Note 74.3 — Chapter IV · Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean.

Only rarely, when the monsters are ritualistically engaged in watering a sacred palm tree or column,74.3 does the religious question arise. And here we may find a parallelism in Assyrian religious art, in the representation of “winged genii fertilising the adult palms with the male cones”; but according to Sir Arthur Evans this motive is later in the Eastern art than in the Mycenaean. Perhaps only one type of monster found on these gems and seals is derived from a real theriomorphic figure of the contemporary religion, namely, the Minotaur type. A few of the Zakro sealings show the sealed figure of a human body with bovine head, ears, and tail75.1; and a clay seal-impression found at Knossos presents a bovine human figure with possibly a bovine head sealed in a hieratic attitude before a warrior in armour.75.2 Such archaeological evidence is precarious, but when we compare it with the indigenous Cretan legends of the bull-Zeus and the union of Pasiphae with the bull, we are tempted to believe that a bull-headed god or a wholly bovine deity had once a place in Minoan cult.