The main deities of Minoan religion were nature, worshipped as the Great Mother, and vegetation, personified by the young god who dies and is reborn. Another deity who dies is the young goddess, Kore. The relationship between the first two of these is both maternal and erotic, while that between the two young gods is that of brother and sister. All ancient religions have similar pairs of god. These deities were later referred to by a variety of names. The fertility goddess was called Great Mother, Mountain Mother, Mistress of the Animals, Kourotrophos. Idaean Mother, and Cybele-Rhea. Her various capacities were later inherited by the goddesses Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Athena.
The young vegetation god was later known as the Divine Infant, Great Kouros, Velchanos, Hyacinth, and Dionysos, while the young goddess had the names Diktynna, Britomartis, and Kore. These three deities were attended by daemons, who were hybrid creatures that participated in their cults.
The deities are depicted in small figurines. There were only a few large figurines and hardly any life-size xoana (wooden cult statues with stone extremities), according to the surviving evidence (bronze ‘wig’ from the East Throne Room at Knossos, clay life-size feet from Anemospilia at Archanes). Some of the small figurines (Snake Goddess) probably served a cult purpose. Terracotta figurines of the Goddess with Raised Arms, which are rather standardized and quite large, are common in Post-palace times.
Bell-shaped figurines are distinctive terracotta objects that have vertical handles and horn-like protrusions, and in which the eyes and nose are rendered. They have been interpreted as models of masks or stylized figures.
The deity was manifested in a variety of the other ways, apart from the figurines. Members of the royal family or priesthood received the worship of the faithful on behalf of the god. This is clear from a number of pictorial representations in which they are shown seated on a throne or in a public square, or beneath the sacred tree. Other scenes show figures suspended in the air, coming down from heaven, or descending steps and being greeted by the worshippers – the priests and people. These are scenes of the epiphany of the god. In other cases, the deity is seated on an altar or in a shrine. The forms taken by the god making an epiphany are the sacred bird (dove) or other sacred animal (wild goat, bull, cow, panther, snake). In later periods, a tradition was invented for each sacred animal, linking it with the deity: Goat/Amaltheia, nurse of the Divine Infant, Bull/Zeus, who couples with Europa and Pasiphae, Ophis/Erechtheus, who is the protective snake, etc.
Dr Andonis Vasilakis