Kernos

Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion

grecque antique
12 | 1999
Varia

The Death of Zeus Kretagenes

N. Postlethwaite

Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/711
DOI: 10.4000/kernos.711
ISSN: 2034-7871

Publisher
Centre international d'étude de la religion grecque antique

Printed version
Date of publication: 1 January 1999
Number of pages: 85-98
ISSN: 0776-3824

Electronic reference
N. Postlethwaite, « The Death of Zeus Kretagenes », Kernos [Online], 12 | 1999, Online since 13 April
2011, connection on 01 May 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/711 ; DOI : 10.4000/
kernos.711

Kernos
 Kernos, 12 (1999), p. 85-98.

The Death of Zeus Kretagenes

Since its inception in 1988, contributors ta Kernos have frequently been

drawn ta the subject of Cretan Zeus, In its inaugural volume, J.A.
Sakellarakis 1 welcomed the resumption of the investigation of the Idaean
cave on Psiloritis by the Archaeological Society of Athens. He was able ta
daim that this investigation had made available, for the first time, evidence
that the Minoans had used the cave for religious purposes from. the Early,
through the Middle, and into the Late Minoa.n periods: and there was there,
he dedared, "explicit and unquestionable" evidence that the "origin of the
singular worship of Cretan Zeus, the god who was barn and died every year,
lies in the prehistoric, Minoan deity, the young god who personified the
yearly birth and death of the vegetation cyde"z.
Subsequently E,F. Bloedow 3 focused on another Cretan peak, Mt.
Iouktas, and in particular on its peak sanctuary, which was investigated by
Evans in 1909 and reported by him in The Palace of Minos at Knossos4 .
Bloedow argued that the sanctuary had housed the cult of Cretan Zeus,
against Evans' contention that it had been the sanctuary of the cult of the
Great Mother Goddess: he did sa by painting ta the lack of primary evidence
ta support Evans' daim, and by referring ta the recent re-investigation of the
site by A. Karetsou 5 . In particular, Bloedow drew attention ta the natural
chasm, which descends between the two terraces of the sanctuary and
which was excavated by Karetsou ta a depth of 10.50 m., and ta the altar
which was positioned at its entrancej and he asked "given the long tradition
of the site as the 'tomb of Zeus', what place could be more suitable as the
burial spot of Cretan Zeus, who dies annually and is reborn annually?", In
particular, he daimed that "this becomes aIl the more plausible, given the
famous nature of the myth, and the enduring character of the tradition asso-

].A. SAKELLARAKIS, The Idaean Cave. Minoan and Greek Worship, in Kernos, 1
(1988), p. 207-214.
Z
SAKELLARAKIS, ibid., p. 212.
3 E.F. BLOEDOW, Evidence for an Early Date for the Cult of C/-etan Zeus, in Kernos, 4
(1991), p. 139-177.
4 A.]. The Palace ofMinos atKnossos 1, London, 1921, p. 151-163.
EVANS,

A. KARETSOU,The Peak Sanctuary of Mt. Juktas, in R. HXGG & N. MARINATOS (eds.),

Sanctuaries and Cuits in the Aegean Bronze Age, Stockholm, 1981, p. 137-153.
 86 N. POSTLETHWAITE

ciated with it,,6. Bloedow pointed to two large double axes which were
discovered in the vicinity of the altar and, recalling Burkert's demonstration
that "the double axe is a symbol of power, the power to kill,,7, and declaring
the two axes to be of a size suitable for bull-slaughter, he argued that the
likelihood was that a bouphonia was a feature of the cult; and 50 he sugges-
ted that "the slaying of the bull in the original cult presumably symbolised the
dying of Zeus"s. Since the double axe is such a recurring motif in Minoan
culture, and partieularly in view of the presence of thirty-two smaller
examples (0.12-0.09 m.long) found in the immediate vicinity and apparently
having only a symbolic function, it remains open to doubt whether Bloedow
is justified in thus attaching a practieal signifieance to these two larger ones.
Yet the presence of quantities of animal bones in the nearby structure at
Anemospilia, designated a 'temple' by its excavators (discussed below), cer-
tainly suggests regular animal sacrifiee. Since the altar and the double axes
are dated to the Old Palace stratum, Bloedow concluded that "we may there-
fore now also envisage the existence of an independent, specifie cult of
Cretan Zeus going back to at least the MM 1 A period,,9.
The tradition of the birth of Zeus in the island of Crete was established by
the time of Hesiod: it told that his mother Rhea was brought to Lyktos to give
birth to him and that she deceived his father Kronos, who had devoured ail
their offspring, by giving him a stone in place of her last-born lO . In addition,
however, there was a persistent tradition suggesting, not merely the birth, but
rathel' the rebirth, of a deity who also died, as a youth, each year. For
example, Antoninus Liberalis 19 tells that:
'In Crete there is said to be a sacred cave full of bees. In it, as stOlyteliers
say, 1 Rhea gave birth to Zeus; it is a sacred place and no one is to go neal' it,
whether / god or mortai. At the appointed time each year a great blaze is
seen to come out / of the cave. Theil' story goes on to say that this happens
whenever the blood from / the birth of Zeus begins to boil up'. II

This annual (Ka8' ëKacrtoV ËtOç;) epiphany of the god, involving the blood
boiling up from the birth of Zeus aKÇÉn tà tOÛ ［￧￠ｴｾ ÉK ［￧ｾｴ YEVÉcrEroÇ; aIlla), and
the accompanying blaze from the cave are interpreted by West 12 as symbolic
of the return of the rising sap to vegetation at the onset of spring. The pas-
sage contains no reference to the subsequent death of the deity but, if the
event recorded by Antoninus is indeed the vernal appearance of the god of

6
BLOEDOW, lac. cit. (n. 3), p. 163.
7
W. BURKERT, Greek Religion, Archaic and Classical, Oxforâ, 1985, p. 38.
S
BLOEDOW, lac. cit. (n. 3), p. 163.
9 BLOEDOW, lac. cit. (n. 3), p. 169.

10 HES., Tb., 453-491.

II F. CELORIA, Tbe Metamorphoses ofAntoninus Liberalis, London, 1992, p. 74.
12 M.L. WEST, Tbe Dictaean Hymn ta the Kouros, inJHS, 85 (965), p. 149-159.
 The Death of Zeus Kretagenes 87

vegetation, then such wouId be the natural consequence to symbolise the

dying season.
In the Diktaian Hymn to the Kouros, which was discovered at the site of
the temple of Zeus Diktaios at Palaikastro, the addressee is implored (1-6):
lo! Greatest Kouros,
hait, son of Kronos,
master of ail, who to earth art gone
with the powers in train, now come again
to Dikte at the year's wend
and hear with gladness our refrain!

Although not actually addressed as Zeus, it seems dear from the invoca-
tion that the Kouros is to be identified with him ('son of Kronos'). In the third
line of the hymn, 1taYKpa'tÉç yâv oç Ｌ￧ｅｋ｡ｾ￉ｰ yâv oç is West's proposed reading
of the inscription's fANO!:. Although a meaning such as 'almighty brightness'
for yavoç wouId add a further title to the invocation of the Kouros - 'greatest
Kouros, master of all, almighty brightness' - , as West points out, it leaves the
verb ｾ￉ｰ｡ｋｅ￧ isolated, resulting in a dedaration that the deity has gone but
with no indication given of his destination. West's proposed reading provides
just such a destination in yâv, and, together with the prayer that he 'come
again to Dikte at the year's wend', MK'tav Èç Èvtau'tov Ëp1tE, it may identify
him as a deity of nature who dies with the end of the year and is reborn with
its renewal. West condudes that "while Zeus accepted from the Kouros the
condition of death, the Kouros, under the influence of Zeus, renounced the
ignominy of dying, and became ·like Kore an immortal who 'went to earth'
and returned each year,,13.
Thirdly, in his Life of Pythagoras, Porphyry recounts that Pythagoras put
in at Crete whilst on a journey to Haly; he descended into the Idaian Cave,
spent thrice nine days there, made sacrifice to Zeus, and viewed the throne
which was spread for the deity 'each year'; he daims too that Pythagoras
inscribed an epigram, 'Pythagoras to Zeus', on the god's tomb, which began
Here lies dead Zan, whom men call Zeus 14.

Whilst it is dearly essential to be circumspect in thus conflating sources

which range from the 4th/3rd centuries BC to the 3rd century AD, we should
note that in each of the three there is the suggestion of an annual ritual and,
in the case of Porphyry and (West's emendation of) the Hymn to the Kouros,
the suggestion of the god's death also. Equally, however, we should note
that in none is there any indication of the manner of his death.

13 Ibid., p. 159.
14 PORPH., Vita Pyth., 17: cf M. KOKOLAKIS, Zeus' Tomb. An abject of Pride and
Repl'Oach, in Kernos, 8 (1995), p. 124.
 88 N. POSTLETHWAITE

It has been general1y accepted that this picture of Zeus in Crete, as a deity
who embraces both life and death each year, was derived from a pre-
Hel1enic, Minoan, cult of the dying god, which was itself dosely associated
with the central role in Minoan culture of the figure of the Mother Goddess,
although this suggestion of a pre-Hellenic Ofigin has been challenged recently
by H. Verbruggen I5 . In this paper 1 wish to support this traditional account of
Cretan Zeus, by associating with it evidence provided by the excavations at
the site of Anemospilia, below the summit of Mt. Iouktas, which 1 suggest
may make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the cult.

Whilst the daim of Crete to be the birthplace of Zeus was widely accep-
ted Cthough a daim was also made for Mt. Lykaion in Arcadia), the myth that
the god also died and was buried in the island was unique to Crete, and
indeed was dismissed by outsiders as sure evidence of Cretan mendacity. The
most famous account of the myth is found in Callimachus' Hymn ta Zeus:
How shaIl we sing of him [Zeus] - as lord of Dicte or of Lycaeum?
My soul is aIl in doubt, since debated is his birth. 0 Zeus, some
say that thou wert barn on the hills of Ida; others, 0 Zeus, say in
Arcadia; did these or those, 0 Father, lie?
"Cretans are ever liars".
Yea, a tomb, 0 Lord, for thee the Cretans builded; but thou didst not
die, for thou art for ever 16 .

The source of the gnomic "Cretans are ever liars" has generally been
taken to be the Cretan Epimenides; however, it is undear whether the words
in the Hymn are to be taken as spoken by him, Of by Callimachus himself, or
indeed by Zeus 17 . The Scholia to the Hymn attempted to rationalise this
strange tale of Zeus' burial thus:
In Crete on the tomb of Minos was inscribed The Tomb of Minos Son of
Zeus. In time the words Minos Son of were erased, sa that what remained was
The Tomb of Zeus 18 .

The tomb itself was variously located: in the region of Knossosj within
the Idaian Cave; and on Mt. Dikte 19 . However, until the visit to the area by
°,
C. Buondelmonti in 1415 2 there seems to have been no recorded association

15 H. VERBRUGGEN, Le Zeus Crétois, Paris, 1981.

16 CALLIM., Hymns, 1, 4-9: A.W. MAIR (tr.), Callimachus and Lycophron, Loeb, 1921.
17 N. HOPKINSON, Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, in CQ, 34 (1984), p. 140.
18 References to the death and burial of Zeus are collected by A.B. COOK, Zeus. A
Study in Ancient Religion, Cambridge, 1925, H, p. 940-943, and are discussed in detai! by
KOKOLAKIS, lac. cit. (n. 14).
19 KOKOLAKIS, lac. cit. (n. 14), p. 125.
20 Cf. P. FAURE, Le Mont ]ouktas, tombeau de Zeus, in Minoica. Festschrift Joh.
Sundwall, Berlin, 1958, p. 133-148.
 The Death of Zeus Kretagenes 89

of the tomb with Mt. Iouktas, even though this became the popular location
in later times.

The Cretan tale of the dying Zeus recalls the staries of other dying gods,
most notably Adonis and Attis. The story of Adonis and Aphrodite was adap-
ted from that of the Akkadian Tammuz and Ishtar (which was itself derived
from the story of Sumerian Dumuzi and Inanna). In the Mesopotamian myth
the young consort Tammuz/Dumuzi died in representation of the dying
season and was mourned by the Mother Goddess figure Ishtar/lnanna 21 ;
similarly Adonis tao died, as described in the version of Apollodorus which
begins with the story of his mother Smyrna:
In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honour the
goddess, / this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the
complicity of her / nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge
for twelve nights. But / when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and
pursued her, and being overtaken / she prayed to the gods that she might be
invisible; sa the gods in compassion turned / her into the tree which they calI
smyrna (myrrh). Ten months afterwards the tree / burst and Adonis, as he is
called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while / he was still an
.infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted / to
Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him baclc
/ The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and
the god / ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the
year, with Persephone / for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder.
However Adonis made over to / Aphrodite his own share in addition; but
afterwards in hunting he was gored and / killed by a boar 22 .

Bion 23 records that Adonis took the fatal wound from the boar in his
thigh; Ovid 24 on the other hand says it was in the groin, which seems ta
reflect a version in which Adonis may have suffered emasculation by the
boar 25 .
Another dying god was Attis, of whose story there are two versions, bath
of which are recorded by Pausanias 26 , who names as his source the elegiac
poet Hermesianax:
".that Attis migrated to Lydia and celebrated for the Lydians the orgies of
the Mother; that he rose to such honour with her that Zeus, being wroth at it,
sent a boar to destroy the tillage of the Lydians. Then certain Lydians, with

21 For discussion of the myth, see J.D. REED, The Sexuality of Adonis, in CIAnt, 14
(1995), p. 317-347.
22 ApOLLOD., III, 14, 4: ].G. FRAZER (tc), Apollodorus: The Librmy, Loeb, 1921.
23 BION, 1, 7-8.
24 Gvm, Metam., X, 715; cf Amores, III, 9, 16.
25 REED, loc. ci!. (n. 21), p. 335.
26
PAllS., VII, 17,9-11: W.H.S. JONES (tc), Pausanias: Descnption ofGreece, Loeb, 1933.
 90 N. POSTLETHWAITE

Attis himself, were killed by the boar ... But the current view about Attis is
different, the local legend about him being this. Zeus, it is said, let faU in his
sleep seed upon the ground, which in course of time sent up a demon, with
two sexual organs, male and female. They caU the demon Agdistis. But the
gods, fearing Agdistis, eut off the male organ. There grew up from it an
almond-tree with its ripe flUit, and a daughter of the river Sangarius, they say,
took of the flUit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but
she was with chi/d. A boy was born, and exposed, but was tended by a he-
goat. As he grew up his beauty was more than human, and Agdistis fel! in
love with him. Whenhe had grown up, Attis was sent by his relatives to
Pessinus, that he might wed the king's daughter. The marriage-song was being
sung, when Agdistis appeared, and Attis went mad and eut off his [own] geni-
taIs, as also did he who was giving him his daughter in marriage.

An interesting variant of the story of Attis is given by Herodotus, who tells

of the divine punishment which befell Croesus: after entertaining Solon, and
after giving him a conducted tour of his treasures, Croesus invited him to
recall whether in the course of his travels Solon had ever encountered a man
blest beyond ail men; but when Solon failed to include Croesus amongst his
catalogue of the blest, he was mdely dismissed by him; and in consequence
divine nemesis feH upon Croesus. Herodotus recounts that Croesus had a
dream that his son, who was named Atys, would be killed by an iron spear.
To guard against this, Croesus forbade his son to take part in any military
exercise, removed ail javelins and spears from the men's apartments lest one
fall upon his son by accident, and even married his son off in order to pro-
vide him with distractions from military pursuits. In time a great boar appea-
red, which ravaged the territory of the Mysians; Atys at last secured his
father's permission to join the boar-hunt, on the grounds that Croesus' dream
had said nothing of death by boar's tusk; but after the huntsmen formed
themselves into a circle around the boar, Atys was fatally wounded by a
misdirected spear-cast from one Adrastus, a grandson of Midas, whom
Croesus had received into his home as a suppliant and purified 27 . For ail that
Herodotus' tale contains a variant spelling of the name Attis, and for aH that
the story seems to have been rationalised in keeping with the more
'historical' setting, nevertheless the fundamentals of the Attis story remain
intact.
Once again we should be hesitant in assembling sources which range
from the second millenium BC to the second century AD; nevertheless we
observe not merely the fact of the deaths of Adonis and Attis, but also the
common element of the ､･｡ｴｨｾ､･｡ｬｩｮｧ boar, coupIed with the element of
self-emasculation or emasculation by the boar.

It is an extraordinary fact that, amongst the many references to the death

and burial of Zeus in Crete which were collected by Cook (see note 18),

27 HERM., 1, 30-43.
 The Death of Zeus Kretagenes 91

none in fact gives an account of the death itself: the sources accept the fact
(or the fiction) of the death, but are exercised rather by the location of the
burial. For an allusion to the manner of Zeus' death it is necessary to turn to
Isho'dad, a follower of Nestorius, in his Commentary on the Acts of the
Apostles, who daimed as his source Theodore of Mopsuestia; in his note on
Acts 17.28 Isho'dad reports:
The Cretans said about Zeus, as if it were true, that he was a prince, and
was lacerated by / a wild boar, and was buried; and behold! his grave is
known amongst us; sa Minos, the son / of Zeus, made a panegyric over his
father, and in it he said
"The Cretans have fashioned a tomb for thee, 0 Holy and High!
Liars, evil beasts, idle bellies;
For thou diest not; for ever thou livest and standest;
For in thee we live and move and have our being,,28.

In this account of his death, Zeus appears to be associated with the

deaths of Adonis and Attis, not merely in the reported fact of his death, but
in its violent nature also, and in particular in the instrumentality of the wild
boar. Since Isho'dad himself in the ninth century AD, and his source
Theodore in the 4th/5th century AD, are so far removed from the legend
which they purport to recall, we should have even greater reservations than
in the case of the sources recorded above and acknowledge the probable
aetiological nature of the story: granted the daim of the Cretans (albeit a
daim dismissed by aIl other Greeks) that Zeus died in their island, the need
to account for it might weil have led to its association with the tales of other
dying gods. Nevertheless the possibility that Isho'dad's stOlY may in fact
reflect an earlier belief has, l will try to demonstrate below, been enhanced
by the recent archaeological discovery of evidence suggesting the involve-
ment of the boar in the cult practice of Minoan Crete.

The remarkable discovery, made at the site of Anemospilia in 1979 by

J. and E. Sakellarakis, of what the excavators have interpreted as a human
sacrifice, has recently been made available to a wide audience 29 and there is
consequently little need to give more than a broad outline here. In relation to
the myth of the dying Zeus, the nature and location of the site are of signifi-
cance, on the northern slopes of Mt. Iouktas about 400m. below its summit,
"on a small tongue of land juttihg out precisely at the point where the rocky
mountain bed and cultivable land start to converge"30, and beside the road

28 COOK, op. cil. (n. 18), i, p. 663.

29 ].A SAKELLARAKIS & E. SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKI, Arehalles, Athens, 1991, p. 137-156; an
earlier account in English has been available for sorne time in Drama of Dealh ill a
Milloall Temple, in National Geographie (Feb. 1981), p. 205-222; a full account in Greek of
the excavation was given in ].A. & E. SAKELLARAKIS, 'AvaaKaep1} 'APXavwv, in PAAH (1979),
p. 331-392.
30 Op. eif., p. 137.
 92 N. POSTLETHWAITE

from the major palace site of Archanes to the peak shrine on the mountain's
summit. Because the structure excavated is the sole structure on the site, and
because the remains of a temenos wall were discovered at its southern edge,
the excavators have had no reservation about identifying the structure as a
temple, the earliest temple of Minoan Crete. MM II and MM III A pottery
discovered in the ruins of the structure indicate that it was destroyed in the
first haIf of the 17th. century BC, and the ruins indicate that the cause was a
devastating earthquake followed by an intense conflagration. The structure
comprises three rooms without connecting doors, on an east-west axis facing
north; each chamber has a door opening on its north side into a connecting
corridor, which has been described as a prothalamos. It appears that there
may have been three matching chambers on the opposite side of the corri-
dor, and that there was an upper storey from which substantial debris fell
during the building's collapse.
In the corridor were found the fragments of sorne 155 vessels, many
containing the remains of fruits, grains, and pulses. A human skeleton,
crushed beyond recognition by falling masonry, was found in close associa-
tion with fragments of a Kamares-ware vase decorated with a bull motif. It
was suggested that bull sacrifice was a part of the rituals enacted in the buil-
ding, and that its preparation, and that of other offerings, took place in the
prothalamos; the remains suggested a hurried attempt to evacuate the corri-
dor at the moment of destruction. The east chamber contained a stepped
altar on its southern wall, and the discovery of large quantities of vessels
associated with the remains of fruits and grains indicated that the chamber's
function was to house bloodless offerings. In the central chamber also there
was a raised area on the southern wall, on which there rested two life-sized
clay feet with their ankles shaped as a dowel, suggesting that they had acted
as supports for a xoanon, a wooden statue, and the presence of an ash
deposit confirmed this as their function. A mound of natural rock in this
central chamber indicated that the deity most likely represented by the
xoanon was the Earth Mother, and that the function of this chamber was to
house her cult statue. Finally in the third, west, chamber were discovered
three skeletons whose configuration suggested to the excavators that the
earthquake had interrupted, and preserved in the most fortuitous fashion, a
ritual involving human sacrifice. The first skeleton, found in the SW corner of
the chamber, was that of a female aged approximately 28; the skeleton was
lying face down and was badly crushed by falling masonry, and the bones
were blackened by the ensuing fire. A second skeleton was found by the
west wall of the chamber, that of a male aged approximately 38; he was lying
on his back with hands raised as though in an instinctive gesture of fending
off falling masonry; this skeleton too was badly crushed and blackened. On
the little finger of his left hand he was wearing a ring of silver and iron, the
latter a most valuable commodity, indicating its owner as a person of consi-
derable importance. He was also wearing an agate sealstone portraying a
male figure punting a boat of which the prow was fashioned in the shape of
 The Deatb of Zeus Kretagenes 93

a bird, A third skeleton was found lying on an elevated area, artificially

constructed from stones bound by a clay cement; this was the skeleton of a
male aged approximately 18 years, and its configuration, lying on its side with
left leg bent back so that the heel was almost in contact with the back of the
thigh, suggested to the excavators that the young man may have been bound
at the time of his death. This skeleton was even more badly Clushed than the
others, and across the torso laya bronze blade 40 cm. in length and weighing
633 grams, The blade was originally described by the excavators as a knife,
but the presence of two attachment slots has subsequently caused them to
entertain the suggestion that it may in fact be a lance of sorne description 31 .
The fact that the bones on the lower, right, side of the skeleton had been
blackened by the ensuing fire, whereas those on the upper, left, side were of
a much lighter colour was, the excavators were advised, an indication that
the young man had perished, not in the earthquake but as a result of blood
loss prior to the conflagration.
The discoveries at AnemospiHa have been declared by their excavators to
present unequivocal evidence for the ritual of human sacrifice. The presence
elsewhere in the building of animal bones, as well as the remains of fruits and
grains, marked the structure as a place of blood and bloodless sacrifice; the
remains of the cult idol in the central chamber indicated the likely recipient
of the offerings; the presence of an apparently healthy 18 year old lying
bound on a structure taken to be an altar (with the possibility that a wooden
structure was mounted upon the artificial stone area), with an ornate blade
resting across his upper torso, indicated the victim; and the presence in the
chamber of two further individuals, identified as priest and priestess by the
excavators , indicated the perpetrators of the deed, particularly in view of the
distinctive sealstone worn by the male, with its representation of a man pun-
ting a boat, which was suggestive of the final journey of the dead, transpor-
ted by a Charon-like figure. That the participants should, exceptionally, on
this occasion have turned from the norm of animal and/or bloodless sacrifice
to the extreme of human sacrifice was to be explained by the nature of the
destruction: in effect, the young male victim was a scapegoat, a pharmakos,
by whose death it was hoped to ward off the very earthquake which brought
about the destruction of the building and sealed in its unique contents.
The interpretation àf the discoveries at Anemospilia offered by
Sakellarakis and Sapouna-Sakellaraki, and their (at times) vivid reconstruc-
tion of events accompanying the destruction of the building, have, not sur-
prisingly, been challenged by D,D, Hughes 32 and, more recently, by
p, Bonnechere 33 , Hughes has questioned both the details and their proposed
interpretation: he has disputed the claim that bull sacrifice could have occur-

31 Op, CÎt., p, 132,

32 D.D, HUGHES, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, London, 1991.
33 p, BONNECHERE, Les indices archéologiques du sacrifice humain grec en question,'
compléments à une publication récente, in Kernos, 6 (1993), p. 23-55.
 94 N. POSTLETHWAITE

red within such a confined and congested building, and in particular within
the corridor where the presence of large quantities of pottery would have
rendered such activity impossible; he has disputed the identification of the
artificial structure on which the skeleton of the 18 year old was resting as an
altar, on the grounds that it bears no resemblance to representations of the
structures on which animal sacrifice takes place, such as on the Hagia
Triadha sarcophagus where the beast is strapped down on a table-like struc-
ture; and he has disputed that the variations in discolouration of the young
man's bones are to be explained by the suggestion that the blood was drai-
ning from his body, and accepts rather the expIanation that different palts of
the body were exposed to varying degrees of intensity of heat from the
conflagration which followed the earthquake; finally, Hughes suggests that
the position of the young man's body mayas weIl be explained as an acci-
dent, that he tripped during the general confusion accompanying the earth
tremors, coming to rest, as he was found, on the elevated area, and that the
presence of the blade across his torso was simihirly accidentaI, having per-
haps fallen from a wall or from the upper storey during the building's
collapse 34 .
In tum, P. Bonnechere has attempted to reinforce Hughes' doubts:
because of the restricted area, he too denied that animal sacrifice could have
been the norm in the Anemospilia building, replaced on this occasion by the
supposed human sacrifice because of the exceptional circumstances of the
moment; he too disputes the identification of the altar on which the young
man was lying; he suggests that the presence of the blade across the torso
may be explained as a weapon which the young man was carrying or even
wearing "attachée à sa ceinture"; and he too accepts variation in exposure to
the fire as explanation of variation in discolouration of the bones.
Bonnechere concludes "il n'existe, au demeurant, aucune raison de favoriser
cette [Sakellarakis'] thèse vis-à-vis de celles qui, de façon moins extraordi-
naire mais plus plausible, envisagent le décès accidentel des trois personnes
incriminées,,35.
In their objections, both Hughes and Bonnechere have, quite correctly,
concentrated upon the details of the excavation and their interpretation. In
fact, however, a fUlther objection might be raised, with perhaps even greater
validity, on the question of the motive for the human sacrifice which was
proposed by the excavators. In view of the familiarity which, it may reason-
ably be assuined, the inhabitants of the island had with the Cat times) de-
vastating impact of ealthquake upon person and place, it is, at the velY least,
a surprising suggestion that at a time of earthquake the participants in this
ritual should have undertaken it within the structure 36 , assuming, that is, that

34 HUGHES, op. cif. (n. 32), p. 13-17.

35 BONNECHERE, lac. cif. (n. 33), p. 26.
36 SAKELLARAKIS & SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKI, op. cif. (n. 29), p. 156.
 The Death of Zeus Kretagenes 95

they had been given prior warning of the earthquake's imminence. Yet it is
an equally unlikely suggestion that such an amount of warning was given.
The site of the structure is itself remote, lying some 3 km. from the major
centre of population at Archanes, and it seems highly unlikely that this, or
any other, earthquake would have given sufficient warning to allow the
transpottation of the, possibly unwilling, victim half way to the summit of Mt.
Iouktas; and even if sufficient warning had been given, the ritual would
surely have taken place out of doors in order to avoid precisely the expe-
rience which befell the unfortunate victims. The only alternative would seem
to be the suggestion that evetything, including the intended victim, was
already in place on the mountainside in anticipation of the moment when
earthquake might strike. It seems more realistic to conclude either, with
Hughes and Bonnechere, that no sacrifice was taking place and that we must
suppose that the four victims of the earthquake were simply going about
their daily business within the building; or, with the excavators , that a sacri-
fice was indeed taking place, but for a different purpose than they supposed.
In their most recent account of their discoveries, the excavators have
taken some notice of possible objections: they have, for example, attempted
to accommodate the observation that, as excavated, the stone elevation on
which the victim was lying bears no resemblance to illustrations of animal
sacrifice, by suggesting that he may have been lying on a wooden structure
above the artificial stone level. However, despite objections, they have
insisted on their explanation of the variation in the discolouration of the
skeletons found, and their aceount of the manner of death of the young
man: "death occurred subsequent to the severing of the extended jugular
carotid in the left part of the neck. The Minoans knew from bull sacrifices
that this was the point from which the most amount of blood could be
drawn ... The earthquake must have occurred after the sacrifice had been
performed and prior to any attempt to remove the victim from the altar. The
blood which had been collected in the buckets had already been offered to
the cult idol, as similar vessels found in the central room testify, not to
mention the blood-Iaden Kamares vase depicting a bull, the animal most
usually sacrificed,,37.
Bonnechere terms this account "la principale faille de l'hypothèse des
Sakellarakis,,38. In reality, however, the interpretation suggested by the
excavators does not depend upon the detail of the bones' discolouration
which is so fervently disputed; indeed, even if this contentious detail is
removed entirely from consideration, it may be argued that a substantial case
for a human sacrifice remains, since the interpretations of the evidence
suggested by both Hughes and Bonnechere rest, essentially, upon a descrip-
tion of the accidentaI and the unlikely. The young man, it is supposed,

37 Ibid., p. 154.
38 BONNECHERE, ioe. eif. (n. 33), p. 25
 96 N. POSTLETHWAITE

accidentally fell upon the elevated area, and the blade accidentally fell upon
him - in a manner, incidentally, already made familial' by Herodotus' account
of Croesus' fears for his son Atys. Yet for those who may find the evidence
from Anemospilia provoking but, like Hughes and Bonnechere, consider it
less than compelling as proof of the practice of human sacrifice, one further
alternative may be suggested: that the ritual which was interrupted by the
earthquake was merely of a symbolic nature, a re-enactment perhaps of a
mythical event. In this case it would be necessary to dismiss not merely the
hypothesis that the victim died of blood loss rather than as a consequence of
the collapse of the building, but also the excavators' suggestion that he was
bound at the time of his death. However, for the purpose of the interpreta-
tion suggested here, it matters little whether there was an actual sacrifice
occurring at the time of the earthquake or whether the events were merely
symbolic, the mock wounding of the victim. For l propose that, on either
interpretation, the discoveries at Anemospilia reveal the ritual enactment of
the death of the god, of Zeus Kretagenes.

An important omission made by both of the critics of Sakellarakis is the

possible significance of the location of the building described as a Minoan
temple, on the slopes of Mt. Iouktas, and of the blade which was discovered
lying across the torso of the supposed victim. The blade has been described
by Sakellarakis thus 39 : "The bronze weapon (0.40 m. long) belongs to a very
rare type with a short handle and two holes in the middle. The few such
weapons that have previously come to light were long classified as knives
but recent research does not exclude the possibility that typologically they
are, in fact, lances of sorne description. Depicted precisely in the middle of
the lance on both sides is a cast and incised decoration of the head of a
fantastic beast with erect ears like butterfly-wings, a long nose, and boar-like
tusks. The eyes resemble a fox's while the whole animal is feline in character.
Perhaps these various elements had been purposely chosen for symbolic
reasons. The heads thus do not constitute a simple decorative motif but
should be seen as an emblem". In fact, however, for ail the attention paid in
this description to the details of the ears and the eyes, it is the snout and the
curved tusks which identify the creature incised on the blade as, quite
unambiguously, a boar. Assuming that the blade was indeed the instrument
of death or of mock-wounding, the iconography of the blade suggests that
the young victim was put to death, in reality or symbolically, with a lance in
the form of a boar, or, by a boar in the form of a lance. As was observed
earlier, it was the shared fate of Adonis and Attis to die by being gored by a
boar, with possibly the additional connotation of self-emasculation or
emasculation by the boar. It was a fate which, to judge by the little detail
which attaches to the supposed death of Zeus in Crete, was suffered by him
also. It may therefore be reasonable to suggest that the blade depicting the

39 SAKELLARAKIS & SAPOUNA-SAKELLARAKI, op. dt. (n. 29), p. 154.

 The Death of Zeus Kretagenes 97

boar's head associates the sacrificial victim with the violent deaths of these
divine figures.
The location of the Anemospilia structure, on the northern slopes of Mt.
Iouktas, may itself make a contribution to the significanceof the discoveries
made within it, in that the tradition of Zeus' burial in Crete came to be
closely associated with that peak. There seems to be little room for doubt
that the tradition of Zeus' burial there arose from the very appearance of the
mountain, in that its outline, when viewed from the west, reveals the profile
of a bearded head reclining as in sleep or in death. A.B. Cook40 has called
attention to the possible derivation of the mountain's name fWUKtaç from an
earlier form ｾｈￛｋｴ｡￧Ｌ meaning 'the Pursuer'. He recalls that Callimachus'
Hymn ta Artemis41 describes the pursuit of Britomartis by the enamoured
Minos; in an attempt to escape his clutches, she threw herself into the sea
from a crag, but she was saved by the nets of sorne fishermen; and from that
time Britomartis became known as Diktyna, Lady of the Nets, and the crag
from which she jumped was Imown as Dikte, Hill of the Nets 42 .. Cook has
suggested the possibility that the pursuing Minos may himself in turn have
been transformed into the mountain known ｡ｓｾｬ｣ｏｋｴ｡￧Ｏｬｯｵｫｴ｡ｳＬ 'The
Pursuer', though he is unable to point to supporting evidencej and it may be
possible to accommodate the association of the dying Zeus with Mt. Iouktas
by suggesting that the Pursuer in fact refers to Zeus the Hunter who, like
Adonis and Attis, was killed by his prey, the boar: but, as in Cook's sugges-
tion, no supporting evidence can be adduced.
However, an alternative; and rather more convincing, etymology has been
suggested by P. Faure 43 . Observing the tendency in the modern Cretan dialect
for Yla- YIO- to replace èlta- (510-, and also its tendency to end the names of
mountains in -aç, Faure has suggested a ､･ｲｩｶｾｴｯｮ ＪｾｬｏｵｸＸＰ￧ - ＪｾｷｵｸＸ｡￧ -
flOuXtaç: that is, the name fwuXtaç is derived from ｾｬ￠￧ OX80ç, meaning 'the
sacred mountain of Zeus'. In this case, Faure suggests, it is fruitless to seek,
as so many have done, a cave or cairn on the mountain as the god's resting
place; rather it is the entire mountain which was sacred to him, and beneath
which, it was believed, he lay buriedj and it was the appearance of the
mountain, with its striking profile, which attracted to it the myth of Zeus'
burial.

The case argued here is cumulative: that the worship of Zeus in Crete as a
god who died, and was reborn, annually, was derived from the Minoan cult
of a god of vegetation who similarly died and was reborn; that the Calbeit

40 COOK, op. cif. (n. 18), H, p. 939.

41 CALLIM., Hymns, 3, 190f.
42 DIODORUS (V, 76, 3) offers the same story, though he also includes an alternative
version that she was called Lady of the Nets because she was a huntress, sometimes
confused with Artemis herself.
43 FAURE, lac. cif. (n. 20), p. 146-147.
 98 N. POSTLETHWAITE

limited) evidence, that Zeus died by being tom by a boar, associates him as
dying god with other vegetation gods, such as Adonis and Attis, who also
were killed by a boarj that the death and burial of Zeus were associated with
Mt. Iouktas because its profile represented the dead god reclining in death,
and that the mountain thus took the name 'sacred mountain of Zeus'. It may
thus be far from coincidental that it is on this same mountain that the
remains were discovered of what has been termed by the excavators a
human sacrifice, during the ritual of which the young male victim had been
done to death with a blade bearing the representation of a boar. For many, it
has been a cause of unease that the most substantial evidence for the
practice of human sacrifice in Minoan Crete should have derived from such
fortuitous circumstances: for had the ritual not been interrupted by the
earthquake's devastation, the evidence would not have remained to be
discovered. It was perhaps partly this unease which led the excavators
themselves to draw the conclusion that the earthquake was the cause of the
sacrifice. However, 1 suggest that the evidence of the location of the site and
of the decoration of the blade argues that the occasion of the sacrifice, or of
the mock-wounding, was considerably more important, and that conse-
quently the discovery may have been even more fortuitous than has been
supposed: that the earthquake interrupted the very ritual of the vegetation
god's annual death, gored by the wild boar. 1 suggest that, during the time of
the Mycenaeans' presence in Crete, the name of their supreme god, the Indo-
European sky-god Zeus, carne to be associated, quite inappropriately, with
this ritual of the Minoans' dying god of vegetation; and that consequently
there arose in Crete alone the tradition of the dying Zeus, for which the
inhabitants of the island were subsequently condemned as liars by ail other
Greeks 44 .
N. POSTLETHWAITE
Department of Classics and Ancient History
University of Exeter
EX44QH
UK

44 1 am grateful to the Editorial Committee of Kernos for a number of helpful sugges-

tions in the preparation of this paper.