Religious Elements in the Thera Frescoes

He argues that:

I -   In one of the miniature frescoes the artist's aim was to denote the presence of two cult places in a town: a sanctuary situated beside the sea, and a temenos outside the town walls,

II -   The scene on the miniature fresco that is generally known as a "gathering on the hill", should be interpreted rather as a spring sanctuary,

III -   The ikria on the fresco is interpreted as a symbol or crest because of its crowning elements, which are similar to those of the "tree-of-life".

INTRODUCTION 

My purpose here is to deal solely with the religious elements that occur in the scenes on the frescoes discovered in the West House (Marinatos 1972, 41f.; Marinatos 1974, 34ff.), in which cult places and "Banners" or "lkria" are depicted. In recent years excavations have revealed a whole series of cult objects typical of Minoan Crete (double axes and horns of consecration) incorporating Thera, too. Santorini thus comes within the orbit of Cretan religious art. Theran symbolism, however, includes a feature peculiar to itself: an emblem in the form of an Ikria, which has no strict analogies in the Aegean world.

I - SANCTUARIES IN THE TOWN

One fresco shows a scene in a seaside town. There are no sacred elements on the facades depicted there, except for one case: a structure made of blue stone and red brick, which has a thick cornice or balcony (?) surmounted by horns of consecration painted white, as on the Cretan frescoes. It is undoubtedly a two-storey edifice, with a flat roof that could be used as an observation place, where two women, no doubt priestesses, are standing. It is situated near the main part of the town, next to a monumental entry with a stairway similar to that of the Phaistos palace. The small structure described here should perhaps be interpreted not as a dwelling-house but as a public shrine, since it is surmounted by horns of consecration, and is isolated from the town. Similar architectural schemes occur in the glyptic art of Crete. It used generally to be believed that there were no temples in the Minoan towns, because it was assumed that religion in the towns was practised inside the house or villa. But the latest excavations at Mallia (MM II) and revision of the information obtained from old digs ar Gournia (LM IB) suggest that the Minoan town or village possessed all the fundamental urbanistic elements, including a public shrine, that are characteristic of advanced socio-political organisms. We may take it, even, that every town and every village had its own public shrine (Rutkowski 1972, 310). What we see on this fresco - a sanctuary situated at the edge of the sea, in an area densely built up with dwellinghouses, and near the town wall - reminds us of a similar case at Haghia Eirene on Keos, although the wide staircase which appears to be leading up to a central courtyard is typical of Cretan towns.

The same fresco in another part depicts another holy place clearly situated outside the town. We know it is a holy place from the four pairs of horns of consecration surmounting a thick cornice. Since the horns stand not on top of the town wall, but at a distance of one ashlar from it, it is my belief that the artist's intention was not to indicate horns of consecration on top of a high wall, but a holy place, a temenos, out in the open country, on the outskirts of the town.

The same way of indicating a holy place, that is, by means of horns of consecration on a cornice, can be seen on an unpublished fresco from Haghia Triada in Iraklion (Platon 1959, 134f., no. 28). The temenoi on the outskirts of the town, or right out in the country, are indicated in abbreviated form, by symbols. One may compare with the above a terracotta group of dancers from Kamilari (Levi 1961/2, 139ff.; Rutkowski 1972, 212), shown in an area surrounded by what seems to be a low wall surmounted by horns of consecration testifying to the holy nature of the place. The importance of holy places outside the towns has been confirmed by archaeological excavations. As a rule these were open-air places, sometimes protected by a wall, and generally their most important feature was an altar. Remains of such structures have been found, for instance, in the West Courtyard of the Palace at Knossos (Evans 1928, 612ff.).

To sum up, then, the scene on the Thera fresco has two important features that are characteristic of Minoan towns: a public shrine and an open-air temenos on the outskirts of the town.

II -  RURAL SHRINES

Another part of the fresco depicts a scene which Marinatos (1974, colour pl. VII) describes as a "gathering on a hill", with a rocky landscape as background.

At first sight one might get the impression that the figures constitute a procession making its way up to the summit of a hill, to a peak sanctuary, but this interpretation should be rejected, for the following reason. The most important argument is the composition of the scene. The position of the figures, some higher and some lower, shows that the artist wished to depict them on different planes, that is, some nearer and some further away, in accordance with the principles of perspective adhered to in the Bronze Age. In another part of the miniature fresco, a wall surrounding a tree has been depicted in accordance with the same principle. This problem was similarly solved in other works of art dating from the Bronze Age, for instance on a Kato Zakro rhyton on which the higher situation of the temenos wall means that in reality it stood farther away (Platon 1971, drawing on p.165). Clearly this is the principle universally adopted in the Mediterranean countries, both in Egypt and in Assyria. So how should we  interpret the scene in question? The holy place is situated near the sea. In the centre of the scene are the rocks of a hill, and blue streaks indicate flowing water. So here we have a spring sanctuary typical of the Mediterranean world.

These sanctuaries were sometimes situated on quite flat ground, and sometimes in mountainous country. One example of the latter case, taken from Crete, is the Kato Symi Viannou temenos (Lembezi 1972, 193ff.) high in the mountains, where even today a gushing spring flows out of the rock near the sanctuary buildings. In the spring sanctuaries, buildings (shrines) were not typical features of the topography. An altar was usually all that sufficed for the performance of the cult rites. The topographic difference between the spring sanctuaries and the peak sanctuaries was mainly the different height of the sanctuary's position: the peak sanctuaries always occupied the summit, whereas the spring sanctuary might be situated just below the summit, as at Kato Symi. In my opinion, on the Thera fresco the procession of ceremoniously dressed men has stopped beside a spring.

III -  THE TRIPLE EMBLEM

The West House had a large number of big wall paintings on which the artist had depicted triple pillars, some of which were surmounted by leafy capitals or other motifs (Marinatos 1974, Colour Pl. 4). But as an object of practical use the triple emblem was attached to the cabin on ships. When these emblems appear in wall decorations they are probably not merely ornamental, but symbolic as well (Rutkowski 1977). As in the case of the Egyptian ships, the symbolic meaning of the triple emblem stems from its incorporation of sacred motifs: in Thera these were palm branches, lilies, and the "waz" motif used to crown the upperpart of the cabin. The simplified triple palm-tree motif is connected, via the three-living-trees motif (e.g. on Cretan pottery), with the "tree-of-life" motif. The fact that the cabin was adorned with an object of sacred significance also testifies to the captain's importance. When used as a motif in wall paintings, it becomes the emblem of the ship's captain, or ship's owner, and it joins the sacred elements to the symbol of secular authority. It may be that future excavations will reveal more about this motif. We may be able to learn whether it was the emblem of one shipowner, or whether it was the sacred emblem of Thera.

The different ways in which this emblem is crowned need not worry us, for in the case of the double axe, which is the sacred emblem of Knossos (or Crete), we are struck by its many different shapes, as well as by the use of different additional features. Similar diversification is found in the shape of the horns of consecration and in the variety of elements portrayed along with them such as a double axe, or a bough, or a pillar.

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