Chapter Three
The Goddess and the Bull
The attribute of the Mother Goddess that is most relevant to the study of the astronomer priestesses of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture is the attribute of the bull. The bull as the consort of the goddess is a vehicle for the rejuvenation of the larger cycles of time, those cycles of the moon and the sun that go beyond the rituals and corresponding astronomy of the time-keepers of the year. This resurrection of power and energy lies in the power of The Goddess and the Bull. As a focal point for Minoan-Mycenaean mythology and culture, the bull is represented in The Horns of Consecration, in the sacred bucrania, on rhytons, in The Double Axe of the Minoan astronomer priestesses, in the priestesses’ attire, and on the game boards of the Knossos temple-complex. The Goddess and the Bull is therefore an omnipresence force to the people pervading all parts of the spiritual and physical life of the worshippers in order to resurrect the life of the culture.
The priestesses, as the epiphany of the goddess, have the iconology of regeneration in their attire and in their jewelry. From head to toe, they are decorated with what Marija Gimbutas calls “the symbols of becoming,” or the symbols of the power of regeneration and birth (Old Europe 91). This epiphany of the goddess takes many forms, from butterfly to bee, all dependent on her association with the bull as the fertile, masculine force of the Taurean Age. In a fresco from the Knossos temple-complex depicting a view of the Grand Stand and Spectators, there are nineteen priestesses seemingly about to perform a ritual in the center of the courtyard (Evans III: 47). Whether this is a coincidence that the number of priestesses is the same as the nineteen year cycle of the moon is speculative. However, evidence from Grave Circle A, the priestesses’ grave circle at Mycenae, also points to a possible association with the precessional cycle of the moon where there are nineteen shaft graves with over forty tons of gold jewelry and gold artifacts. Coincidence or not, both sets of nineteen priestesses at Knossos and nineteen priestesses and their consorts at Mycenae, illuminate the power, flourish, and splendor of a large group representing the Mother Goddess.
In their festive attire, both at Knossos and Mycenae, the priestesses evidently exude feminine power and magnificence as the central focus of their religious spectacles. A passage from Sir Arthur Evans describes the priestesses’ attire in the Grand Stand Fresco at Knossos as such:
We are very far from the restrained pose of Classical Greece. At a glance we recognize Court ladies in elaborate toilet. They are
fresh from the coiffeur’s hand with hair frisé and curled about
the head and shoulders; it is confined by a band over the fore-
head and falls down the back in long separate tresses, twisted
round with strings of beads and jewels. In some cases the locks
above the forehead curve down in a curious way above the
shoulder. The sleeves are puffed, and the constricted girdles and
flounced skirts equally recall quite modern fashions. A narrow
band appears across the chest, which suggests a diaphanous
chemise, but the nipples of the breasts indicated beneath these-
in one case the pendent breasts themselves- give a décolleté
effect. The dresses are gaily colored with bands of blue, red,
and yellow, showing white stripes and at times black striations
indicative of reticulated and scaled designs like those of the
Processional Fresco. (III: 49)
