Goddess Seals
of ancient CreteGoddess with poppies seated under fruiting tree and surrounded by votaries offering crocuses. Two serpents float past the sun and moon in the sky, beside a "Shield Goddess." A double axe takes center position, and benearth it is a small female figure with a crocus who appears to be standing on the mountain symbol, like a goddess in other seal art.
Another ceremony of adoration by women standing in a field of crocuses. They and the goddess appear to have the heads of bees.
Gold ring showing women at shrines with trees, poppies and crocuses. The central figure appears to be a goddess as gestures of reverence are made to her.
Seal ring with bee-headed women and goddesses (most clearly on the seated woman at right). An ecstatic male dancers approaches a hilltop sanctuary, while a woman dances under a tree shrine (left) and a boatwoman poles through waters at the base of the mountain. Mycenaean.
Two women stand at an altar. Are they drinking? or grasping the tails of snakes that curve up toward the shrine above? Mycenaean.
A horned goddess flanked by griffins who are nursing at her breasts on the seal known as Potnia, after the Linear B inscriptions to Po-ti-ni-ya, the Lady. The archetype on this seal, often seen in west Asian art, is often called "the Mistress of Beasts," but here she actually appears as the Mother of Animals (and fantastic creatures too). Note the butterfly/double axe between her horns.
