

 The iconic figurine of a woman holding a snake in either hand with a cat sitting on top of her head discovered by Arthur Evans in the "Pillar Shrine" within the Minoan palace of Knossus, Crete is probably one of the most instantly recognized artifacts from the Minoan world.  The original faience sculpture is displayed today at the Herakleion Archaeological Museum on Crete.  But a less well known delicate figurine composed of ivory and gold, dating from 1750 to 1580 BCE, can be seen in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

In the ancient world, snakes were symbolically associated with the renewal of life because the reptile was known for sheddding its skin periodically.  This belief was shared not only by the Minoans and Pelasgians, indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, but by the ancient Mesopotamians and Semites as well. Within the Greek Dionysiac cult, the serpent signified wisdom and was a symbol of fertility.  Other scholars relate  the snake goddess with the Phoenician Astarte (virgin daughter) because her temples were decorated with serpentine motifs. 

Sir Arthur Evans thought the goddess may be linked to the Egyptian snake goddess Wadjet, especially since the figurine he discovered was constructed of faience, a well-known technology using a fired quartz paste that he thought the Minoans probably acquired from the Egyptians. The figurines have also been interpreted as depicting  a mistress of animals-type goddess, a widespread motif in ancient art from the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East, showing a central human, or human-like, female figure who grasps two animals, one to each side.  Art historians frequently refer to such images using the Greek term Potnia Theron regardless of culture of origin.  The term was first used by Homer as a descriptor of Artemis because of her association with animals and was since used to describe other female divinities associated with animals. The word Potnia, meaning mistress or lady, was a Mycenaean Greek word inherited by Classical Greeks, with the same meaning.  

The snake goddess was also thought to be a precursor to Athena Parthenos, who was associated with snakes.  According to the Bibliotheca, Athena visited the smith-god Hephaestus to request some weapons, but Hephaestus was so overcome by desire that he tried to seduce her in his workshop. Determined to maintain her virginity, Athena fled, pursued by Hephaestus. He caught Athena and tried to rape her, but she fought him off. During the struggle, his semen fell on her thigh, and Athena, in disgust, wiped it away with a scrap of wool and flung it to the earth. As she fled, Erichthonius was born from the semen that fell to the earth. Athena could not abandon the infant but did not wish anyone to find out what happened so placed the infant in a box and gave the box to the three daughters (Herse, Aglaurus and Pandrosus) of Cecrops, the king of Athens, and warned them never to look inside. Pandrosus obeyed, but Herse and Aglaurus were overcome with curiosity and opened the box, which contained the infant and future-king, Erichthonius ("troubles born from the earth,"). The sisters were terrified by what they saw in the box: either a snake coiled around an infant, or an infant that was half-human and half-serpent. They went insane and threw themselves off the Acropolis. 

When he grew up, Erichthonius became king of Athens and Athena protected him. The snake was his symbol, and he was represented in the statue of Athena in the Parthenon as the snake hidden behind her shield. The most sacred building on the Acropolis of Athens, the Erechtheum, is dedicated to Erichthonius. 

The iconic figurine of a woman holding a snake in either hand with a cat sitting on top of her head discovered by Arthur Evans in the "Pillar Shrine" within the Minoan palace of Knossus, Crete in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum courtesy of Wikimeda Commons contributor Soverylittlehoneybee

Minoan snake goddess of ivory and gold dating from 1750 to 1580 that I photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Gold pin with a Mistress of the Animals (potnia theron). Gold with granulation, Greek, ca. 630 BCE at The Louvre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Bronze sheet with embossed representation of the Mistress of animals, probably a decorative cover of an object from a Samian workshop, about 600 BCE recovered from the Sanctuary of Olympia at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Zde.

Winged goddess with a Gorgon's head wearing a split skirt and holding a bird in each hand, a type of the Potnia Theron. Probably made on Rhodes. From Kameiros, Rhodes at the British Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Ealdgyth.

Ivory representation of the goddess Artemis Orthia found in her sanctuary, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marsyas (white balance adjusted).

Mistress of animals (Potnia theron) and nature on a Pithos with relief, from the years 625-600 BCE. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Zde.

Snake-witch (Ormhäxan) stone from Gotland, Sweden. Now in Fornsalen Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Jürgen Howaldt.

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