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Proskynesis and Minoan Theocracy

NANNO MARINATOS STEFAN HILLER has devoted much of his scholarship to Aegean iconography and has shown that it has strong affinities with Egypt and the Near East1. In this paper I shall pay tribute to his approach by discussing a ring impression from Zakros and the implications it has for the understanding of kingship in Minoan Crete of the New Palace period. The imprint was found by D.G. HOGARTH in House A at Zakros2. It has been published recently in CMS II,7 no. 3 by INGO PINI who confirms that it was made by a metal ring (Fig. 1). Starting from the left, we see a youthful figure dressed in a kilt and holding a staff in his left hand. Before him is another male, likewise dressed in a kilt, who bows down, his head almost touching the ground. Behind the bowing man are two more figures wearing long mantles of the type that is normally designated as a priestly garment, but which may better be described as an official court dress3. The second man is smaller than the first and is evidently hierarchically inferior; both have bent arms in a gesture which may be reconstructed as a greeting rather than an act of worship. There is no doubt that the main figure to the left has authority. His posture is closely paralleled on a male wearing a short kilt from a miniature fresco from Knossos, the so-called Sacred Grove (Fig. 3). He faces a crowd of men raising their javelins: possibly these men are saluting him. It can be argued therefore that he is a leader or a king4. The next step is a reconstruction of the impression. I have restored the figures facing the principal male minimally, supplying the missing heads but not much else (Fig. 2). The reconstruction makes it evident that the subject is proskynesis, prostration of one male before another. INGO PINI names the scene exactly thus, and suggests that it is probably a cult scene. But in what social context may we understand this proskynesis? This is the question. In Ancient Greek proskynesis means: kissing towards one and this means that you do not kiss a person but possibly the ground before a person (cf. Fig. 5). At any rate, there is no doubt that the posture denotes submission and implies a social system which encourages sharp social hierarchy. Even within the animal kingdom of primates, a kind of proskynesis is performed when one animal submits to another5. In the Near East bowing to the ground was performed either in front of statues of gods or kings. To support this I shall now turn to textual evidence from the second millennium BCE, the correspondence archives of Egyptian Amarna. The letters I am about to discuss were written to the pharaoh by rulers of cities in Syro-Palestine. They were the pharaohs vassals and usually asked some favor of their superior king. The letters always begin by a greeting which is a statement of subordinate status expressed as obeisance.

S. HILLER, Zur Rezeption gyptischer Motive in der minoischen Kunst. gypten und Levante 6, 1996: 83 105; ID., Egyptian Elements on the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus. In MELETEMATA: Festschrift M.H. Wiener, edited by PH. BETANCOURT ET AL. Lige 1999, 36170. 2 D.G. HOGARTH, BSA 7, 19001901: 133; ID., JHS 22, 1902: 78, no. 11 pl. VI. 3 J.H. BETTS, The Seal from Shaft Grave Gamma. TUAS 6, 1981: 7483. 4 A. EVANS, The Palace of Minos at Knossos III. London 1930, 42ff., figs. 4546. 5 W. BURKERT, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual. Berkeley 1979.

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To the king, my lordAt the feet of the king, my lord, seven times, seven times I fall.6 Rib Hadda says to [his] lord, King of all countries. Great king, King of battle. May the [Lady] of Gubla grant power to the King my Lord. I fall at the feet of my lord, my Sun, 7 times and 7 times.7 King my lord, Sun of all countries: Message of Rib Hadda, your servant footstool for your feet. I fall at the feet of the Sun, my lord, 7 times and 7 times.8 To the king my lord, my pantheon, my Sun-god, the Sun-god of heaven: Thus Widia, the prince of Ashkelon, thy servant, the dirt (under) your feet, the groom of thy horse. At the feet of the king, my lord, seven times verily I fall, both prone and supine.9 My lord my sun, the breath of my life: message of Ammunira, the ruler of Beirut, your servant and the dirt at your feet.10 The same man adds in another letter: I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times the breath of my life.11 In these greetings we get a glimpse of how the pharaoh was conceived. Firstly, we note that proskynesis is a salutation formula which expresses the subservience of the vassal king to his superior12. Secondly, that the pharaoh is never addressed by name but always by title. This is a sign that his secret name should not be spoken in public. Thirdly, that the role of the pharaoh is expressed by the title my sun. He is thus a cosmocrator and a god. His is also the breath of life which is essential for the wellbeing of his people13. On his part, when he responds to his vassals, the pharaoh compares himself to the sun: And know that the king is hale like the sun in the sky. The idea that the king (or rather emperor) is a cosmocrator was by no means confined to the Egyptian pharaoh. One of the earliest cosmocrators of Mesopotamia was Sargon of Akkad (23342279 BCE) who claimed that he ruled over the entire inhabited world14. Also the Hittite emperor was referred to as sun in the second millennium. The determinative of the king was the hieroglyph winged disc (Fig. 4). But what about kings of smaller territories, such as the kings of Ugarit? Were they also divine? And how can we be sure that the kingdom of Crete (if it was a kingdom at all) has divine rulers? As for Ugarit, it certainly had divine kingship as has been repeatedly shown by NICOLAS WYATT on many textual grounds15. It can be argued also on account of its mythical
6 7

J.B. PRITCHARD, ed., The Ancient Near East. Princeton 1958, 264, EA no. 250 (Transl. W.F. ALBRIGHT). W.L. MORAN, The Amarna Letters. Baltimore 1992, 142, EA no. 74. 8 MORAN 1992 (see n. 7) 155, EA no. 84. 9 PRITCHARD 1958 (see n. 6) 276, EA no. 3120. 10 MORAN 1992 (see n. 7) 227, no. EA 141. 11 MORAN 1992 (see n. 7) 227, no. EA 143. 12 On the topos see MORAN 1992 (see n. 7) XXIX. 13 See MORAN 1992 (n. 7) XXVIXXVIII, 213, n. 3. 14 M. VAN DE MIEROOP, A History of the Ancient Near East. Oxford 2004, 64. 15 N. WYATT, Just How Divine were the Kings of Ugarit. Aula Orientalis 1718, 19992000: 13341.

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texts in which proskynesis to the king of the gods is taken for granted. What is less clear is how a king would achieve such a status in the international scene. Possibly the only venue was acknowledgement of this position by a superior sun-king (Egyptian or Hittite) and this could be done through intermarriage or some other means. MARC VAN DE MIEROOP speaks of a club of great powers in the second millennium. What he means is that the Great Kings (Grossknige) operated through a system of fictional family relationships, addressing each other as brother or son16. Turning to Mycenaean Linear B (a field in which STEFAN HILLER has excelled), there are two words that we translate as king: basileus and wanax. Yet, the difference is major. While basileus is a ruler, the wanax is the divine king; in Homer this word is reserved only for gods. Obeisance, then, is a sign that the king has a status approaching that of divinities but it does not mean that he is worshipped in the sense that he receives sacrifices during his life time. Proskynesis is an acknowledgement that the person to whom obeisance is made has a status superior to that of ordinary mortals. We shall return to the distinction between worship and social ritual of submission further on, when discussing Alexander the Great. Let us now consider a scene from an Assyrian obelisk dating to the reign of Shalmanezer III c. 825 BCE. It shows the Israelite king Jehu performing proskynesis in front of Shalmanezer III (Fig. 5). The Israelite king (or his envoy) thus acknowledges his vassal status. The proximity of the king to the gods is indicated by the presence of stellar bodies17. The performance of proskynesis on the scene of the Assyrian obelisk is very similar to that on the Minoan ring, despite the fact that the objects are some six centuries apart, and I see this evidence of similar theocratic systems. We shall now look, by way of contrast, at the Greek world at the time of Herodotus. To him the idea of proskynesis was anathema because in the narrative below the Spartans reject the form of Oriental divine kingship. In this text, two men Sperthies and Boulis, arrive at the Persian court and are urged by a Persian official to prostrate themselves in front of the Great King. They however refuse: As they [i.e. the two Spartan men of the story] came to Susa and they came to the kings presence, when the guards commanded and would have compelled them to do obeisance (proskyneein) to the king, they said they would in no way do it even if they were thrust with the head down. For it was not their custom (nomos) to do obeisance to mortal men.18 The Herodotus passage is not only meant to dissociate the Spartan way of life from that of the Orient, but it constitutes polemic against kingship of the theocratic type. We now come to Alexander the Great. When he conquered the Asian subjects of the Persian empire, he demanded that proskynesis should be performed in his court, an edict which offended his Macedonian comrades especially Kallisthenes (ARRIAN 4,10,512; PLUT. Alex. 5055). J.R. HAMILTON in his commentary on Plutarchs Alexander notes: Although it has been maintained that the Persians worshipped their king as god, it seems certain that they did not and that proskynesis was not a cult act, but a social practice.19 And yet, the
16 17

VAN DE MIEROOP 2004 (see n. 14) 12140. J. READE, Assyrian Sculpture. British Museum London 1983, 135, fig. 13, fig. 62. 18 HDT. 7,136. Transl. A.D. GODLEY, modified by the author. 19 J.R. HAMILTON, Plutarch, Alexander. A Commentary. Oxford 1969, 150.

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opposition between cult act and social practice, as expressed by this eminent scholar, is not as clear as it might seem at first. Because even if the Persian king were not divine, the act of proskynesis implied that his status as a cosmocrator put him closer to the gods than any other human being. When modern Greeks today kiss the hand of the bishop, they do not worship him as a god, but silently acknowledge his closeness to god. As the Amarna correspondence shows, social ritual is based on certain assumptions about the status of the king as an overseer of the universe and hence the earthly partner of the sun-god. With this background in mind we turn to implications the scene of the Zakros ring impression has for understanding Minoan kingship. There are two possibilities. 1. The scene is mythical. In this scenario, all figures are divine and the prostrated male in the kilt acknowledges the status of the chief figure to the left as king of gods. At first glance, such an interpretation might seem implausible because we know nothing about Minoan myths. However, consider the Ugaritic epic of Baal where we find exactly such a scenario. In the following passage, the goddess Athirat performed proskynesis in front of the creator god: At the feet of El she bowed and fell down She paid him homage and honoured him.20 In another passage from the same epic, one god urges another to honor the dangerous god Mot: At the feet of Mot bow and fall down, pay him homage and honour him.21 Our Minoan scene would thus fit well a mythical scenario in which homage was paid to a god who is acknowledged in this scene as the head of the pantheon. 2. The second alternative is that the scene mirrors actual ceremony of the type that took place in the Minoan palace of Knossos on a regular basis. The long robed men would be older courtiers who are witnesses of the obeisance paid by a vassal king or his envoy to the Great King (of Knossos). The personage saluted would be, in this interpretation, like a god, the ambiguity being intended. I actually favour the first alternative. However, it is not necessary to make a decision here between the two choices because, whatever the case, the idea of divine kingship is assumed. Myth and actuality are not mutually exclusive modes of thought but complimentary aspects of reality mirroring each other in imagery. In all cultures mythical paradigms enforce the given social realities and social realities act out mythical paradigms. The Minoan visual code of proskynesis was utilized by the Minoans because it was meaningful in their social code; conversely, in Greek art neither gods nor rulers are depicted as receiving proskynesis. Thus, whether the scene renders mythical or ritual reality does not make much difference because in either case the motif reveals how kingship was conceptualized.

20 21

N. WYATT, Religious Texts from Ugarit. The Biblical Seminar 33. Sheffield 2002, 99, KTU i. 4. iv. 25. WYATT 2002 (see n. 20) 113, KTU i. 4. viii. 2728.

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In conclusion, the Zakros scene suggests that current theories of peer polity and collective aristocratic rule in Crete are misguided22. In the end, EVANS was quite right in speaking about divine kingship, an institution that lasted in Crete until the fall of Knossos c. 1375 BCE, but which continued on the mainland. That we should find it in Minoan art should alert our attention to the fact that Creto-Mycenaean cultures may be better understood by reference to the Near East than by reference to Greek models or (even worse) constructs derived from anthropological theory. Illustrations Fig. 1. After CMS II,7 no. 3. Fig. 2. Reconstruction by N. MARINATOS with A. WIEGAND. Fig. 3. After A. EVANS, The Palace of Minos at Knossos III. London 1930, figs. 4546. Fig. 4. After E. LAROCHE, Les Hieroglyphes Hittites. Paris 1960, 190. Fig. 5. After J. READE, Assyrian Sculpture. British Museum London 1983, fig. 62.

See the recent collection of articles in Y. HAMILAKIS, ed., Labyrinth Revisited. Oxford 2002; J. DRIESSEN, I. SCHOEP & R. LAFFINEUR, eds., Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces, Proceedings of the International Workshop Crete of the hundred Palaces, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1415 December 2001 (Aegaeum 23). Lige 2002.

22

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NAnnO MARInATOS

Fig. 1. Impression from Zakros.

Fig. 2. Reconstruction of the three principal figures on the ring impression from Zakros.

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Fig. 3. King facing a group of males who salute him?

Fig. 4. Hittite Hieroglyph My sun.

Fig. 5. Assyrian Obelisk of King Shalmanezer.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis
Zum Geleit .... Vorwort der Herausgeber .. IX XI

Tabula Gratulatoria XIII Schriftenverzeichnis von Stefan Hiller .. EVA ALRAM-STERN Das Chalkolithikum in Sdgriechenland. Versuch einer chronologischen und topographischen Gliederung .. JOHN BENNET Representations of Power in Mycenaean Pylos. Script, Orality, Iconography .. PHILIP P. BETANCOURT Recognition of Gardens and Fields in the Archaeological Record ... FRITZ BLAKOLMER Vom Wandrelief in die Kleinkunst. Transformationen des Stierbildes in der minoischmykenischen Bildkunst .. JAN BOUZEK LH III C Iconography. An Interim Period of Artistic Development in Greece ..... JOHN CHAPMAN The Elaboration of an Aesthetic of Brilliance and Colour in the Climax Copper Age ..... JOACHIM DALFEN Weil du weit, was das Schne ist, bist du schn, Sokrates. Etwas ber den so genannten sokratisch-platonischen Intellektualismus ... SREN DIETZ Thermon and the Matt Painted Pottery in Aitolia. New Fix Points for the Chronology ... YVES DUHOUX Le nom du fils en linaire B FLORENS FELTEN Zu den Giebeln des Apollontempels von gina JOS L. GARCA RAMN Mykenisch qe-ja-me-no und e-ne-ka a-no-qa-si-ja, alph.-gr. und Mord und der PN ... XV

1 11 23

31 49 65

75 83 95 105

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

WALTER GAUSS Prhistorische Funde vom Gipfel des Oros auf gina .. BIRGITTA and ERIK HALLAGER Sealed Clay Stoppers from LH/LM III Contexts ....... OLAF HCKMANN Zu dem Modell eines griechischen Kriegsschiffs aus Lipari .... JOHN T. KILLEN Mycenaean e-re-e-u ... EVA LENNEIS Die Verwendung kleiner Schmuckschnecken im Frhneolithikum Mittel- und SOEuropas .. NANNO MARINATOS Proskynesis and Minoan Theocracy .. MICHAEL MEIER-BRGGER Griechen in Griechenland: Einwanderung oder Autochthonie? Gibt es Anhaltspunkte fr eine Entscheidung aus dem altgriechischen Wortschatz? VASSIL NIKOLOV Bulgarian-Austrian Excavations at Tell Karanovo. Contributions to the Prehistory of Thrace .... THOMAS G. PALAIMA Ilios, Tros and Tlos. Continuing Problems with to-ro, to-ro-o, to-ro-wo, to-ro-ja, wi-ro and a-si-wi-ja/a-si-wi-jo ... DIAMANTIS PANAGIOTOPOULOS Mykenische Trauerbilder. Zu den Anfngen der griechischen funerren Ikonographie ... OSWALD PANAGL Sprachwissenschaftliche berlegungen zur pylischen Ta-Serie ... INGO PINI Die Architekturmotive in der MM-Glyptik .... ANNA SACCONI Lextension territoriale du royaume mycnien de Thbes et le Catalogue des Vaisseaux homrique CRISTIAN SCHUSTER und DONE ERBNESCU Zur Sptbronzezeit an der Unteren Donau. Die Kulturen Coslogeni und Radovanu und ihre Verbindungen mit dem stlichen Mittelmeerraum ....

125 143 149 159

169 179

187

191

197 205 215 225

237

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NANCY R. THOMAS A Frontal Foot on a Mycenaean Inlaid Dagger .. PETER WARREN MALCOLM H. WIENER Palatial Potters in Mycenaean Greece ... WOLFGANG WOHLMAYR Minoka und Mykenaka auf gina ... JOHN G. YOUNGER Time & Event in Aegean Art. Illustrating a Bronze Age Calendar ...

251 261 271 279 287

VII