Mycenaean Greece - Religion

Religion

The religious element is difficult to identify in Mycenaean civilization, especially as regards archaeological sites, where it remains problematic to pick out a place of worship with certainty. John Chadwick points out that at least six centuries lie between the earliest settling of proto-Greek speakers in Hellas and the earliest Linear B inscriptions, during which concepts and practices will have fused with indigenous beliefs, and—if cultural influences in material culture reflect influences in religious beliefs—with Minoan religion. As for these texts, the few lists of offerings that give names of gods as recipients of goods reveal nothing about religious practices, and there is no surviving literature. John Chadwick rejected a confusion of Minoan and Mycenaean religion derived from archaeological correlations and cautioned against "the attempt to uncover the prehistory of classical Greek religion by conjecturing its origins and guessing the meaning of its myths" above all through treacherous etymologies. Moses I. Finley detected very few authentic Mycenaean reflections in the eighth-century Homeric world, in spite of its "Mycenaean" setting. However some scholars based not on the uncertain etymologies but on religious elements, on the representations and on the general function of the gods, assert that a lot of Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused in the Mycenean religion. From the existing evidence it seems that the Mycenean religion was the mother of the Greek religion. The Mycenaean pantheon already included many divinities that can be found in Classical Greece.

Poseidon (Po-se-da-o) seems to have occupied a place of privilege. He was a chthonic deity, connected with the earthquakes (E-ne-si-da-o-ne: earth shaker), but it seems that he also represented the river spirit of the underworld as it often happens in Northern European folklore. Also to be found are a collection of "Ladies" (po-ti-ni-ja: lady or mistress) like the "mistress of the Labyrinth" (da-pu-ri-to po-ti-ni-ja) at Knossos in Crete, who calls to mind the myth of the Minoan labyrinth. The title was applied to many goddesses. In a Linear B tablet found at Pylos are mentioned the "two mistresses and the king" and John Chadwick identified these as the precursor goddesses of Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.

Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the goddesses of the Eleusinian mysteries, were usually referred to as "the two goddesses" or "the mistresses" in historical times. The mysteries were established during the Mycenean period (1500 BC) at the city Eleusis and it seems that they were based on a pre-Greek vegetation cult with Minoan elements. The cult was originally private and we don't have any information about it, but certain elements suggest that it could have similarities with the cult of Despoina ("the mistress")-the precursor goddess of Persephone- in isolated Arcadia that survived up to classical times. In the primitive Arcadian myth Poseidon, the river spirit of the underworld appears as a horse (Poseidon Hippios). He pursues Demeter who becomes a mare and from the union she bears the fabulous horse Arion and a daughter, "Despoina", who obviously originally had the shape or the head of a mare. Pausanias mentions animal-headed statues of Demeter and of other gods in Arcadia. At Lycosura on a marble relief appear figures of women with the heads of different animals, obviously in a ritual dance. This could explain a Mycenaean fresco from 1400 BC that represents a procession with animal masks and the procession of "daemons" in front of a goddess on a goldring from Tiryns. The Greek myth of the Minotaur probably originated from a similar "daemon". In the cult of Despoina at Lycosura the two goddesses are closely connected with the springs and the animals, and especially with Poseidon and Artemis, the "mistress of the animals" who was the first nymph. The existence of the nymphs was bound to the trees or the waters which they haunted.

Artemis appears as a daughter of Demeter in the Arcadian cults and she became the most popular goddess in Greece. Her precursor goddess (probably Britomartis) is represented between two lions on a Minoan seal and also on some goldrings from Mycenae. The representations are quite similar with these of "Artemis Orthia" at Sparta. In her temple at Sparta have been found wooden masks representing human faces, that were used by dancers during the vegetation-cult. Artemis was also connected with the Minoan "cult of the tree," an ecstatic and orgiastic cult which is represented on Minoan seals and Mycenean goldrings.

Paean (Pa-ja-wo) is probably the precursor of the Greek physician of the gods in Iliad. He was the personification of the magic-song which was supposed to "heal" the patient. Later it became also a song of victory (παιάν). The magicians was also called "seer- doctors" (ιατρομάντεις) a function which was also applied later to Apollo.

Dionysos (Di-wo-ni-so) appears in some inscriptions, and his name interpreted as "son of Zeus", has probably Thraco-Phrygian origin. Later his cult is related with Boeotia and Phocis, where it seems that was introduced before the end of the Mycenean age. This may explain why his myths and cult were centered in Thebes, and why the mountain Parnassos in Phocis was the place of his orgies. However in the Homeric poems he is the consort of the Minoan vegetation goddess Ariadne. He is the only Greek god who dies in order to be reborn, as it often appears in the religions of the Orient. His myth is related with the Minoan myth of the "divine child" who was abandoned by his mother and then brought up by the powers of nature. Similar myths appear in the cults of Hyakinthos (Amyklai), Erichthonios (Athens) and Ploutos (Eleusis).

Other divinities who can be found in later periods have been identified, such as the couple Zeus–Hera, Hermes, Athena, Eileithyia and Erinya. The names of Apollo and Aphrodite are absent.

There were some sites of importance for cults, such as Lerna, typically in the form of house sanctuaries, for the free-standing temple of the familiar kind, containing a cult image in its cella with an open-air altar before it, was a later development. Certain buildings found in citadels having a central room, the megaron, of oblong shape surrounded by small rooms may have served as places of worship. Aside from that, the existence of a domestic cult may be supposed. Some shrines have been located, as at Phylakopi on Melos, where have been found a considerable number of statuettes undoubtedly fashioned to serve as offerings, and it can be supposed from their archaeological strata that sites such as Delphi, Dodona, Delos, Eleusis, Lerna and Abae were already important shrines, and in Crete several Minoan shrines show continuity into LM III, a period of Minoan-Mycenaean culture.