The Return of the Horse-Leader. Susan Langdon

The Return of the Horse-LeaderAuthor(s): Susan LangdonSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 185-201Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/505086 .Accessed: 23/02/2015 17:59

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The Return of the Horse-Leader* SUSAN LANGDON

Abstract The most characteristic motif of Argive Geometric

vase painting, the so-called "horse-leader" figure, has evoked various interpretations in attempts to elucidate the nature of Geometric iconography. Recent scholarship has dispensed with earlier readings of the figure as a deity in favor of a secular reference to the Argive citizen, while relegating the accompanying horse and fish to the status of symbols of the Argolid's natural environment.

The present reconsideration of the horse-leader's identity is occasioned by new evidence for the origin of the motif offered by two Mycenaean pictorial kraters from the North Syrian city of Ugarit. These Bronze Age kraters not only present a parallel horse-leading scene but add a surprising religious dimension by the depiction of a fish sacrifice ritual. Evidence for Bronze Age art and religion suggests an expansion of Mycenaean iconography in its late phase under the influence of East Mediterranean art and cult. Moreover, early Iron Age developments suggest that the transmission of the horse-leader to Argive Geometric painting may have retained elements of the religious context in which it originally coalesced.

SETTING THE PROBLEM: THE ARGIVE HORSE-

LEADER

Studies on Geometric vase painting, for all their

controversy over heroic content and external influ-

ence, have nevertheless brought to scholarship a broad

familiarity with its design principles and its icono-

graphic range. Yet this general acquaintance extends

only to the production of Attic workshops, which represent just one of several recognized regional styles. In contrast, Argive Geometric iconography still eludes a

comparable understanding. An examination of its most characteristic motif, the horse-leader, offers in-

sight into this important alternative artistic and cul- tural tradition.

The complex figural paintings of Late Geometric

Argos in the eighth century B.C. deal with a few stock themes. The indigenous fauna of the Argive plain pro- vide the favored motifs: plump isolated water birds, lines of sinuous marshbirds, a variety of fish, and

panels with characteristically slender horses.1 Human beings sometimes appear, especially as both male and female figures joined in line dances. Within this thematic variety, the most persistently depicted Argive theme is that known as the horse-leader: a solitary standing male who controls either one or two horses

(figs. 1-2).2 As companion to this favorite Argive motif usually appears a fish, or more rarely a water bird, which is tucked beneath the horse, enframed by its legs and body. Missing from the visual repertoire of

Argive pottery are the heroic charioteers, funeral scenes, and sea battles known from Attic Late Geo- metric painting. These and other hallmarks clearly distinguish the Argive tradition from other Geometric

workshops in the choice of decorative themes.

Despite such obvious thematic differences, research on the iconography of Argive painting has failed to dis- sociate it adequately from Attic influence and examine it as a comprehensive system. A recent study by Board- man has stressed the need for reexamining not just the narrow range of human and animal figures, but also those motifs which seem to blur the border between

filling ornaments and significant symbols by their regular groupings and repeated juxtaposition with certain

figural types.3 The image of the fish, for instance, appears beneath the horse with too much regularity to be

* This article is an expanded version of a paper given at the 88th General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in December 1986. See AJA 91 (1987) 296.

The following abbreviations are used in this article: Boardman 1983 J. Boardman, "Symbol and Story in

Geometric Art," in W. Moon ed., An- cient Greek Art and Iconography (Madison 1983) 15-36.

CGA P. Courbin, La ce'ramique geomitrique de l'Argolide (Paris 1966).

Courtois 1973 J.-C. Courtois, "Sur divers groupes de vases myceniens en Mediterranee orientale (1250-1150 av. J.-C.)," in Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium "The Mycenaeans in the Eastern Mediterranean" (Nicosia 1973) 137-65.

GGP J. N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pot- tery: A Survey of Ten Regional Styles (London 1967).

MPVP E. Vermeule and V. Karageorghis, My- cenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (Cambridge 1982).

Ugaritica V C. Schaeffer, Ugaritica V (Mission de Ras Shamra 16, Paris 1968).

Ugaritica VII J.-C. Courtois, Ugaritica VII (Mission de Ras Shamra 18, Leiden 1978).

Basic discussions, CGA 391-447; GGP 129-44. 2 E.g., CGA pl. 12 amphora from Asine; pl. 28, C1; pls.

41-42, C210; pls. 43-45, C201; pl. 57, C871; pl. 62 cup from Mycenae; pls. 81, 83 pyxides from Mycenae.

3 Boardman 1983, 15-24.

185 American Journal of Archaeology 93 (1989)


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186 SUSAN LANGDON [AJA 93

Fig. 1. Late Geometric Argive kantharos from Mycenae, Nauplion Inv. 1915. (Courtesy Deutsches Archdiologisches Institut, Athens)

considered a mere filler of space. In those rare in- stances when the horse appears without an accompanying fish, the latter's place is frequently taken by a

long loop motif which seems to represent water, and thus preserves an oblique reference to the fish.4

It is this particular combination of pictorial de- vices-man leading horse with fish beneath and associated elements-that holds special promise for un-

derstanding Argive iconography. These elements occur repeatedly in variable groupings throughout the Argive Late Geometric period. The motif of the horse- leader is by no means exclusively Argive, although the full complement of motifs, including fish and water symbols, occurs together only in Argive work. The arts of the famous horse-breeding regions of Geomet- ric Greece, Boeotia and Euboea under Attic influence, and Laconia under Argive sway, all adopted in some fashion the horse-taming theme.5

In earlier studies Roes and Schweitzer described this horse-leader respectively as a sun-god or Poseidon

Hippios, the latter encompassing chthonic and marine spheres with the fish as a "determinative" of the god.6 More recent scholarship, especially that of Courbin, Coldstream, and Boardman, has dispensed with these notions.' Instead, a more pragmatic interpretation has been proposed which finds in these recurring elements references to the physical environment of the Argolid, a fertile pastureland ringed with marshes, where the breeding of horses connoted important social and economic status. Indeed, the mundane character of the individual motifs and their general lack of variety dis- courage such heroic interpretations as are now ac- cepted for Attic Late Geometric with its chariots and battle scenes. In view of this pictorial reticence there would seem to be little reason now to reopen the question of a mythical or religious interpretation of this figure-except, that is, for the existence of two scenes on vases painted nearly 500 years earlier, images that cast an important new light on the possible identity and origin of the Argive horse-leader.

4 E.g., CGA pl. 37, C2362; pl. 65, C1146; pl. 82, pyxis from Mycenae; Boardman 1983, 21 fig. 2.10.

5Attic: Kerameikos V.1, pls. 87, 110; Boeotian: J.N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (New York 1977) 203 fig. 65d; Euboean: M.R. Popham and L.H. Sackett eds., Lef- kandi I (London 1980) pl. 54, inv. 259; Laconian: GGP pl. 46j.

6 A. Roes, Greek Geometric Art: Its Symbolism and Its Origin (London 1933); B. Schweitzer, Greek Geometric Art (New York 1971) 62-63.

7CGA 485-87; GGP 129; Coldstream (supra n. 5) 141-42; Boardman 1983; I. Scheibler, Die symmetrische Bildform in derfriihgriechischen Fliichenkunst (Kallmiinz 1960) 16.



1989] THE RETURN OF THE HORSE-LEADER 187

Fig. 2. Late Geometric Argive krater, Athens National Museum Inv. 877. (Courtesy Athens National Museum)

THE KRATERS FROM UGARIT

The first example is an amphoroid krater of Late

Mycenaean style and date excavated in 1964 in the South Palace of the North Syrian city of Ugarit (mod- ern Ras Shamra).8 Once a prosperous Levantine settlement with harbor and palace, Ugarit in the mid- second millennium served as a meeting place for traders from Cyprus, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Ae-

gean. For several centuries its entrep6ts served to link the cultures of the Semitic and Mediterranean worlds.

The krater in question has a broad piriform belly with narrow foot and wide neck and mouth; two strap handles connect lip and shoulder (fig. 3). The upper body zone bears a pictorial panel on either side

(fig. 4). A male figure facing left stands between two horses with a hand under the muzzle of each. A goat with long curving horns stands behind the left horse on side A. Over the backs of the animals four large tuna-like fish dive to the right on either side. The

scenes are framed by metope panels consisting of vertical lines flanking stacked horizontal zigzags.9

The animals are rendered in dark silhouette with interior designs of crosshatching, zigzags, and parallel angled lines. Under the man's right elbow on side A and left elbow on side B, and behind each horse is a

filling ornament consisting of a dotted subdivided loz-

enge with a wavy tail. The male figures are nearly identical: both wear a curled "Phrygian" cap, crosshatched corselet with high collar, greaves, and boots with upturned toes. The man on side B also wears a

dagger with spiral hilt. The shape, style, and stratigraphic context of this

krater all indicate a date in Transitional LH IIIB/C, or around 1200 B.C., the date of the final destruction of Ugarit.1o Its broad, low amphoroid shape fits an LH IIIB/C sequence known from Cyprus, Caria, and the Dodecanese, particularly Cos and Miletus.11 The krater is most likely of Mycenaean manufacture. De-

spite the theory recently in vogue that all Mycenaean

8 Inv. 27.319. C. Schaeffer, AfO 21 (1966) 133, 134 fig. 17; Ugaritica V 765-66, pls. III-VII; Ugaritica VII 346-47, fig. 54; Courtois 1973, 155-61; H. Buchholz, "Agi- ische Funde und Kultureinfliisse," AA 89 (1974) 325-462 at 402 fig. 57a-b; MPVP 170-71, Cat. XIII.28.

9 These are visible in Ugaritica V pls. V and VI and Ugaritica VII fig. 54B.

10 Courtois 1973, 150-61; Ugaritica VII 346; F. Schacher-

meyr would set it as late as middle LH IIIC, Die digiiische Frithzeit 4: Griechenland im Zeitalter der Wanderungen vom Ende der mykenischen Ara bis auf der Dorier (SB Wien 372 [1980]) 159; F. Schachermeyr, Die Levante im Zeitalter der Wanderungen vom 13. bis zum 11. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (SB Wien 387 [1982]) 208.

11 Courtois 1973, 149-65; MPVP 170.




Fig. 3. Amphoroid krater from Ugarit, Inv. 27.319. (Cour- tesy J.-C. Courtois)

pottery of Pictorial Style originated in Cyprus, spec- trographic analysis and optical emission spectroscopy of selected Pictorial Style sherds from a number of

Cypriot and Levantine sites indicate that the majority of such vases were manufactured on the Greek mainland and chiefly in the Peloponnese.12 This is clearly the case for the earlier phases of pictorial production through LH IIIB. Yet the possibility remains that upheavals in the Aegean sufficiently disrupted the flow of trade for workshops to have sprung up on Cyprus and along the Levantine coast in order to take advan-

tage of an opening in the market.13 The Pastoral or Rude Style pottery of LC III Cyprus, found at Ugarit as well, has been similarly tested and shown to have been produced in Cyprus to fill the gap of declining Greek exports.14 The Ugarit krater falls between the two tested categories of Pictorial and Pastoral Styles. Its style is Pictorial, its quality excellent, yet its date on the basis of style extends beyond that of the tested Pictorial Style samples from Ras Shamra. The fabric, a deep reddish mauve with white inclusions and numerous micaceous particles, resembles that of pottery from Cos and Caria.I5 Courtois's suggestion of a My-

cenaean workshop operating in the region of Cos or Miletus as a source of the Ugarit kraters is consistent with this evidence.

From the main figures to the filling ornaments, this Bronze Age scene bears striking resemblance to similar themes found on Late Geometric Argive vessels. A Late Geometric Argive kantharos from Mycenae (fig. 1),16 for example, presents the same antithetical

arrangement of a man in composite pose standing between and holding the muzzles of two horses. Paired with the horses are two large fish, each juxtaposed in relation to the flanks of the horses. On Geometric ex-

amples the fish are only rarely above the horses." The formal similarities extend even to the dotted subdivided lozenge frequently found between horse and

man.'8 Boardman has noted that this motif occurs,

particularly as a chain, beneath the horse's mouth in

Argive Geometric so regularly that it must represent a

rope or halter.19 This combination of elements on the Ugarit kra-

ter-horse, fish, man, and goat-is unparalleled in

Mycenaean painting. As Vermeule has suggested, the man may be leading the horses to a chariot, an action

implied by the presence of two horses and the man's

S I VI I

A

B

Fig. 4. Front (A) and back (B) figural panels of Ugarit Inv. 27.319 (Ugaritica VII fig. 54C)

12 H.W. Catling and A. Millett, "A Study in the Composi- tion Patterns of Mycenaean Pictorial Pottery from Cyprus," BSA 60 (1965) 212-24; H.W. Catling, R.E. Jones, and A. Millett, "Composition and Provenance Problems in Some Late Bronze Age Pottery Found in Cyprus," RDAC 1978, 70-90; R.E. Jones, Greek and Cypriot Pottery. A Re- view of Scientific Studies (Athens 1986) esp. 542-71, where all Pictorial Style samples from Ras Shamra are shown to fit the Peloponnesian fabric group.

13 Jones (supra n. 12) 603.

14 D. Anson, "Composition and Provenance of Rude Style and Related Wares," RDAC 1980, 109-27; Jones (supra n. 12) 549-53, 606.

" Courtois 1973, 151-65; Ugaritica VII 346. 16 Nauplion Museum Inv. 1915: ArchEph 1912, 132

fig. 3; GGP 138 pl. 29f; CGA pl. 62 bottom. 17 E.g., CGA pl. 132, C172.

8 E.g., ArchDelt 16 (1960) 70, pl. 34; Tiryns I, 146 fig. 12; CGA pl. 28, C1A; pl. 64, C890.

19 Boardman 1983, 16.




gesture.20 This principle of pars pro toto is widely ac-

cepted in interpretation of Geometric representations; for example, when a horse occurs either isolated or tethered to a tripod, the scene may denote prepara- tions for funeral games or a general heroic setting. However, such a scheme is otherwise unknown on

Mycenaean pottery, where horses only exceptionally occur without their chariots. An unusual variation appears on a gold ring from Varkiza in which a man trains a horse with a rope.21 Thematically related to the chariot scenes is a fresco fragment from Mycenae which depicts a heroic warrior with grooms attending horses.22 On the Ugarit krater, however, the presence of a goat standing behind the horses on one side describes a context more cosmological than heroic.

The depiction of the horses, with their reserve faces and elongated bodies ornamented with hatching and

zigzags, fits easily among mainland Mycenaean paintings, as do the renderings of the goat and fish.23 The

singular treatment of the man, however, suggests a broader sphere of artistic influence. His crosshatched corselet cannot be exactly matched, spotted or plain torsos being the favored dress in contemporary painting, but the knee-high greaves are widely found in such Late Bronze Age works as the Warrior Vase, al-

though usually combined with a skirt.24 Even the odd

bird-shaped face and striped neck can be paralleled in a krater from Tiryns, although that example is a

clumsy effort clearly unrelated to the workshop of the

Ugarit krater.25 These affinities with mainland figural style make all the more striking those elements for which there are no parallels. The form of the dagger, with its combination of leaf-shaped blade and spiral hilt, is unique. The custom of wearing the dagger at the waist can be found in earlier Pictorial Style but not in its late phase, and it appears in Cyprus and Ugarit but not on the Greek mainland.26 In addition, the cap with its spiral end is unparalleled in Greece, and the

figure's upturned toes depart from mainland style, in

which toes are much more likely to curve down- ward.27 In addition to these details, the entire construction of the human figure, with its lean but rela-

tively natural proportions and its capable balance of mass and outline, finds rare correspondence with LH IIIB or LH IIIC figures in Mycenaean paintings. It is

precisely this sophisticated conceptual approach to the human form which calls its Geometric counterpart so

dramatically to mind.

By itself, this distinctive grouping of man and horses is no more self-explanatory than when it appears on Argive vases. By remarkable coincidence, however, parts of a second krater turned up in Ugarit in the region of the south Acropolis, and appear to

represent a vessel of the same fabric, shape, and even the same artistic hand as the krater just discussed

(fig. 5).28 This second amphoroid krater also features a single decorative panel set between handles. A man, identical to those on the first vessel in dress and detail, stands to the right of a large central object. His left hand is on his dagger and in his right he holds a large fish by the tail over the central motif. On the left side is

preserved the head of a second fish, similarly raised over the edge of the axial structure, although a double line beside it leaves no room for a second man. This

structure, clearly intended by the artist to be the focus of the composition, is constructed of a typical LH III

metope with horizontal zigzags bordered by verticals. It is enframed by a crossbar that encloses the same dotted lozenges with tails seen on the first krater. Sur-

mounting this structure is a pair of crosshatched horns of consecration flanking a stylized palm.29

This central object is surely an altar, a motif rare in

Mycenaean painting.30 Another example, found on the Mycenaean IIIA "Altar Krater" from the Athe- nian Agora (fig. 6),31 consists of a table-like structure surmounted by horns of consecration and the upright shaft of a double axe or palm. The horns of consecration of our example are, of course, de rigeur for a

20 MPVP 171. 21 P.G. Themelis, "MvKLvat'Kb ~iaKThvALO SK BapKL7~9s," AAA 7 (1974) 427-33, at 431 fig. 8. 22 BSA 25 (1921/1922-1922/1923) pl. 27. 23 Horses: MPVP Cat. XI.7, 8, 10, 16; Fish: MPVP Cat.

XII.19, 40; XIII.7. The creatures on the Ugarit krater have occasionally been referred to as dolphins. Their multiple fins and marked head area identify them as large fish, probably tuna. See M. Gill, "Some Observations on Representa- tions of Marine Animals in Minoan Art, and Their Identifi- cation," in P. Darcque and J.-C. Poursat eds., L'icono- graphie minoenne (BCH-Suppl. 11, Paris 1985) 63-81.

24 Greaves: MPVP Cat. XI.3, 7, 42 (Mycenae), XI.16, 18, 28 (Tiryns), XI.59 (Lefkandi).

25 MPVP Cat. XI.15.1 and 15.2. 26 Dagger at waist: MPVP Cat. III.19 (Ugarit/Minet el

Beida), 111.21 (Enkomi), V.26 (Ugarit/Minet el Beida). 27 MPVP Cat. XI.16, 42, 49, 53. 28 Inv. RS 25.501: Ugaritica V pl. III; Courtois 1973, 156,

158 fig. 10; MPVP Cat. XIII.29; Ugaritica VII 319 fig. 41.1.

29 Schaeffer suggested this structure may be a chariot box, Ugaritica V 766.

30 MPVP 171. 31 S.A. Immerwahr, "Mycenaean Trade and Coloniza-

tion," Archaeology 13 (1960) 4-13 at 8, fig. 7; Immerwahr, Agora XIII: The Neolithic and Bronze Ages (Princeton 1971) 248-50 cat. 425, Inv. P21564; MPVP Cat. VIII.33. Other altars on vessels: MPVP Cat. 111.23 krater from En- komi; C.W. Blegen, Prosymna. The Helladic Settlement Preceding the Argive Heraeum I (Cambridge 1937) pl. VIII, 231 krater from Argive Heraion.




Fig. 5. Krater fragment from Ugarit, Inv. 25.501. (Ugariti- ca VIIE fig. 41.1 right)

Bronze Age altar, and the stylized central bough or

palm has a distinguished pedigree among Aegean altars.32 The tripartite arrangement with high center and lower wings relates it to the standard Aegean shrine form.33 Further support comes from another

clearly related sherd from Ugarit (fig. 7),34 which preserves the fish and part of the altar together with an

Fig. 6. LH III krater from the Athenian Agora, Inv. P21564. (Courtesy American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations)

Fig. 7. Krater fragment from Ugarit, no inv. (Ugaritica VII fig. 41.2)

understood as sacrificing a large fish at an altar, his hand on his dagger. Two related sherds from Ugarit may further record the act of catching this gift (fig. 8).37 The larger fragment preserves the black legs and elbow of a man facing right. Suspended vertically behind him is a large fish with a faint but unmistak- able string in its mouth, perhaps on its way to the altar. Beside his foot is the tail of another fish. The second fragment bears part of a fish hanging parallel with the vertical border.

THE BRONZE AGE SETTING

The similarities of shape, size, and figural details between the two kraters suggest that they formed a matched pair with related imagery. Who is this man who leads horses and sacrifices fish? At this point, the

added detail: the stylized half-rosette frieze that frequently adorns altars and shrines in Minoan and My- cenaean art.35

Although clearly recognizable, the Ugarit altar was probably painted by an artist who had never had reason before to paint one, since such altars were hardly part of the customary Mycenaean pictorial scheme. When bidden by his Ugaritian customer to render one, the artist apparently turned to his familiar repertoire of abstract motifs and concocted a platform out of an enlarged cuttlefish-metope motif.36 Seen in this light, the scene becomes one of offering. The man standing between two horses on the first vessel is now

32 MMR2 168-72; B. Rutkowski, Friihgriechische Kult- darstellungen (Berlin 1981) esp. Chs. 4, 5; N. Marinatos, "The Date-palm in Minoan Iconography and Religion," OpAth 15:9 (1984) 115-22.

33 Rutkowski (supra n. 32) Ch. 2; J. Shaw, "Evidence for the Minoan Tripartite Shrine," AJA 82 (1978) 429-48.

34 Ugaritica VII 318-19, no. 2, fig. 41.2. 35 Gold leaf shrine model from Shaft Grave IV, S. Mari-

natos and M. Hirmer, Kreta, Thera, und das mykenische Hellas (Munich 1976) pl. 227; gold ring from Tiryns, Ma-

rinatos and Hirmer, pl. 229 (also CMS I no. 179); minia- ture fresco from Knossos, PM III, pl. XVI; limestone frieze from Knossos, R. Hampe and E. Simon, The Birth of Greek Art (New York 1981) fig. 66; Shaw (supra n. 33) 430.

36 A. Furumark, Mycenaean Pottery I (Stockholm 1972) Motive 18, flower hybrid as in 291 fig. 44:52 and Motive 15, palm, 278 fig. 39:5, 13, 15; Courtois 1973, 157 n. 48.

37 Ugaritica VII 319 fig. 4.1, published as part of the same vessel as our fig. 4.




Fig. 8. Krater fragments from Ugarit, Inv. 25.501. (Ugariti- ca VII fig. 41.1 left)

dangers of misinterpretation loom large, for these two remarkable pictures from Ugarit clearly represent an isolated instance, and are idiosyncratic in either a My- cenaean or a Syrian context. Can they possibly relate to the Mycenaean world or are they simply a collection of favorite motifs assembled at the whim of some Uga- ritian customer? There is no artistic support for the horse alone having cultic or chthonic significance for the Mycenaeans. Evidence from wall frescoes, vase

painting, and glyptic art indicates that the horse was

simply part of the trappings of court life, as was the warrior's equipment worn by the recurring human

figure. Given its regular association with the chariot, its funerary significance in Mycenaean art is limited to the transport of the aristocrat to his grave and the en- noblement of the deceased by association with the ani-

mal.38 Like its Geometric counterpart, the krater's figural decor poses equally difficult challenges of identification in either a Mycenaean or a Levantine context.

Yet the association of this horse-leader figure with a fish offering ritual opens new avenues of investigation. As noted above, it is clear that the vessels were painted by a Mycenaean artist. It is therefore plausible to examine these scenes within the known context of Myce- naean religion. Although uncommon, depictions of male worshippers at an altar exist in Aegean art. In a cosmic scene on a bronze plaque from Patsos a man, in the presence of a bird and a fish, walks among three

paired horns of consecration adorned with branches, which identify them as altars.39 The seal from Aplo- mata depicts an offering ritual with implements spread out above the cult table.40 In general, such scenes of figures standing at altars rarely indicate that the sacrificer is intrinsically divine, an ambiguity shared by the man with fish on the Ugarit krater.41

Later Greek artistic and religious traditions offer a

tantalizing network of correspondences for these ico-

nographic elements. The association of fish and horse in a potentially religious context recalls Homeric and Classical attributes of Poseidon, sea-god, helper of

fishermen, breaker of horses, and in certain accounts, even father of the horse. As early as the Iliad (23.307) and the later Homeric Hymn to Poseidon (22.4-5) his

identity includes horse-tamer and ship-saver. As Po- seidon Hippios, associated with the fertility and tam-

ing of horses, he was celebrated with chariot races.42 Later vase paintings show him carrying a large fish.43

Antigones of Karystos described the sacrifice to Posei- don of the first tuna caught of the season.44

Indeed, such elements once led to the recently re- futed identification of the Argive Geometric horse- leader with Poseidon Hippios himself.45 Poseidon

happens also to be the central figure of the Mycenaean

38 J.L. Benson, Horse, Bird, and Man: The Origins of Greek Painting (Amherst 1970) Ch. 1, esp. 20-26, for further discussion. On horses in burials, see below n. 115.

39 J. Boardman, The Cretan Collection in Oxford (Oxford 1961) 46-47, pl. XV.217; B. Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean (New Haven 1986) 59 fig. 59.

40 Naxos Museum, CMS V, 2 no. 608. 41 Ivory ring from Phylakopi, C. Renfrew, The Archaeo-

logy of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi (BSA Suppl. 18, Athens 1985) 295-96, pl. 55d; gem from Myrinochorion, E.T. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago 1972) pl. XIXf; gem from Mallia, C.R. Long, The Ayia Triadha Sarcophagus (G6teborg 1974) pl. 4 fig. 11.

42 At Onchestos, Hymn. Hornm. Ap. 230-36; W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Mass. 1985) 138.

43 E.g., hydria in New York Metropolitan Museum 21.88.162: G.M.A. Richter, Attic Red Figure Vases (rev. ed., New Haven 1958) fig. 121; cup by Oltos, Copenhagen NM Inv. 13407, J. Boardman, Athenian Red-figure Vases: The Archaic Period (London 1975) 65 fig. 59.

44 W. Burkert, Homo Necans (Berkeley 1983) 208. For a discussion of tuna sacrifice, M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec (Paris 1979) 178-79 and fig. 16.

45 Schweitzer (supra n. 6) 62-63; Benson (supra n. 38) 30; for a modified version of this theory, P. Kahane, "The Ces- nola Krater from Kourion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: An Iconological Study in Greek Geometric Art," in N. Robertson ed., The Archaeology of Cyprus (Park Ridge, N.J. 1975) 151-210.




pantheon at Pylos, from which the bulk of Bronze Age

literary evidence comes.46 On the basis of this circum- stantial evidence it is tempting to conclude that Posei- don's particular iconography began even in Myce- naean times, but present evidence does not confirm this. Poseidon cannot be proven to be a god of the sea before the date of the Iliad's composition, nor is he

clearly related to any Mycenaean deity called Hip- pos-if indeed such a figure ever existed.47

Most important, there exists no evidence for attributes specific to male deities in Mycenaean art, a

sphere in which no undisputed depiction of a male di-

vinity occurs before the 12th century. The nature of

Aegean male deities has been a puzzle ever since the

recognition of male names on Linear B tablets from

Pylos and Knossos showed Mycenaean religion to be more than a modified monotheism of female deities.

Representations of male divinities remain elusive and

controversial.48 The popular bronze and terracotta male figurines from Minoan Crete seem by their

adoring pose and occurrence in large numbers to be votaries. On the mainland, the terracotta figures from the shrine room at Mycenae, which Taylour identified as male because they lack breasts, also lack male geni- talia; they are to our eyes rather ambiguous and were

perhaps intentionally created so.49 Only in LH IIIC does the evidence begin to gather. A large broken terracotta penis from Tiryns is arguably the remnant of a

male cult figure.s0 The earliest complete cult figures of indisputably male gender are the terracottas found in the West Shrine at Phylakopi of ca. 1120-1090.51

Instead, it is more useful to view fish-offering in the

greater context of the eastern Mediterranean world.

By themselves, the artistic elements of the Ugarit kraters indicate regional connections rather than ties with mainland Greece. The Argolid painters preferred birds as their decorative motif, and those of Cyprus preferred bulls; on the other hand, dolphins, fish, and

goats were popular from Crete to Ugarit, from Rhodes to Caria. A Mycenaean jar from the Dodeca-

nese, now in Toronto, features fish arranged over horses' backs.52 The lozenge with wavy tail is found

only on pottery from Miletus and Ugarit.53 Subject matter also relates these scenes to an easter-

ly origin. The presence of fish in Aegean ritual is not unknown. The Fishermen frescoes of the West House at Akrotiri depict a ritual of fish offering, with the votaries or priests approaching an offering table in the corner of the room carrying their piscine gifts (fig. 9).54 Such a representation clarifies the isolated

images of men bearing fish found on carved seals and

pottery of both Cycladic and Mycenaean origin. A

unique cylindrical vase support from Phylakopi is decorated with four nude walking men, each of whom carries one or two fish by their tails.55 Similar to these

examples are the figures holding a fish on a krater

fragment from Maroni (fig. 10),56 and on several

46 This may be true of Knossos as well, where Poseidon is mentioned four times; Vermeule (supra n. 41) 293; J. Chad- wick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek2 (Cambridge 1973) 280.

47 F. Schachermeyr, Poseidon und die Entstehung des griechischen Gbtterglaubens (Bern 1950) 150; L.R. Palmer, The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts (Oxford 1963) 249-50; Palmer, "Some New Minoan-Mycenaean Gods," Innsbriicker Beitrdge zur Sprachwissenschaft 26 (1981) 5-24, esp. 14; Palmer, "Mycenaean Religion: Meth- odological Choices," in A. Heubeck and G. Neumann eds., Res Mycenae. Akten des VII. Internationalen Mykenologi- schen Colloquiums in Niirnberg vom 6.-10. April 1981

(G6ttingen 1983) 338-62 at 352-55. Most recently, J. Chadwick, "What Do We Know about Mycenaean Reli- gion?" in A. Morpurgo-Davies and Y. Duhoux eds., Linear B: A 1984 Survey (Cabay 1985) 191-202, esp. 198.

48 See discussion on the Master of Animals infra and ns. 106, 107.

49 W. Taylour, "Mycenae 1968," Antiquity 43 (1969) 92, pl. 12a; Taylour, "New Light on Mycenaean Religion," Antiquity 44 (1970) 271, pl. 38b.

50o E. French in Renfrew (supra n. 41) 224, fig. 6.10. 51 Renfrew (supra n. 41) 223-30; C. Renfrew, "The My-

cenaean Sanctuary at Phylakopi," Antiquity 52 (1978) 7-15, pls. V, VI; Renfrew, "The Sanctuary at Phylakopi,"

in R. Higg and N. Marinatos eds., Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age (Stockholm 1981) 67-79, esp. 75 fig. 16.

52 J.L. Benson, "A Mycenaean Vase in Toronto," AJA 72 (1968) 203-209, pl. 65; Benson (supra n. 38) pl. 111.4; MPVP 162 Cat. XII.42.

53 MPVP 170. 54 N. Marinatos, "The West House at Akrotiri as a Cult

Center," AM 98 (1983) 1-19; Marinatos, "The Function and Interpretation of the Theran Frescoes," in L'iconogra- phie minoenne (supra n. 23) 219-20; Marinatos, "Minoan Threskiocracy on Thera," in R. Higg and N. Marinatos eds., Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality (Stockholm 1984) 167-76; Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera (Athens 1984) 37.

55 D.G. Hogarth, "Excavations in Melos, 1898," BSA 4 (1897-1898) pl. 2; C.C. Edgar, Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos (JHS Suppl. 4, 1904) 123-25, pl. 22; New York Metropolitan Museum, Greek Art of the Aegean Islands (New York 1979) 69 no. 23, pl. 27, with further bibliography.

56 British Museum C337: Catling and Millett (supra n. 12) 222 no. 13, pl. 60.2; MPVP Cat. 111.30. Compare the jug from Melathria with a figure holding a long drop- shaped object (Sparta Mus. 5533): K. Demacopoulou, "A Mycenaean Pictorial Vase of the Fifteenth Century B.C.




Bronze Age seals (fig. 11).57 A Mycenaean seal from the palace at Pylos and a second now in Heraklion

depict female figures flanked by two dolphins or

fish.58 In Aegean art fish may appear either carried or

posed beside a human figure, but scenes of actual fishing are unknown. The mundane act has no role in art; the focus is instead on the resulting gift.59" The funda- mental religious significance of these representations of fishermen in the art of island and coastal societies comes as no surprise, for only in maritime communi- ties is the fish such an important commodity that its eternal renewal is a matter to be taken to the gods.

Evidence of fish offering in pre-Classical society in fact extends much further. The role of fish in Mesopo- tamian and Near Eastern religious ritual has a long tradition. The myth of Atargatis and Ichthys made fish sacred and tabu for Lydians, Hittites, and Sy- rians.60 Fish were offered to Marduk in his temple at

Babylon.6' The glyptic art of Assyria and Babylonia depicts priests dressed as fish.62 In Ugaritic texts, the

goddess Asherat is called "Mistress of the Sea" and chooses a fisherman as her servant.63 Striking evidence for Levantine influence upon Mycenaean cult

practice comes from Ugarit in the form of three rhyta,

Fig. 9. Reconstruction of Room 5 of the West House, Akrotiri. (After N. Marinatos, AM 98 [1983] fig. 5)

from Laconia," BSA 66 (1971) 95-100, pl. 12; MPVP Cat. VIII.6, p. 210 with further bibliography. Although the figure has been called a goddess (Schachermeyr) and a warrior (Demacopoulou, Vermeule), the object looks very much like a fish.

57 CMS II, 2 no. 174; CMS V, 1 no. 181; CMS VII no. 88; CMS X no. 144; J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (London 1970) pls. 62, 107. See J.A. Sakellarakis, "Le pecheur dans l'art prehistorique eg'en," AAA 7 (1974) 370-90 for further examples.

51 CMS I no. 344; CMS II, 3 no. 327. See also Sakellarakis (supra n. 57) 376 fig. 10, a seal in the Ashmolean Museum showing a female with one fish. Compare CMS II, 2 no. 267, male flanked by two large fish. Although the animals on the Ugarit vessels are clearly tuna and not dolphins, it is interesting to note in this context the observations of N. Marinatos, Minoan Sacrificial Ritual (Stockholm 1986) 48-49 on the symbolic role of the dolphin in Minoan sacrifice.

59 See Sakellarakis (supra n. 57) 370-90 for a different conclusion. The recovery of fish remains from Bronze Age religious contexts, as at Phylakopi (Renfrew [supra n. 41]

482), would obviously lend strong support to an Aegean ritual of fish offering. Without water-sieving retrieval is nearly impossible; perhaps future excavation will clarify this issue.

60 G.M.A. Hanfmann, "Lydiaka," HSCP 63 (1958) 65-88, esp. 73-76; Burkert (supra n. 44) 204-12. For Egyptian evidence, I. Gamer-Wallert, Fische und Fisch- kulte im alten Agypten (Wiesbaden 1970) esp. 86-119.

61 Burkert (supra n. 44) 207. 62 O.W. Muscarella, Ladders to Heaven (Toronto 1981)

143 no. 104; E. Williams-Forte, Ancient Near Eastern Seals: A Selection of Stamp and Cylinder Seals from the Col- lection of Mrs. William H. Moore (New York 1976) no. 40; G.A. Eisen, Ancient Oriental Cylinder and Other Seals with a Description of the Collection of Mrs. William H. Moore (Chicago 1940) 52 nos. 86, 87, pl. 10.

63M.C. Astour, Hellenosemitica (Leiden 1967) 206; J.C.L. Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends (Edinburgh 1978) 4 n. 1, 57; Corpus des tablettes en cuneiformes alpha- betiques decouvertes a Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 a 1939 4 (Paris 1963) ii, 11.26-36.




Fig. 10. LH III krater fragment from Maroni, British Mu- seum Inv. C337. (Courtesy British Museum)

one completely preserved, in the shape of fish; all are of apparent Mycenaean manufacture.64 A similar vessel excavated at Tiryns shows that the type was not unknown on the mainland.65 Recent discussion of the vessels has demonstrated that as the Mycenaean zoo-

morphic rhyta achieved a certain popularity in the Near East, new types arose under the influence of Le- vantine cult implements.66 The fish form was inspired by similarly shaped bottles known earlier in eastern

contexts.67 A Late Cypriot bronze stand in the British Museum with a panel depicting a man bearing fish as an offering completes the theme's dispersal throughout the East Mediterranean.68

If the Ugaritic fish offering scene can be understood in the greater context of the eastern Mediterranean

world, what new light can this information shed on the origin or identity of the man? The figure itself offers a clue. His warlike appearance suggests that the sacrificer of fish on the Ugarit krater did not derive

solely from the earlier Aegean tradition outlined above. The greaves he wears are a late addition to the

Aegean warrior's dress, a direct response to the arrival of the new slashing sword in Aegean combat.69 The distinctive crosshatching of the torso is unusual in

Mycenaean pictorial work, and while it could be used

simply as filling ornament, as on the horses, it also recalls the high-necked scale armor very rare in Greece but characteristic of warriors of the Levant.70 The substantial departures from the mainland tradition of figure construction and military accoutrements

Fig. 11. Lentoid seal in the Schliemann Collection, Athens Numismatic Collection. (After CMS V, 1 no. 181)

64 Ugaritica II (Mission de Ras Shamra 5, Paris 1949) 222, fig. 93.4; Ugaritica VII 335, fig. 47.1; V. Karageorghis, Nouveaux documents pour l'itude du Bronze Recent ea Chypre (Paris 1965) 226, pl. XXII.3.

65 In Nauplion Museum. N.M. Verdelis, "'Avao-Kapa' AOXKov, T'pvvo0s Ka'l FaXaatK6," ArchEph 1956, 1-13, esp. 7 fig. 13.

66 Karageorghis (supra n. 64) 230; M. Yon, "Instruments de culte en Mediterran&e orientale," in V. Karageorghis ed., Cyprus between the Orient and the Occident (Nicosia 1986) 265-88, esp. 272.

67 E.g., fish rhyton from Tell Kamid el-Loz, J. Boese, R. Echt, A. Miron eds., Friihe Phaniker im Libanon (Mainz 1983) 70, fig. 34; from Ugarit, Inv. 22.464, Ugariti-

ca VII 219, fig. 8. 68 H.W. Catling, Cypriot Bronzework in the Mycenaean

World (Oxford 1964) 205-207, pl. 34a. 69 N.K. Sandars, "North and South at the End of the My-

cenaean Age: Aspects of an Old Problem," OJA 2 (1983) 43-53; J.D. Muhly, "The Role of the Sea Peoples in Cy- prus during the LCIII Period," in V. Karageorghis and J.D. Muhly eds., Cyprus at the Close of the Late Bronze Age (Nicosia 1984) 39-55, esp. 42.

70 Muhly (supra n. 69) 42 n. 15 with bibliography; Ph6niker (supra n. 67) 94-100; V. Karageorghis and E. Masson, "A propos de la decouverte d'&cailles d'armure en bronze ia Gastria-Alaas (Chypre)," AA 1975, 209-22.




indicate that the Mycenaean artist was not working from a traditional pictorial model but was drawing upon other elements of his Bronze Age environment. In fact, with his tall headgear and dagger the figure bears a certain resemblance to the "smiting gods" of Near Eastern tradition.71 The physical characteristics of the smiting deities of the Late Urban Levant, whether weather divinity or war god, included the tall

Egyptian white crown and frequently a dagger attached at the belt. The transmission of this image, es-

pecially through the popular Syro-Palestinian bronze

figurines, cylinder seals, and other minor arts, is well documented from Egypt to the Aegean.72 That the

image was familiar to Mycenaean Greeks is attested

by imported bronze figurines73 and seals.74 The possibility that the Mycenaean artist of the

Ugarit kraters found inspiration for his horse-leader in the Near Eastern image provides the missing parallels. The Egyptian white crown worn by the horse- leader has been transformed into a millinery abstrac- tion with a curl that combines the knob and the tassel

popular in the 13th century. The dagger or short sword is more difficult to characterize, and even classi-

fying it as sword, dirk, or dagger is risky in view of the abstract style of the scene. The blade is leaf-shaped

with a curled hilt unlike the straight cruciform and horned blades typical of the Aegean Late Bronze

Age.75 A sword with a curled hilt is known from

Egypt,76 but the type is rare. More likely, the artist has rendered the crescent pommel of a Levantine-type dagger as a spiral.77 The upturned toes are found in

many representations, with or without "Hittite" boots. Some cylinder seals show a series of vertical stripes on the neck similar to those of the Ugarit krater figures.78 Finally, the general profiles of the krater figures re- semble more closely the slender, graceful forms of Near Eastern bronze and glyptic art than contemporary Mycenaean painted images.79"

The detailed images preserved on seals, stelai and

other media reveal more of the smiting god's nature.

Distinguished from the storm god type who smites with thunderbolts, this younger deity, sometimes

identifiable as Reshef, carries spear and axe. He may ride a chariot or grasp animals; in some scenes he is

accompanied by fish and lions (fig. 12).80 The specific connection of the fish with this young warrior god is

explained in at least one instance by his identity as the son of the water god El, Yamm, whose name is the

Ugaritic word for the sea.81 Seated, the young god may receive offerings from other figures;82 more im-

71 R.H. Smith, "Near Eastern Forerunners of the Striding Zeus," Archaeology 15 (1962) 176-83; D. Collon, "The Smiting God: A Study of a Bronze in the Pomerance Collec- tion in New York," Levant 4 (1972) 111-34; 0. Negbi, Ca- naanite Gods in Metal (Tel Aviv 1976); H. Seeden, The

Standing Armed Figurines in the Levant (Priihistorische Bronzefunde 1.1, Munich 1980); J.D. Muhly, "Bronze Fig- urines and Near Eastern Metalwork," IEJ 30 (1980) 148-61, esp. 153-61.

72 J. Bouzek, "Syrian and Anatolian Figurines in Europe," PPS 38 (1972) 156-64; W. Burkert, "Resep-Figuren, Apol- lo vom Amyklai und die 'Erfindung' des Opfers auf Cy- pern," GrazBeitr 4 (1975) 51-79; Negbi (supra n. 71) 41 table 6.

73 Mycenae: Athens NM 6433, H. Schliemann, Mykenae (Leipzig 1878) 16 no. 12; G.E. Mylonas, Mycenae (1937) 243, fig. 5; A.J. Wace, Mycenae, An Archaeological History and Guide (Princeton 1949) pl. 110c. Tiryns: Athens NM 1582, H. Schliemann, Tiryns (Leipzig 1886) 187 no. 97; PM III 477 fig. 331c. For more recent bibliography on both, Seeden (supra n. 71) 127-28, nos. 1816, 1817; Phylakopi: Renfrew (supra n. 41) 309. The Phylakopi finds, dating to the 14th and 13th centuries and found in stratified contexts of 1120 and 1090 B.C., attest to the availability of such bronzes in the Aegean during the years when the painter of the Ugarit kraters was working. The closest parallels for the figurines from Mycenae and Tiryns are in fact Ugaritic pro- ductions hidden in a house just preceding or during the abandonment of Ugarit around 1200 B.C.: Damascus NM RS 23.392 and 23.393, C. Schaeffer, AfO 20 (1963) fig. 21; Seeden (supra n. 71) nos. 1689, 1690. For other imported figurines in Greece: J. Vorys Canby, "Some Hittite Figu-

rines from the Aegean," Hesperia 38 (1969) 141-49; most recently, H. Gallet de Santerre, "Les statuettes de bronze myceniennes au type dit du 'Dieu Reshef' dans leur contexte EgAen," BCH 111 (1987) 7-29.

74 S. Symeonoglou, Kadmeia I (G6teborg 1973) fig. 225b; S. Iakovidis, Excavations of the Necropolis at Perati (Los Angeles 1980) 87 fig. 100.

75 Catling (supra n. 68) 116-17; N.K. Sandars, "Later Ae- gean Bronze Swords," AJA 67 (1963) 117-53; Sandars (supra n. 69) 43-68.

76 N.K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples (rev. ed., London 1985) 154, 159 fig. 110 right; Archaeologia (London) 53 (1892) pl. 1 fig. 2, although it may simply be a hooked tang.

77 R. Maxwell-Hyslop, "Daggers and Swords in Western Asia," Iraq 8 (1946) 1-65, esp. 26 Type 25, pl. III; Seeden (supra n. 71) 135-38 discusses the crown and dagger as attributes of the smiting god.

78 Seeden (supra n. 71) pl. 138.11, 12, 15. 79 It is worth noting that three of the LH IIIC terracottas

from the West Shrine at Phylakopi (Renfrew [supra n. 41] 223-29, figs. 6.12-6.14) offer significant similarities to the krater figures: dark caps which curve back to a point, a painted dagger in the belt, and a painted crosshatched corselet. Renfrew has noted that the nearest comparanda for their pose are among the Syrian group of bronze figurines of Negbi's "Anatolian Pose," with arms held forward at shoulder level (Renfrew [supra n. 41] 422; Negbi [supra n. 71] 8).

80 B. Buchanan, Catalogue of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in the Ashmolean Museum I (Oxford 1966) nos. 1000, 1001, 1010.

81 Muscarella (supra n. 62) 245-46, no. 215. 82 Seal from Ugarit, E. Porada, "The Warrior with




Fig. 12. Levantine seals, second millennium: A, from Kish, Ashmolean Museum Inv. 1930.395(19); B, provenance unknown, Ashmolean Museum Inv. 1895.180. (After B. Bu- chanan, Catalogue I nos. 1000, 1010)

portant, he may himself offer homage to a deity. In a

popular cylinder seal theme of the 14th-13th centuries he stands with his offering, a jar on a stand, before a deity on a high-backed throne.83 Between the two figures are an altar and a fish. A nearly identical scene appears on a remarkable vessel of local style from Ugarit found among terracotta liver models in the House of the Priest (fig. 13).84 Wearing a high helmet with curled tassel, the smiting god approaches a large figure thought to be El seated before a table or

altar; the former carries a jug as offering, and leads a

horse, a fish, and a bird. The most tantalizing support comes from Ugarit

tablet UT2004 (RS 19.15), which describes the ritual for the transport of statuettes of Astarte and Reshef to the royal palace and lists appropriate offerings.85 Among the latter, "fish" is clearly cited, followed by an

apparent instruction to proceed to the "podium" of Reshef at sunset."86 Another tablet, RS 24.250+259, refers to offerings consisting of fish.87 Such hints of fish

offering among Ugarit rites are not surprising in a port city, and support the view that the Ugarit kraters were commissioned by a Ugarit customer. The annual re-

opening of the seas in March, which allowed trade and

fishing to resume and was perhaps marked by festivals

honoring Asherat and Yamm, must have been equally important to both Ugaritians and Mycenaeans.

The shadow of the Levantine smiting god detected in the Ugarit kraters does not yet explain why the artist undertook such a novel interpretation in the first

place. Created probably shortly after the destruction of the mainland palace centers, these two Ugarit vessels belong to the schools of Mycenaean pictorial painting that sprang up in Cyprus and around the islands and Asia Minor coast at centers such as Rhodes, Cos, and Miletus. The vessels can be seen as the prod- ucts of a Mycenaean artist working in the Eastern

Mediterranean, perhaps one of a wave of transplanted Peloponnesians, who now enjoyed a greater freedom from the mainland tradition.

Under the influence of the Near East, with its age- old depictions of ritual and fixed deity-iconography, relocated Mycenaeans such as our painter first began to articulate the nature of their own gods in artistic terms. The Near Eastern cults provided models for the male element that had formerly been absent from My- cenaean art.88 It is hardly coincidental that an identical

phenomenon of figurine imitation recurs in the eighth- century Argolid, when Geometric bronzesmiths

adopted the image of the smiting god for the decoration of tripod handles and freestanding votives.89 The moti- vation in both periods must have been the same. A

Plumed Helmet: A Study of Syro-Cappadocian Cylinder Seals and Bronze Figurines," Berytus 7 (1942) 57-63, esp. pl. VIII.2.

83 Buchanan (supra n. 80) no. 992, pl. 61; D. Hogarth, Hittite Seals (Oxford 1920) no. 236; H.H. von der Osten, Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mrs. Agnes Bald- win Brett (Chicago 1936) nos. 118, 119, 121 pl. 11; von der Osten, Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Ed- ward T. Newell (Chicago 1934) nos. 401, pl. 27; 437, pl. 30. For an earlier version of this theme, Buchanan (supra n. 80) Vol. II, no. 230, pl. XV.

84 Inv. RS 24.440: C.F.A. Schaeffer, "Nouveaux temoig- nages du culte de El et de Baal a Ras-Shamra-Ugarit," Syria 43 (1966) 1-19; Ugaritica VI (Mission de Ras Sham- ra 17, Paris 1969) 111 fig. 13; M.H. Pope, "The Scene on the Drinking Mug from Ugarit," in H. Goedicke ed., Near

Eastern Studies in Honor of W.F. Albright (Baltimore 1971) 393-405.

85 C.F.A. Schaeffer and C. Virolleaud, Le palais royal d'Ugarit V (Paris 1965) 7-9; J.-M. Tarragon, Le culte & Ugarit (Paris 1980) 98-99, 101 notes that references to the king and the royal palace might alternatively signify Baal and the temple of Baal, as demonstrated for another text.

86 Tarragon (supra n. 85) 22, 35, 107-109. 87 Ugaritica VII 26-30.

88 Palmer 1983 (supra n. 47) 354, for instance, has recently linked Poseidon to a Canaanite counterpart, Baal Zeboul, by both function and etymological construction; see Chad- wick's caveat (supra n. 47) 364-65.

89 H.-V. Herrmann, "Werkstitten geometrischer Bronze- plastik," JdI 79 (1964) 17-71, figs. 42-48.




Fig. 13. Figural scene on vessel from Ugarit, RS 24.440. (After Ugaritica VI fig. 13)

meaningful correspondence between the Levantine

deity and an Aegean counterpart divinity (or hero) was

discovered, and a ready-made image of pleasing form was at hand, perhaps with its cosmopolitan associations valued as an added measure of status or author-

ity. It is probably inaccurate and certainly incautious to affix a single name to the smiting deity when it appears in Greece. Just as its form was applied variously to different local weather and war gods in the Near

East, so in Greece this stance later offered a powerful image for Zeus, Apollo, and Poseidon.

THE GEOMETRIC SETTING

The means by which this horse-leading motif survived the next four and a half centuries to reemerge on

Argive pottery is a not inconsiderable question. The

problem is not precisely the intervention of the Dark

Age; the paucity of remains from that period does not

preclude the possibility that such image-making was somehow kept in a state of incubation down to the Geometric period, much as the Tree of Life motif sim-

ilarly disappeared from and subsequently reemerged in Greek pottery.90 Rather, it is surprising that, if indeed it survived intact, the motif does not appear in its canonical form on Argive pottery until as late as LG I, by which point figures have already been in use

since Argive MG II."9 More significant, the first post- Bronze Age horse-taming scenes appear in Attic art, on a fibula from Lefkandi of the early ninth century,92 on a MG II Attic mug,93 and on a possibly MG II ivory seal.94 On all of these examples a man guides a horse from behind, perhaps assisted by a second man, as on the mug and the seal. This scheme of decoration is followed in Late Geometric by other horse-taming motifs in which a man is flanked by symmetrical horses.95 Clearly the introduction of horse-taming scenes, and indeed of the human figure in general, occurs in the Attic but not Argive sphere, and in the context of funerary and aristocratic but not divine iconography.96 These earliest examples of the image suggest that its transference or survival occurred in the small-scale portable art of seals and fibulae rather than in domestic pottery. By the early ninth century Lefkandi and Athens were receiving Levantine im- ports, among examples of which this theme may have been represented.97

The Attic horse-leading motif undergoes a steady development from the earliest examples. The horse is the first to win popularity as an artistic motif, then a man joins the scene in the role of its master, thereby expressing the aristocratic ethos with more explicit reference to the aristocrat. As part of this symbolism

90 Kahane (supra n. 45) 155-67. 91 Earliest examples: Argos, Raptis Graves Kraters 2-3; krater Argos C240, CGA pl. 40; oinochoe from Argos, Ecole franpaise d'Athines, Etudes argiennes (BCH-Suppl. 6, Paris 1980) 75-84.

92 Popham and Sackett (supra n. 5) 243, pl. 240f. 93 Kerameikos Mus. Inv. 2159, Kerameikos V.1, pls. 111,

141. 94 F.D. Stavropoullos, ArchDelt 20 (1965) pl. 46; G. Daux,

BCH 92 (1968) 738 fig. 9c. 91 E.g., amphora from Kerameikos, Inv. 1306, Kerameikos

V.1, pl. 110; kantharos, Laon Mus. Inv. 37769, Benson

(supra n. 38) pl. XI.4; kantharos from Kerameikos Inv. 268, Kerameikos V.1, pl. 87.

96 This is supported also by the terracotta horses on pyxis lids found in rich male graves, Coldstream (supra n. 5) 77. Interpretations of the earliest Attic vase-paintings are many; for the most recent bibliography, see A.M. Snodgrass, "To- wards the Interpretation of the Geometric Figure-Scenes," AM 95 (1980) 51-58 and the discussion in J.M. Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. (Itha- ca 1985) 53-70.

97 Coldstream (supra n. 5) 66.




the horse often appears alone, standing tied to a tripod as if referring to the Homeric custom of horse and tripod prizes for heroic games.98 Likely the very vessels bearing these images were themselves prizes of eighth-century contests of skill. Frequently, the addition of a double axe suspended over the back of the tethered horse forms yet another link with the heroic past. Since the fish has no place in this epic scheme, it never appears in connection with the horse.

This Attic expression of aristocratic status through horse symbolism elaborated by the addition of a gen- tleman-warrior is a fairly simple visual achievement and not unprecedented in the Greek world, as the popularity of horse and chariot scenes in Mycenaean art attests. In contrast to Bronze Age practice, when Geometric Argive artists take up the horse-leader scene the horse is accompanied by a fish and frequently by filler ornaments which apparently denote water: lozenges as a degenerate form of the fish,99 stacks of

Fig. 14. Late Geometric fragment from Argos, Mus. Inv. C240. (Courtesy Ecole Francaise d'Archeologie, Athens)

horizontal zigzags,100 loops in multiple outlines.101 The presence of waterbirds among these fillers aids in

identifying them as water signs. Among the Argive horse imagery, double axes and tripods are remark-

ably scarce, although the latter may be represented in a wheeled T-shaped object.102 Not only do Argive horse images lack the customary heroic appurtenances of the Attic schools-chariots, tripods, double axes-

but, as Boardman has noted, the connection between horse and water seems of greater significance than that between horse and man.103 The earliest, and most

explicit, version of the Argive horse-tamer is the panel of Argos C240, in which a man drives a horse to the seashore in the company of dancers, fish, and a water- bird (fig. 14).104 This intriguing scene recalls the custom known from various cultures of breaking a horse

by forcing it into the sea. The dancers give the scene a sacred air evocative of the recorded practice of horse

sacrifice to Poseidon at Argos, where a horse with bri- dle was driven into the sea and drowned.'15 These de-

partures from established Attic iconography suggest that the motif of man-horse-fish embodies a special Argive interpretation. Since the Ugaritic kraters indicate that the elements of the horse-leader motif originally coalesced within a religious context, it is neces-

sary to reconsider the evidence for the Argive horse- leader as a religious figure.

THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY

For the Bronze Age horse-leader, the discrepancy between archaeological and literary testimony pre- vents a positive identification of the main figure. He resembles most strongly the Aegean Master of Ani-

mals, an image abundantly illustrated in both Minoan and Mycenaean art, but one that has yet to depart the realm of controversy.106 The antithetical image of a man grasping two animals (goats, lions, bulls, ducks, demons, and griffins all participate) occurs on seals and jewelry,107 an ambiguous scene that might char-

98 Berlin 31005, GGP pl. 14c; Kerameikos Inv. 1955 EPK 569, 570, M. Brouskari, 'A 0 r0dv 'AOrva'Kd KEpaMEtKd ro7 8ov rr.X. a'owva

(Athens 1979) pls. 3, 4. 99 CGA pl. 34, C738; pl. 63, C2441; pl. 78, pyxis in Wiurz-

burg; pl. 83, pyxis from Mycenae; pl. 132, C253. 100 CGA pl. 34, C280; pl. 36, C645; pl. 137, C2462;

G. Touchais, BCH 102 (1978) 663 fig. 51. 101 A. Roes, BCH 77 (1953) pl. 29 bottom right, double

loop enclosing fish; CGA pl. 37, C2362; pl. 65, C1146; pl. 82 pyxis from Mycenae. For fuller discussion, see Board- man 1983, 19. 102 Tripod cauldron: C. Waldstein, The Argive Heraeum II

(Cambridge, Mass. 1905) pl. 57, 11. T-form object: CGA pl. 28, C1A; pl. 41, C210; pl. 43, C201; pl. 62, C870. Boardman 1983, 17 and Courbin, CGA 440 call it a man- ger. Double axe: CGA pl. 125, C4212.

103 Boardman 1983, 20. 104 Argos Mus. C240: CGA pl. 40; Boardman 1983, 18 figs.

2.4a-b. 105 Paus. 8.7.2; W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek

Mythology (Berkeley 1979) 113. See also Achilles' reference to a similar Trojan custom, Hom. II. 21.131.

106 G. Mylonas, AJA 69 (1965) 375; see discussion in W. Taylour, The Mycenaeans (London 1964) 65, removed in new edition 1983, 46. 107 CMS I, nos. 89, 163, 356; II, 3, nos. 167, 193; IV, no.

293; VIII, no. 147. Pendant from Aegina, R. Higgins, The Aegina Treasure (London 1979) 23, fig. 11. Recent discussion of the motif, A. Tamvaki, "The Seals and Sealings from the Citadel House Area: A Study in Mycenaean Glyptik and Iconography," BSA 69 (1974) 282-86.




acterize either a heraldic titular device or the representation of a god. For the existence of a Mistress of Animals, by contrast, there is general agreement, even if opinions differ on her specific identity. Her representations are similarly numerous, especially in Crete, and even a po-ti-ni-ja i-qe-ja (hippia) is mentioned on

Pylos tablet An 1281. Artistic images of both wild animals and horses paired with a goddess continue into the Archaic period.'08

While the conquering pose of the Master of Ani- mals may signify either heroic or divine character, a

cylinder seal from Enkomi leaves no doubt as to his divine nature.109 The potnios, grasping two lions and surrounded by birds, griffins, and dolphins, is at- tended by two genii bearing libation ewers-a veri- table microcosm of natural and supernatural symbols. Appropriately, this illuminating work comes from

Cyprus, one of the channels of transmission as the

image moved from east to west.110 Artistic evidence

suggests that the Master of Animals did not enjoy a

simple identity in the Aegean. The various animals he holds seem to lend the male figure different "character traits." When he controls dangerous wild animals he embodies heroic strength; when he handles ducks and

goats he acts as protector of wild nature, perhaps even domesticator of useful beasts."' One may surmise that the image arrived into Bronze Age Greece from the East without name or cult attached, but as a com-

pelling vision with multiple uses."12 Aegean artists

freely adapted this borrowed image as desired to gen- erate for a deity an aura of superhuman power. As a result of this process of religious enhancement, by the

Geometric and Archaic periods the figure appears with horses.113

The Geometric Master of Horses must have come into being through a complex chain of associations. By the 13th century the horse was no newcomer to the Mediterranean area, having reached Greece in the Middle Helladic period and being attested in Europe and the Near East much earlier.114 Not until the sev- enth century, however, does the horse assume an ac- tive role in myth."5 It is difficult to untangle in the

intangible realm of myth and belief how and when the horse enters the mythology of a culture into which it has been introduced. Nevertheless, it is plausible to assume that certain mythical concepts or religious associations arrived along with the Indo-European word for horse, and in time were transformed by the recipient culture."6

Among the earliest evidence for the horse as significant religious symbol in Greece are certain myths structurally related to those known from the Indo-Eu- ropean source of the horse itself. The union of Posei- don and Demeter as stallion and mare, celebrated at Thelpusa and at Phigaleia where Demeter's cult

image had a horse's head, recalls a number of Indo- European tales."' Similarly, the close connection of horse and sea, even horse and fish, can be traced

through the common stock of myths gradually arriv- ing from north and east where they were shared among the various cultures to which the horse became an indispensable property."8 Such reference to the Indo-European elements of Greek myth and culture touches on issues of notorious complexity tangential to

108 See especially N. Yalouris, "Athena als Herrin der Pferde," MusHelv 7 (1950) 19-101. 109 M. Gill, "The Minoan Genius," AM 79 (1964) 1-21,

cat. 46, pl. 6.2. 110 MMR2 357-68, 383-88; E. Spartz, Das Wappenbild

der Herrn und der Herrin der Tiere (Munich 1962) 22-39; Tamvaki (supra n. 107) 284-85. 111 The different animals, as Spartz (supra n. 110) 95 indi-

cates, may have originated in various borrowed traditions, as the waterbirds, for example, belong to Syrian and Hittite prototypes. It lacks sense, however, not to consider whether the Mycenaeans placed differing interpretations on these scenes according to the nature of the animal depicted.

112 A. Xenaki-Sakellariou, Etudes cretoises (Paris 1958) 85 thinks the motif was borrowed independently by the Mi- noans and the Mycenaeans; further thoughts on this, Tam- vaki (supra n. 107) 284-85. "11 Benson (supra n. 38) 46-47; M.S. Thompson, JHS 29

(1909) 290 figs. 5, 6; P. Demargne, BCH 53 (1929) 423 fig. 35; R.M. Dawkins, The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta (London 1929) pl. 32.4-5; pl. 172.1; F. Brommer, AA 1939, 262 fig. 18.

114 J. Mellaart, "Anatolia and the Indo-Europeans," Jour- nal of Indo-European Studies 9 (1981) 135-49; J.H. Crou-

wel, Chariots and Other Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece (Amsterdam 1981) 32-35. 115 Evidence for the possible sacrifice of horses in Bronze

Age funerary rituals is insufficient to support a mythological significance. See I.A. Sakellarakis, "Das Kuppelgrab A von Archanes und das kretisch-mykenische Tieropferritual," PZ 45 (1970) 135-218; at Marathon, S. Marinatos, "'Ava- o-Kaoalt MapatOcvog," Prakt 1970, 5-28. See also Crouwel (supra n. 114) 34-35. "116 Hanfmann (supra n. 60) 76-79 reviews the evidence for

the Hittite god Pirwa with which Mycenaean Greeks may have become acquainted, and speculates how a sacred image of a horse used in the divinity's processions may have given rise to the story of the Trojan Horse.

117 W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago 1980) 190-204; C.S. Lit- tleton, "Poseidon as a Reflex of the Indo-European 'Source of Waters' God," Journal of Indo-European Studies 1 (1973) 423-40. "11 Astour (supra n. 63) 254-55, 264-65; O'Flaherty

(supra n. 117) 213-16; J. Maringer, "The Horse in Art and Ideology of Indo-European Peoples," Journal of Indo-Euro- pean Studies 9 (1981) 177-204.




this study. For the purpose of the present discussion, it is sufficient to establish that in the eastern Mediterra-

nean, where migrations throughout the Bronze Age produced an intermingling of fishermen and horse-

breeders, their significant symbols also gradually at- tained complex combination in mythical form.

The incubation of such ideas is not readily detect- able among the Mycenaeans, given the generally non- narrative character of their art. Clearly the horse takes its place as an important class symbol, much as it does in Geometric Greece. Palatial and domestic wall

paintings must have been the theater for expressing this significance, as surviving examples and their echoes in the chariot kraters suggest. The Ugarit horse-leader may document the emergence of a specific religious connotation as well: Master of Animals, as indicated by the goat-horse-fish assemblage, be-

coming Master of Horses under the influence of an

evolving divinity. The importance of horse-breeding in Mycenaean and Geometric Greece resounded on both economic and religious levels. Art reflects this

duality. The horse-leader appears in quotidian terms as trainer with rope or stick in Mycenaean and Late Geometric art, a category into which may fall the am-

biguous Argive scene of C240. Conversely, the figure may be represented as a supernatural power, even

progenitor, through the heraldic scheme. For early Greek society horse-breeding in itself was

symbolic on a religious/mythical level: horse-break-

ing, the taming of wild nature, embodied the essential act of civilization. Greek myth is filled with tales of the horrific consequences of the untamed horse. The

myths of Hippolytus and of Diomedes, for example, employ the horse as the symbol of human culture which meets destruction.119 In the former tale, chaos is effected through a tremendous wave sent by Posei- don to wash away Hippolytus's well-trained horses and chariot; the god is both creator and destroyer in his terrible divine prerogative. The man-eating mares of Diomedes illustrate in monstrous terms the perils of the untamed wild; Heracles in this case steps in as Master of Horses.120

CONCLUSION

In the end, we are left with the two analogous scenes, a geographical and chronological gap of some 460 years between Ugarit and Argos, and a few step- ping stones by way of early thematic reference to horse-training in Attic Geometric art. Identities and

meanings remain only speculative, yet the stylistic and thematic correspondences demand explanation. Their similarities exceed coincidence when there exist not

only sufficient connecting threads linking images through space and time but also a reasonable explanation for their appearance in both periods. The economic and social importance of horse-breeding to both the Mycenaean and Geometric worlds, the recurrent

symbol of the horse as it takes over the realm of Geo- metric bronze votive production, and its regular association with double axe, tripod, and chariot in non-Ar-

give art all argue strongly for an interpretation of both

Ugarit and Geometric horse-leading scenes in secular, heroic, even agonistic terms.

The crucial element in both cases, however, is the fish. The earlier Bronze Age scene unquestionably de-

picts ritual. In the later Argive formula fish and water

symbols occur too regularly and exclusively to serve

only as signs of locale or setting as in Attic art, but must be read together with the horse. Ironically, de-

spite the elimination of Poseidon early in this study as the subject of the Ugarit krater scenes, the confluence of the ensuing arguments seems to lead, by the Geo- metric period, unavoidably back to him through the

unity of horse and fish in the Argolid. The elements of the Argive horse tableaux, for all their watery symbolism in fish, aquatic birds, and liquid zigzags, clearly express a concern with the everyday care and

feeding of horses. Halters, boxy mangers, and armed

yokes are important components of the horse-leading scene.'21 Yet to conclude that the grouping signifies contemporary reality because horse-breeding was basic to Argive "economy" creates an illusory distinc- tion between aspects of society. Our evidence suggests rather that the borders between economy and religion were essentially permeable in Bronze Age and Geo- metric Greece. The old-fashioned term "livelihood" is

perhaps more accurate, as it implies a role vitally in-

tegral to the course of life in the Argolid. That the Ugarit vessels were the attempt of a novice

at ritual iconography is clear from their disjointed motifs drawn from the mainland tradition but assembled under the influence of older eastern ideas. Hence the familiar Mycenaean chariot scene undergoes heraldic transformation by exposure to the oriental Master of Animals. These separate depictions of fish-offering ritual on the one hand and possible deity symbols in fish and horse on the other represent a new impulse of artistic innovation, the expression of which may have

119 J. Gould, "On Making Sense of Greek Religion," in P.E. Easterling and J.V. Muir eds., Greek Religion and So- ciety (Cambridge 1985) 1-33, esp. 29.

120 Burkert (supra n. 105) 94. 121 Boardman 1983, esp. 17-19.




been ultimately inhibited by the upheavals in the Mediterranean. The incubation of the full-fledged Homeric Poseidon must have taken place in the re-

gions of Mycenaean refuge in the eastern Mediterra-

nean, Attica, perhaps pockets of the Argolid as well. With this scenario, only the formal emergence of

the motif in the Geometric Argolid remains unre- solved. Perhaps Argive artists found their own formula by chance in the traces of their Mycenaean past. The possibility of such transmission through the Geo-

metric-period discovery of Mycenaean artifacts has been discussed at length and its significance recently summed up by Hurwit: " . . the collapse of Bronze

Age tombs would have revealed richly figured contents

to awestruck Iron Age eyes."122 The same cultic connections that gave rise to the first Mycenaean horse-

leading image also generated the Geometric one, using the heraldic scheme to denote divinity and power, jux- taposing horse and fish to express the interwoven

spheres of the god's nature. While this connection was

only a tentative, nascent idea in the Mycenaean world, in Geometric Argive art it was rich with the full com-

plement of myths and rituals.

MUSEUM OF ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY

I PICKARD HALL

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA

COLUMBIA, MISSOURI 65211

122 Benson (supra n. 38) 114-23; Hurwit (supra n. 96) 68.



Article Contentsp. 185p. 186p. 187p. 188p. 189p. 190p. 191p. 192p. 193p. 194p. 195p. 196p. 197p. 198p. 199p. 200p. 201

Issue Table of ContentsAmerican Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 165-314Front MatterPhoenicians in Southern Crete [pp. 165-183]The Return of the Horse-Leader [pp. 185-201]Polygnotos's Iliupersis: A New Reconstruction [pp. 203-215]The Social Context of Cult Practices in Pre-Roman Lucania [pp. 217-232]William Bell Dinsmoor, Jr., 1923-1988 [pp. 233-234]George Emmanuel Mylonas, 1898-1988 [pp. 235-237]Kyle Meredith Phillips, Jr., 1934-1988 [pp. 239-240]Isabelle Kelly Raubitschek, 1914-1988 [p. 241]The 90th General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the First Joint Archaeological Congress [pp. 243-284]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 285-286]Review: untitled [pp. 286-287]Review: untitled [pp. 287-288]Review: untitled [pp. 288-289]Review: untitled [pp. 289-292]Review: untitled [pp. 292-293]Review: untitled [pp. 293-294]Review: untitled [pp. 294-296]Review: untitled [pp. 296-297]Review: untitled [pp. 297-298]Review: untitled [pp. 298-299]Review: untitled [pp. 299-300]Review: untitled [pp. 300-301]Review: untitled [pp. 301-302]Review: untitled [pp. 302-303]Review: untitled [pp. 303-304]Review: untitled [pp. 304-306]Review: untitled [pp. 306-307]Review: untitled [pp. 307-308]Review: untitled [pp. 308-309]Review: untitled [pp. 309-311]Review: untitled [pp. 311-312]

Books Received [pp. 312-314]Back Matter