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NOTES ON BIRD SYMBOLISM

S. A. Callisen, The Iconography of the Cock on the Column, The Art Bulletin.

Harrison:

"On the famous Hagia Triada sarcophagus (Fig.1) 4 discovered at Phaistos, we have evidence clear and indefeasible that in Minoan days there was was a public cultus of birds with regular established ritual." [1]

Callisen:

"Thus, on the sarcophagus found at Phaistos are to be seen a trinity of dark colored birds, each perched upon a double axe affixed to the top of a palm stem. Three worshipers approach; one pours out a libation, the second carries a basket of offerings and the third plays upon a lyre." [2]

THE COCK OF ATHENA.

Harrison,

"In like fashion on Panathenic vases 3 the cocks of Athena appear." [3]

Callisen adds:

"Strangely enough, the roosters on columns shown on the fifth and fourth century amphorae appear to derive from much older representations, symbolic of an ancient bird and pillar cult whose original meaning must have been changed or forgotten by the later artists."

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p. I69

Often the three palm stems are simplified and become columns, still surmounted by birds, as in the terra cotta example discovered by Evans at Knossos, (The annual of the British School at Athens, VIII, , p. 29; fig. 14.) but whether it is a tree or a column, the symbolism is evidently

the union of Ouranos, the heaven, with Gaia, the earth.

See: Harrison:

Callisen:

"Although the exact meaning of the symbolism employed by the Minoans seems to have varied considerably elsewhere, ⁽Cook, A. B., Zeus, Jupiter and the Oak, in The Classical Review, XVII, 1903, p. 408. At Dodona Zeus takes over the oak tree of the Earth Mother. The sky-god sometimes was considered male, sometimes female, but the underlying symbolism of the bird on the pillar in early times remains the same) the bird and pillar cult appears to have been widespread throughout the ancient world, but tended to die out with the building of temples. It continued to flourish only in a few remote places, as at Dodona with its grove of sacred oaks and at Mount Lykaeos, where twin pillars surmounted by the eagles of Zeus, faced the rising sun.(Evans, A. J., Mycenean Tree and Pillar Cult, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, XXI, 1901, p. 127.)

"In the Near East also, the bird perched on a pillar seems to have been considered divine, for beneath the basis of the figure of Artemis at Ephesis an ivory statuette was found, representing a priestess bearing on her head a pole surmounted by a dove." Callisen

"Among the strange and beautiful archaic ivory statuettes found by Mr. Hogarth under the basis of the Artemis statue at Ephesus is that of a priestess (Fig.3) [4] She carries a sacrificial vessel, while on her head is a huge pole surmounted by a hawk-like bird, evidently to be carried in ritual procession. Was Artemis herself once a bird-goddess?"

Harrison, Jane, Bird and Pillar Worship in Connection with Ouranian Divinities, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, Vol. II. , 1908, pp. 159.

Callisen: "Likewise in Assyria, one finds on the boundary stones, or kudurrus, (King, L. W., Babylonian Boundary Stones and Memorial Tablets in the British Museum, London, 1912 pl. LXXVII and pl. LXXXIII; nos. 90835 and 90858. The bird appears to be a falcon or eagle or even an owl, but not a rooster, although domestic fowls were introduced from Asia into Greece and Italy. See Peters, John P.The Cock, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, XXXIII, 1913, pp. 363-3960 dating from I350 to 650 B.C., representations of a deity, possibly the God Aruru, ( Frank, K., and Zimmer, H., Bilder und Symbole babylonisch-assyrischer Gotter, Leipzig, 1906, p. 39; fig. 8. Aruru in the Gilgamesh epic is the Earth Mother, or Eve, according to Harrison, op. cit., p. 158) in the form of a bird sitting on a column. There appears to have been some indication of a pillar cult in Rome as evidenced by the so-called lapis niger, ( Evans, op. cit., p. 130,) and a survival was witnessed by Evans (Ibid., pp. 200-204) at Tekekioi in Macedonia where an upright rectangular stone block was reverenced by Christians and Mohammedans alike.

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"On the famous Hagia Triada sarcophagus (Fig.1) 4 discovered at Phaistos, we have evidence clear and indefeasible that in Minoan days there was was a public cultus of birds with regular established ritual." [5]

"Among the strange and beautiful archaic ivory statuettes found by Mr. Hogarth under the basis of the Artemis statue at Ephesus is that of a priestess (Fig.3) [6] She carries a sacrificial vessel, while on her head is a huge pole surmounted by a hawk-like bird, evidently to be carried in ritual procession. Was Artemis herself once a bird-goddess?"

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p. 159

The eagle, then, though he is the thunder-and-lightning bird, is also the Sun-bird (Fig.11). [7]

But can we forget that in the heart of Arcadia in the ancient precinct of Zeus Lukaios, [8] that place of uttermost light where neither man nor beast casts a shadow, there was no image of Lukaios the Light-God; only two pillars facing the rising of the Sun, and on them two golden eagles. Aelian [9] tells us that the nestlings of an eagle were exposed to the Sun's rays, to test if they were real eagles, that is, real children of the Sun. If an eagle so much as blinked it was cast out of the paternal nest; but if he never flinched, he was enrolled in the eagle tribe. 'Facing the heavenly fire' (...Greek...) was his token and certificate of birth.

M.Salomon Reinach in his brilliant tract Aietos-Prometheus [10] has shown, to me convincingly, that Prometheus was his own eagle. And who was Prometheus? Who but an elder Zeus, a Sky-god, a Titan, a Fire-bearer, twin-brother of Atlas, with whom he upheld the heavens? We see them at their common labour on the famous Kyrene kylix in the Vatican (Fig. 12). [11] As I have tried to show elsewhere, behind Prometheus is his zoomorphic form, an eagle perched upon a pillar.

1 Harrison, Jane, Bird and Pillar Worship in Connection with Ouranian Divinities, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, Vol. II. , 1908, p. 154.

2 Callisen, THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE COCK ON THE COLUMN, note 44, p. 169 says: "An excellent reproduction of the sarcophagus is to be found in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. The original in the Candia Museum dates from c. 1350 B.C."

3 Harrison, Jane, Bird and Pillar Worship in Connection with Ouranian Divinities, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, Vol. II. , 1908, p. 160.

4 Note 4, p. 155, Harrison, gives as the source, Hogath, Ephesus, pl.xxii.

5 Harrison, Jane, Bird and Pillar Worship in Connection with Ouranian Divinities, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, Vol. II. , 1908, p. 154.

6 Note 4, p. 155, Harrison, gives as the source, Hogath, Ephesus, pl.xxii.

7 Bérard, Cultes Arcadiens, p. 89.

8 Paus. viii.30.2.

9 De Nat.Anim.ii.26

10 Rev.Arch.1907, ii,p.59.

11 Gerhard, A.V. ii, pl. 86.