The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas

Author:Marija Gimbutas
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2009-04-07T02:23:00+00:00

Cave Sanctuaries

Worshipers used caves as sanctuaries from the Upper Paleolithic through the Neolithic. These caves are an important part of the Minoan archaeological repertoire.3 Not every cave was sacred. The Minoans regarded only those caves with special properties important: specifically, those that contained chambers, passages, stalagmites, wells of pure water. Their particular shape, darkness, and damp walls symbolically connected the cave to the tomb and the womb. The pillared crypts in Minoan temples resembled human-created caves. But caves themselves made more dramatic and powerful religious sanctuaries than crypts, with their often remote settings, fantastically shaped stalagmites and stalactites, and shadowy interiors illumined only by torches or lamps. Some giant temples maintained their own cave sanctuaries. Phaistos used the Kamares cave, located at an altitude of 1,524 meters and only accessible during certain seasons. Knossos was served by the huge SkoteinO cave and the smaller Eileithyia, both of which were special regional cult locales. The larger religious centers appear to have organized pilgrimages to these sacred places.

Exploration of the cave sanctuaries has brought to light several reli gious artifacts, such as altars, vessels, offering tables, and symbolic objects that reflect the same regenerative themes as tombs and crypts. Pottery from the Middle and Late Minoan periods constituted the most ubiquitous find, including Kamares "eggshell" cups and magnificent vases produced in the Phaistos temple complex. Other artifacts recovered from cave sanctuaries include the familiar manifestations of the goddess of death and regeneration, including sacred horns, double axes (of gold, silver, and bronze), and seals and plaques engraved with a tree of life growing from the center of the sacred horns. Some finds suggest the presence of pilgrims and priestesses in caves. Archaeologists have uncovered votive offerings, some with inscriptions, and a considerable number of figures of male votaries saluting with their right arm. A seal from the Idean cave shows a priestess holding a triton shell standing in front of an altar bearing a pair of horns, with a tree of life in the middle and individual trees flanking the horns on either side.

Several Cretan caves are clearly associated with birth giving: the Eileithyia cave at Amnissos (the harbor town mentioned by Homer in The Odyssey) and the Dikte cave in the Lasithi Plain. To this day, these caves carry their ancient names. The goddess Eileithyia (which is not a confirmed Indo-European name), to whom offerings of honey were made, is mentioned as early as the Linear B tablets from Knossos (around 1400 B.c.). In classical Greek myth and ritual she is known as Artemis Eileithyia, the Artemis who presides over birth. Rites of renewal and celebrations of the birth of the divine child were most likely performed in caves.

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