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 AEGAEUM 39
Annales liégeoises et PASPiennes d’archéologie égéenne

METAPHYSIS
RITUAL, MYTH AND SYMBOLISM
IN THE AEGEAN BRONZE AGE

Proceedings of the 15th International Aegean Conference, Vienna,

Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology,
Aegean and Anatolia Department, Austrian Academy of Sciences
and Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna,
22-25 April 2014

Edited by Eva ALRAM-STERN, Fritz BLAKOLMER, Sigrid DEGER-JALKOTZY,

Robert LAFFINEUR and Jörg WEILHARTNER

PEETERS
LEUVEN - LIEGE
2016

98738_Aegaeum 39 vwk.indd 1 25/03/16 08:06

 CONTENTS
Obituaries ix
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xv

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Nanno MARINATOS
Myth, Ritual, Symbolism and the Solar Goddess in Thera 3

A. FIGURINES

Eva ALRAM-STERN
Men with Caps: Chalcolithic Figurines from Aegina-Kolonna and their Ritual Use 15

Florence GAIGNEROT-DRIESSEN
The Lady of the House: Trying to Define the Meaning and Role of Ritual Figures with Upraised Arms
in Late Minoan III Crete 21

Reinhard JUNG and Marco PACCIARELLI

A Minoan Statuette from Punta di Zambrone in Southern Calabria (Italy) 29

Melissa VETTERS
All the Same yet not Identical? Mycenaean Terracotta Figurines in Context 37

Eleni KONSOLAKI-YANNOPOULOU
The Symbolic Significance of the Terracottas from the Mycenaean Sanctuary at Ayios Konstantinos,
Methana 49

B. HYBRID AND MYTHICAL CREATURES

Fritz BLAKOLMER
Hierarchy and Symbolism of Animals and Mythical Creatures in the Aegean Bronze Age: A Statistical
and Contextual Approach 61

Karen Polinger FOSTER

Animal Hybrids, Masks, and Masques in Aegean Ritual 69

Maria ANASTASIADOU
Wings, Heads, Tails: Small Puzzles at LM I Zakros 77

C. SYMBOLISM

Janice L. CROWLEY
In the Air Here or from the World Beyond? Enigmatic Symbols of the Late Bronze Age Aegean 89

Marianna NIKOLAIDOU
Materialised Myth and Ritualised Realities: Religious Symbolism on Minoan Pottery 97

Helène WHITTAKER
Horns and Axes 109

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 iv CONTENTS

Olga KRZYSZKOWSKA
Warding off Evil: Apotropaic Practice and Imagery in Minoan Crete 115

Emilia BANOU and Brent DAVIS

The Symbolism of the Scorpion in Minoan Religion: A Cosmological Approach on the Basis
of Votive Offerings from the Peak Sanctuary at Ayios Yeoryios Sto Vouno, Kythera 123

Nancy R. THOMAS
“Hair Stars” and “Sun Disks” on Bulls and Lions. A Reality Check on Movements
of Aegean Symbolic Motifs to Egypt, with Special Reference to the Palace at Malkata 129

Malcolm H. WIENER
Aegean Warfare at the Opening of the Late Bronze Age in Image and Reality 139

D. SPACE / LANDSCAPE

Santo PRIVITERA
The Tomb, the House, and the Double Axes: Late Minoan IIIA2 Hagia Triada as a Ritual
and ‘Mythical’ Place 149

Sam CROOKS, Caroline J. TULLY and Louise A. HITCHCOCK

Numinous Tree and Stone: Re-Animating the Minoan Landscape 157

Barbara MONTECCHI
The Labyrinth: Building, Myth, and Symbol 165

Birgitta EDER
Ideology in Space: Mycenaean Symbols in Action 175

Lyvia MORGAN
The Transformative Power of Mural Art: Ritual Space, Symbolism, and the Mythic Imagination 187

E. FUNERALS

Luca GIRELLA
Aspects of Ritual and Changes in Funerary Practices Between MM II and LM I on Crete 201

Anna Lucia D’AGATA and Sara DE ANGELIS

Funerals of Late Minoan III Crete: Ritual Acts, Special Vessels and Political Affiliations
in the 14th and 13th Centuries BC 213

Ann-Louise SCHALLIN
The Liminal Zone – The Evidence from the Late Bronze Age Dendra Cemetery 223

Mary K. DABNEY
Mycenaean Funerary Processions as Shared Ritual Experiences 229

Michael LINDBLOM and Gunnel EKROTH

Heroes, Ancestors or Just any Old Bones? Contextualizing the Consecration of Human Remains
from the Mycenaean Shaft Graves at Lerna in the Argolid 235

F. RELIGION / DEITIES

Jeffrey S. SOLES
Hero, Goddess, Priestess: New Evidence for Minoan Religion and Social Organization 247

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 CONTENTS v

Ute GÜNKEL-MASCHEK
Establishing the Minoan ‘Enthroned Goddess’ in the Neopalatial Period: Images, Architecture,
and Elitist Ambition 255

Veronika DUBCOVÁ
Divine Power from Abroad. Some New Thoughts about the Foreign Influences on the Aegean
Bronze Age Religious Iconography 263

Cynthia W. SHELMERDINE
Poseidon, pa-ki-ja-na and Horse-Taming Nestor 275

Irene SERRANO LAGUNA

di-u-ja 285

G. SANCTUARIES

Mercourios GEORGIADIS
Metaphysical Beliefs and Leska 295

Wolf-Dietrich NIEMEIER
Ritual in the Mycenaean Sanctuary at Abai (Kalapodi) 303

Olga PSYCHOYOS and Yannis KARATZIKOS

The Mycenaean Sanctuary at Prophitis Ilias on Mount Arachnaio within the Religious Context
of the 2nd Millennium B.C. 311

H. RITUALS / OFFERINGS

Barbara HOREJS and Alfred GALIK

Hunting the Beast. A Reconstructed Ritual in an EBA Metal Production Centre in Western Anatolia 323

Philip P. BETANCOURT, Thomas M. BROGAN and Vili APOSTOLAKOU

Rituals at Pefka 329

Alessandro SANAVIA and Judith WEINGARTEN

The Transformation of Tritons: Some Decorated Middle Minoan Triton Shells
and an Anatolian Counterpart 335

Artemis KARNAVA
On Sacred Vocabulary and Religious Dedications: The Minoan ‘Libation Formula’ 345

Monica NILSSON
Minoan Stairs as Ritual Scenes. The Monumental Staircases of Phaistos “66” and Knossos
“Theatral Area” under the Magnifying Glass 357

Bernice R. JONES
A New Reading of the Fresco Program and the Ritual in Xeste 3, Thera 365

Andreas G. VLACHOPOULOS
Images of Physis or Perceptions of Metaphysis? Some Thoughts on the Iconography
of the Xeste 3 Building at Akrotiri, Thera 375

Fanouria DAKORONIA
Sacrifice on Board 387

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 vi CONTENTS

Jörg WEILHARTNER
Textual Evidence for Burnt Animal Sacrifice and Other Rituals Involving the Use of Fire
in Mycenaean Greece 393

Chrysanthi GALLOU
Mycenaean Skulls: “ἀμενηνά κάρηνα” or Social Actors in Late Helladic Metaphysics and Society? 405

Assaf YASUR-LANDAU
The Baetyl and the Stele: Contact and Tradition in Levantine and Aegean Cult 415

I. MYTH / HEROES / ANCESTORS

Magda PIENIĄŻEK and Carolyn C. ASLAN

Heroic Past, Memory and Ritual at Troy 423

John G. YOUNGER
Identifying Myth in Minoan Art 433

Joanne M.A. MURPHY

The Power of the Ancestors at Pylos 439

Elisabetta BORGNA and Andreas G. VORDOS

Construction of Memory and the Making of a Ritual Landscape: the Role of Gods and Ancestors
at the Trapeza of Aigion, Achaea, at the LBA-EIA Transition 447

Anne P. CHAPIN
Mycenaean Mythologies in the Making: the Frescoes of Pylos Hall 64 and the Mycenae Megaron 459

J. METAPHYSIS

Robert B. KOEHL
The Ambiguity of the Minoan Mind 469

Thomas G. PALAIMA
The Metaphysical Mind in Mycenaean Times and in Homer 479

Alan PEATFIELD
A Metaphysical History of Minoan Religion 485

POSTERS

Eva ALRAM-STERN
A New Mycenaean Female Figure from Kynos, Locris 497

Katrin BERNHARDT
Absent Mycenaeans? On Mycenaean Figurines and their Imitations on Crete in LM IIIA–IIIB 501

Tina BOLOTI
A “Knot”-Bearing (?) Minoan Genius from Pylos. Contribution to the Cloth/Clothing Offering
Imagery of the Aegean Late Bronze Age 505

Dora CONSTANTINIDIS
Proximity Analysis of Metaphysical Aegean Ritual Spaces During the Bronze Age 511

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 CONTENTS vii

Stefanos GIMATZIDIS
The Tree of Life: The Materiality of a Ritual Symbol in Space and Time 515

Louise A. HITCHCOCK, Aren M. MAEIR and Amit DAGAN

Entangling Aegean Ritual in Philistine Culture 519

Petros KOUNOUKLAS
Griffin at Kynos. How, Why, and When? 527

Tobias KRAPF
Symbolic Value and Magical Power: Examples of Prehistoric Objects Reused in Later Contexts
in Euboea 531

Susan LUPACK
pu-ro, pa-ki-ja-ne, and the Worship of an Ancestral Wanax 537

Madelaine MILLER
The Boat – A Sacred Border-Crosser in Between Land and the Sea 543

Sylvie MÜLLER CELKA

Caring for the Dead in Minoan Crete: a Reassessment of the Evidence from Anemospilia 547

Marcia NUGENT
Portals to the Other: Stepping through a Botanic Door 557

Marco PIETROVITO
Beyond the Earthly Shell: the Minoan Pitcher Bearers. Anthropomorphic Rhyta
of the Pre- and Protopalatial Periods (Differentiating the Sacred from the Divine) 563

Jörg RAMBACH
Early Helladic Romanos/Messenia: Filling a Well 567

Caroline THURSTON
New Approaches to Mycenaean Figurines in LH IIIC 571

Michaela ZAVADIL
Souvenirs from Afar – Star Disk Pendants Reconsidered 575

ENDNOTE

Joseph MARAN
Towards an Anthropology of Religion in Minoan and Mycenaean Greece 581

TO CONCLUDE …

Thomas G. PALAIMA
WI Fc 2014: When is an Inscribed Cigar Just a Cigar? 595

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 THE BAETYL AND THE STELE:
CONTACT AND TRADITION IN LEVANTINE AND AEGEAN CULT*

In 1788 the first colonizing English fleet reached Australia; the lay of the land and its fauna and
flora were completely unfamiliar to the Englishmen. Still, the urge to find similarity between the new
terrain and the English countryside was too strong to resist. Captain John Hunter, the second in
command of the fleet wrote: “In short, the woods … resemble a deer park, as much as if they had been
intended for such a purpose.” Even the shades used in the first watercolors depicting the local gum
trees bear a strong resemblance to those of English oak or elm.1
A similar eagerness to find familiar patterns in unfamiliar Mediterranean landscapes had led to
misidentification in the realm of religious structures. To early explorers that were familiar with
Stonehenge, structures made of three large stones found while working in Tripolitania in North Africa
were taken as evidence for local ancient cult and consequently named “trilithons.” The interpretation
of this discovery was a symptom of what Mattingly later referred to as “megalithic madness.” The
North African structures turned out to be much more mundane objects: Roman era olive presses.2
Such cases of misidentification should be seen as cautionary tales that stress the role of cultural
bias in automatic parallel seeking, and the importance of avoiding it. These, in turn, make
comparative studies of religion within the Mediterranean a difficult task, and for good reasons. The
study of Aegean Bronze Age religion – a field which is in itself divided into regional and temporal sub-
fields – is no exception. Still, developments in the study of the Mediterranean in antiquity,3 as well as
in the study of cultural contact in archaeology, provide additional tools for interregional comparative
studies. In addition, I will argue later in this paper that the above mentioned cautionary tales of early
explorers can nonetheless direct us in an interesting route toward understanding ancient religious
practices.
The entangled entity comprising the experience, perception and imagination of Mediterranean
landscapes4 may provide ample opportunities to create a series of seemingly irresistible analogies based
on shared traits of terrain and ecology. Small white-washed chapels on mountain tops, holy tombs
overlooking the sea and sacred groves, as well as springs and caves, come to mind almost automatically
when we are asked to envision characterstic Mediterranean cult places. To Horden and Purcell, this is
much beyond superficial evidence for ecological determinism reflected in cultic practices: “It is too
easy to see the manifestations of religious observance in the landscape as a dotting of nature’s ‘I’s,
when it is really a rewriting of the whole text.”5 In fact, they write, “religion expresses the relationship
between the Mediterranean landscape and its inhabitants … the fact that sacred groves occur in
widely different cultural context in Mediterranean history suggests environmental, productive and
topographic resemblance.”6 The Mediterranean landscape, despite its shared ecology and, in many
cases, topography, is heavily fashioned by millennia of human activity, which also, has a crucial role in
determining the location of cultic sites in the landscape. Similarly, to Broodbank,7 the Mediterranean

* I would like to thank Louise Hitchcock and Sam Crooks for providing me access to Crooks’ most useful
book on Baetyls, and to Joseph Maran for a discussion on mental templates during the conference.
1 R. HUGHES, The Fatal Shore: A History of Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787–1868 (1987) 3.
2 D.J. MATTINGLY, “Megalithic Madness and Measurement, or How Many Olives Can an Olive Press
Press,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7 (1988) 177-195.
3 See, most recently, C. BROODBANK, The Making of the Middle Sea (2013).
4 A.T. SMITH, The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Societies (2003) 72-73.
5 P. HORDEN and N. PURCELL, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (2000) 410.
6 HORDEN and PURCELL (supra n. 5) 411.
7 BROODBANK (supra n. 3) 355.
416 Assaf YASUR-LANDAU

religious landscape of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages was tightly connected with the economic
sphere: sanctuaries in town as well as peak sanctuaries and sacred mountains tied communities into
interconnected sacred and economic units.8
Returning to the cautionary tales of the explorers’ errors mentioned at the beginning of this talk,
these nonetheless illuminate a situation of intercultural and interregional encounter, in which
perceptions of new landscapes meet with experience and imagination of long-familiar landscapes and
their related cultural contexts. The analogy between the familiar and the unfamiliar is irresistible not
only because of the elemental desire to make sense of the cosmos, to transform a landscape into a
landscape of meaning, and to create a conceptual environment that will enable future actions by
creating a reference to previous actions. It will be argued here that the mechanism of creating these
analogies was a very active one in antiquity, and can, in fact, explain several cases of intercultural
contact with manifestations in cult-related material culture, as well as shed light on the thorny problem
of the baetyls (rounded stones).9 The study of baetyls (or omphaloi) as focal points of Minoan cult
activities has been ongoing for over a century. Scholars from Evans to Warren and from Younger to
La Rosa and Crooks,10 to name but a few, have remarked on the aniconic nature of baetyls, as well as
on their strong connection to the world of nature – a fundamental element of Minoan religion. At the
same time, the archaeological study of standing stones – stelae or maebot (Heb.) – found in second-
millennium-BCE cultic contexts in the Levant has a similarly long history of research. Such stones
have been identified in sites such as Gezer, Megiddo, Hazor, Shechem, Tell el-Hayyat and Tel Kitan,
mostly in open-air cult places.11 Most of these stones are aniconic, though few do show symbols of
divinity. I am certain that it is a worthwhile effort to compare between Minoan and Canaanite
standing stones in a cultic context, and, indeed, during the research for this article, several very
interesting patterns emerged of which most will be included in a separate article. There is, however,
one venue that I wish to explore here: the question of the existence of intercultural comparison in
antiquity, and, more precisely, the perception of foreign cultic objects and rituals in situations of
intercultual cultural contact between the Aegean and the Levant. The tentative answers to this
question enabled me to explore further a rather familiar case study: the appearance of Levantine metal
figurines in temple of Phylakopi.
A possible fruitful direction for this study stems from the fact that as early as the second
millennium there was an attempt to conduct intercultural parallels which will carry meaning to cultic
objects by using the generalized terms for a rather wide group of cultic objects made of stone. Dietrich,
Loretz and Mayer conducted an important philological study analyzing the etymology and uses of
standing stones in Akkadian, Ugaritic and Hittite texts. 12 They determined that variants of the
Akkadian term ‘sikkanu(m)’ (si-ik-ka-num) appear in texts from Mari, Emar and Munbaqa. The similar

8 This combination of human and ecological factors leading to an intricate religious landscape was
beautifully described by another European upon encountering the Mediterranean world: the poet Shaul
Tchernichovsky, the first translator of the Homeric Epics into Hebrew. Being a humanist that led a
bohemian lifestyle and advocated ideas of multicultural openness, Tchernichovsky was very much a
foreigner in tiny, often parochial, Tel Aviv during the 1920s and 30s. His 1933 description of the
historical depth of the Mediterranean landscape with its cult places seems almost postcolonial:
“monasteries, a tumulus, a massebah / a house with mortar domes / An unsettled settlement / an olive
by an olive” (S. TCHERNICHOVSKY, Poems [1957; Hebrew] 505 [my translation]).
9 Also important, even if erroneous, is that these initial analogies create the basis for a feedback mechanism
that will enable further elaboration and more precise understanding of landscapes and cultural settings.
10 P. WARREN, “Of Baetyls,” OpAth 18 (1990) 193-206; V. LA ROSA, “Minoan Baetyls: Between
Funerary Rituals and Epiphanies,” in POTNIA, 221-227, pls. LXXII–LXXIV; J.G. YOUNGER, “Tree
Tugging and Omphalos Hugging on Minoan Gold Rings,” in A.L. D’AGATA and A. VAN DE
MOORTEL (eds), Archaeologies of Cult: Essays on Ritual and Cult in Crete in Honor of Geraldine C. Gesell (2009)
43-49; S. CROOKS. What Are These Queer Stones? Baetyls: Epistemology of a Minoan Fetish (2013).
11 T. METTINGER, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context (1995) 177-190.
12 M. DIETRICH, O. LORETZ and W. MAYER, “Sikkanum ‘Betyle’,” Ugarit-Forschungen 21 (1989) 133-
139.
 THE BAETYL AND THE STELE 417

term ‘s-k-n’ appears in alphabetic Ugaritic. In non-Semitic, Indo-European Hatti, stones in cultic
context were referred to using the sumerograms NA4 ZI.KIN, a pseudo-sumerographic spelling of the
Akkadian word ‘sikkanu’. 13 Even the Hittite term ‘huwai’ possibly stems from Akkadian humaun/
humuun, another word for stele. Furthermore, etymologically, ‘sikkanu’ may be connected to the
Akkadian words for “presence” and “residence,” hinting, perhaps, to a relation between the deity and
the stone. To sum up, similar terms for sacred stones were used across a broad geographic scope –
from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean and throughout Syria and Anatolia – and over several
centuries. Attempting to pigeonhole all occurrences of ‘sikkanu’ into precise meanings and determining
whether or not they all described similar objects may prove to be baffling and frustrating. Instead, we
must remember that, when people in the second millennium BCE encountered objects from foreign
cultural and cultic traditions, they placed them in lexical categories that gave the reader of the tablets a
broad idea of what sikkanu or NA4 ZI.KIN meant. This was certainly the intention of the scribes who
wrote about the cultic objects in the temples during the cultic reorganization in the days of Tudhalya
IV in the 13th century. Similar terms for cultic objects, including ‘huwai’, were used for cults that no
doubt differed much one from the other in the vast, multicultural expanse of the Hittite empire from
Tarsus to the Black Sea.14
There is no reason to assume that there was a direct relation between in the ancient Near East
and the Aegean in the use of these stones. The setting of a sikkanu stone on the roof of the house of the
priestess mentioned in a text from Emar15 is a practice that seems to have no Aegean parallels and
would have seemed foreign to any Aegean spectator. There are, however, texts describing the setting
of these stones and their form that could have, hypothetically, sounded familiar enough to an Aegean
to be recognized as belonging to Aegean categories of sacred stones. Thus, two examples from the
Hittite cult inventories relating to stones in the open countryside – one under a prominent tree – bring
to mind iconographic representations of Minoan baetyls:
1) When (the region) is being oppressed by the enemy, they carry him (the god Haluwanaa) to
the mountain and place him (in front of the huwai), and the huwai stands under the poplar
tree.16
2) Storm god of the meadow (of the town) of Urita. They have erected a polished(?) huwai, a
good one.17

Can we find archaeological evidence for intercultural identifications of sacred stones? The
ability to recognize and categorize cultic and objects by shape and material, regardless of the exact
behavioral patterns connected with their use, enabled, to my mind, the recreation of a landscape of
meaning allowing some form of interreligious contact or exchange. This may well have been the
mechanism that resulted in the deposition of a statue of a Syro-Canaanite smiting god statuettes in the
temple of Phylakopi, also famed for its baetyl.18
The deposition of metal statuettes in coastal sanctuaries is a well-founded Levantine tradition
beginning in the Middle Bronze Age. One well-known example is the Temple of the Obelisks at
Byblos, in which hundreds of predominantly male figurines were found in a context dominated by
imposing stone stelae.19 Another example is the coastal temple at Nahariya.20 This small shrine located

13 J. HAZENBOS, The Organization of the Anatolian Local Cults During the Thirteenth Century B.C. An Appraisal of the
Hittite Cult Inventories (2003) 174-175.
14 HAZENBOS (supra n. 13) 191-199.
15 CAD ru A.
16 KUB XXV 23/CTH 525.3 obv. I 12'–13'; HAZENBOS (supra n. 13) 36.
17 KUB XXV 23/CTH 525.3 obv. I 34'; HAZENBOS (supra n. 13) 37.
18 C. RENFREW, The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi (1985) 102-103; YOUNGER (supra n. 10)
46-49; CROOKS (supra n. 10) 37-42.
19 M. DUNAND, Fouilles de Byblos II. 1923–1938 (1958) 645-649; O. NEGBI, Canaanite Gods in Metal: An
Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figurines (1976) 123; METTINGER (supra n. 11) 127 with
further bibliography.
418 Assaf YASUR-LANDAU

on the coast and on a major north–south highway was active from the late MB I and into the MB II,
no doubt under the control of the Kabri palace, located nearby. The great variety of metal figurines,
made in different styles and techniques and differing in size and quality, indicates that these were
deposited by different people, very likely during different events. This deposit is probably a
combination of offerings given to the temple by mariners, elite members traveling the highway and
local elite. At both Byblos and Nahariya stone maebot were found, adding to the landscape of meaning
connected with the sanctuaries.
Returning to Phylakopi, the find of two metal Syro-Canaanite-style figurines of the smiting god
type in LH IIIC contexts21 in the shrine has attracted much attention from scholars working in the
Levant. Negbi suggested that there was similarity between the plans of this sanctuary and of other 13th
and 12th centuries BCE Aegean sanctuaries, and Levantine asymmetric shrines, in the use of platforms,
benches, columns, storerooms and in the indirect approach to the holy-of-holies.22 Albres and others23
rejected the arguments for Levantine traits in the cultic architecture or for Levantine influences on it.
A renewed examination of the head of sheet gold found in the sanctuary by Maran has convincingly
shown that it was a part of a third Syro-Canaanite statuette, even more elaborate than the first two.24
The deposition of three very different metal statuettes, and perhaps also other, less valuable, orientalia
(such as the Nineteenth Dynasty scarab) is likely to represent different episodes of dedication,
conducted in a manner similar to that seen in Nahariya. A bronze female figurine with gilded face,
hands and feet found on the Uluburun ship is evidence that Levantine metal figurines of considerable
value were carried on boats; these could have been dedicated along the journey route.25 While I agree
with Whittaker, Albers and other that the sanctuary in Phylakopi was not constructed by Levantine
mariners, I would at the same time argue that some similarities between the asymmetrical Canaanite
shrines and Aegean shrines of the 13th and 12th centuries should be taken not as an evidence for
influence, but rather as characteristic traits of sanctuaries that could look familiar to people in both the
Aegean and the Levant. While the origin of the cultic architecture at Phylakopi may not have been
important to Canaanites or Syrians that arrived at the temple, the independent similarities between
the different cult places may explain the deposition of the Syro-Canaanite figurines in Phylakopi.
Perhaps the sanctuary and its contents looked sufficiently familiar to the foreign mariners to fit into an
existing mental template of a Canaanite temple – enough to spark a process of turning an unfamiliar
cultic landscape into a familiar landscape of meaning. The combination of columns, benches and
images of smiting gods deposited by earlier mariners, and even the Mycenaean pottery in the temple
may have appeared to Levantine mariners similar enough to the structure and contents of irregular
temples in Canaan, such as those at Lachish, Tel Mevorakh and Beth-Shean, to merit a ritual act of
dedication. As for the baetyl, the foreign visitors may or may have not been aware of, or cared for its
meaning to the local Melian community. It is very doubtful that they were privy to the rich, local

20 For previous reports showing the temple, maebot and figurines, see E. BEN-DOR, “A Middle Bronze
Age Temple at Nahariya,” The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 14 (1950) 1-41; M.
DOTHAN, “The Excavations at Nahariyah, Preliminary Report,” Israel Exploration Journal 6 (1956) 14-25;
The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 3, s.v. Nahariya, 1088-1092 (M. DOTHAN).
21 The figurines were found in Phase 3c (LH IIIC) and Phase D (debris); C. RENFREW and J. CHERRY,
“The Other Finds,” in RENFREW (supra n. 18) 302-330.
22 O. NEGBI, “Levantine Elements in the Sacred Architecture of the Aegean at the Close of the Bronze
Age,” BSA 83 (1988) 339-357.
23 G. ALBERS, “Comparative Aspects of Regional Cult Structures of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages
in the East Mediterranean (Aegean, Cyprus, Levant-Palestine),” in E. DE MIRO, L. GODART and A.
SACCONI (eds), Atti e Memorie del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia, Roma-Napoli, 14–20 Ottobre
1991 (1996) 660-661; H. WHITTAKER, Mycenaean Cult Buildings: A Study of Their Architecture and Function in
the Context of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean (1997) 66-79.
24 J. MARAN, “Evidence for Levantine Religious Practice in the Late Bronze Age Sanctuary of Phylakopi
on Melos?” Eretz Israel 30 (2011) 65-73.
25 C. PULAK, “The Uluburun Shipwreck: An Overview,” The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 27.3
(1998) 207.
 THE BAETYL AND THE STELE 419

mental templates connected with the baetyl and its uses, perhaps with references to earlier Minoan
rituals. Still, I would venture to suggest that even the baetyl located in the entrance to the sanctuary
may have looked broadly familiar to the Levantine mariners, who were used to the notion of a stone
object as focus of cult, especially such that were located outside the temple proper. The baetyl may
have fitted into their own mental templates connected to the use of stone stelae or maebot. These
mental templates not only encompassed the realm of experience, of actual memories of viewing the
setting up of such objects or cultic activities connected with them, but also had deep roots in the realm
of imagination, as stelae and their use are mentioned also in myth. Thus, for example, in the Ugaritic
myth of Aqhat, the setting of a stele is connected with ancestor cult and filial duties: the future son of
Aqhat is expected “to set of his Ancestor’s stele, the sign of his Sib in the sanctuary.”26 One of the most
astonishing aspects of the Eastern cultic finds from Phylakopi is that they do not indicate a single event
of dedication, but rather several episodes of contact. The dedication of figurines occurred at least
thrice during the lifetime of the temple, indicating, perhaps, recurring visits to the site, perhaps by
trade expeditions. The notion of a Levantine ritual occurring in an Aegean temple is supported by
Maran’s idea that the sheet gold head reflects Levantine rituals of dressing (and undressing) a cult
statue, perhaps an indication that the activities related to the Levantine figurines were not limited to
dedication, but included ritual actions involving the figurines after their dedication.27

Assaf YASUR-LANDAU

26 nb.skn.ilibh.bqd/ztr.mh CTH 1.17 I 25–26; S.B. PARKER, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (1997) 53.
27 MARAN (supra n. 24) 70 argues that “if the proposed interpretation is correct, the head of sheet gold,
together with its now lost bronze figurine … indicat[e] that in addition to mere material forms, ideas
about their correct use in ritual practice were transmitted. Admittedly, this would not prove that people
from the Levant carried out rituals in the sanctuary of Phylakopi, but it would suggest a much more
intimate familiarity with forms of ritual practice of Near Eastern derivation than conceded by those who
have flatly rejected Negbi’s views.”