صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

XXIX. The discoveries of Schliemann at Mykênê have revealed, as might be expected, several instances of the Unicorn, although the author does not notice any of them in this aspect. Thus on a gem1 is shown the familiar Unicorn-cow or Ox, in duplicate, as usual regardant, and each with a calf; but, as has sometimes been remarked on similar representations, no udder is shown.2 The design is evidently symbolical, though it is by no means improbable that by the time it got as far west as Mykênê the original meaning was forgotten or unknown. But we have already met on Assyrian ground 3 with the peculiar type of two Unicorns standing opposite each other with reverted heads, and the circumstance is a link between the art of Mykênê and that of the nonAryan East. We must, in accordance with previous interpretation, regard the two calves as representing the new moon and the full moon, which draw their strength from the decreasing and increasing crescent moon, the animal being represented as male in accordance with the sex of the Moon-god.

XXX. Another remarkable gold ornament is described by Schliemann as 'two stags lying down, with long three-branched horns, leaning with the necks against each other, and turning the head in opposite directions [like the Assyrian Unicorn-goats in No. III.], but so that the horns of both touch each other, and seem intended to form a sort of crown.'4 Here again

1 M. & T. fig. 175, p. 112. 3 Vide No. III.

2 Vide Ibid. fig. 315, p. 202.
4 M. & T. fig. 264, p. 179.

the peculiar design shows a unity of origin, although very likely the maker of the Mykenean example had no thought of lunar symbolism. The 'stags' are small spotted fallow-deer, and each has but one horn, in which are three tines; in fact, the treatment of the horn is precisely similar to that of the same animal in Assyrian representations.1 The eye, too, is very prominent.2

XXXI. Another example given by Schliemann 3 shows two spotted, couchant, bull-like, prominenteyed Unicorns, the horn in each case being treated exactly as in the last example, their necks touching, but the head of each reverted in the usual special

manner.

XXXII. The next example from Schliemann * shows a queer-looking animal with the head of an ass, and bear's paws, and one long horn with several tines. It is described as a Stag, of an alloy of silver and lead.'

6

XXXIII. Lion and Unicorn fighting (?).5

The above instances by no means exhaust the appearances of the Unicorn in archaic art, and at the same time show that the idea of such a creature was familiar in Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Asia Minor and Greece. Many points in the representations will become more suggestive in the course of the enquiry; meanwhile it may be noticed as a general result that;

1 Vide No. XIX.

3 M. & T. fig. 264, p. 175.

2 Vide No. XIII.
4 Ibid. fig. 376, p. 257.

5 Ibid. fig. 470, p. 309; vide sec. XII., subsec. 2.

I. The Monster-unicorn is not lunar.

II. The Bovine-unicorn is more or less lunar.

III. The Unicorn-antelope, except perhaps in Egypt, and the Unicorn-goat, are distinctly and essentially lunar.

IV. The Unicorn is very frequently represented as attacking or attacked by the Lion.

6

Inman remarks that the Bull (whose frequent unicornic character he does not observe), and the Lion amongst the Assyrians, occupied much the same place as the lion and the unicorn do in modern heraldry.'1

1 Ancient Faiths, i, 376.

SECTION IV.

DEUS LUNUS.

THE moon-power, owing to the influence of the Greek Artemis-Selênê, the Latin Diana-Luna, is generally feminine in our thoughts; but this aspect, though also occasionally occurring elsewhere, e.g., in Peru, is really exceptional. Thus among the Germanic nations the moon is masculine and the sun feminine. It is the daughter of Sôl, the Norse Sun-goddess, who in the regenerated world shall ride on her mother's track when the gods are dead';1 and it is the god Mâni, who at Ragnarok, 'the-Twilight-of-the-gods,' shall be devoured by the Wolf of darkness, Managarmr, Moon-swallower,' a reduplication of the terrible wolf Fenrir.3

In Egypt again, Chons is the personification of the moon, and in this character he is called Chonsaah or Chons the moon. His name seems to mean

1 Vide R. B. Jr., R. M. A. sec. xvii.

2 Proto-Aryan root ma, to measure, whence Sk. más, Zend máo, Lith. menu, Gk. mêné, in Ulfilas ména, Anglo-Sax. môna, Swedish mane, Eng. These words, except perhaps mão, are all masculine. From the same root come the Sk. mása, Goth. menoth, Anglo-Sax. monádh, Gk. mên, Lat. mensis, Eng. month. The Moon is the Month-measurer.

moon.

3 Vide R. M. A., secs. xii, xv. The sun and moon were addressed as Frau and Herr, Domina and Dominus' (Thorpe, Northern Mythology, i. 281).

D

66

"the chaser," or pursuer, "" the Unicorn who, as we shall see,2 chases the Lion-sun. Another Kamic-lunar personage is Teti (Thoth), the weighing and measuring god, lord of knowledge and writing. The crescent is found followed by the figure of Thoth in several hieroglyphic legends, with the phonetic name Aah.'

6

The Arabs to this day, consider the moon masculine, and not feminine.' 5

'In Sanskrit the most current names for the moon, such as Kandra, Soma, Indu, Vidhu, are masculine. The names of the moon are frequently used in the sense of month, and these and other names for month retain the same gender.'6

In Asia Minor was widely established the cult of the Moon-god Mên,7 the Lunus of the Romans, who, to a great extent suppressed his ritual.

6

The Babylonian and Assyrian Moon-god is Sin, whose name probably appears in Sinai. The expression, From the origin of the god Sin,' was used by the Assyrians to mark remote antiquity; because as chaos preceded order, so night preceded day, and the enthronement of the moon as the Night-king marks the commencement of the annals of kosmic order.

The Akkadian Moon-god, who corresponds with

1 Dr. Birch in Wilkinson's Anct. Egyptians, iii. 174-5. 2 Sec. XII. subsec. 2. 3 Vide G. D. M. ii. 121 et seq.

4 Wilkinson, Anct. Egyptians, iii. 165.

6 Prof. Max Müller, L. S. L. i. 7.

7 Vide Strabo, XII. iii. 31; viii. 14.

In voc. Teti. 5 Ibid. 39.

8 Sin is used for the Moon in Mendaean and Syriac at the present day; and it was the term used for Monday by the Sabæans as late as the ninth century' (Prof. Rawlinson, A. M. i. 124, note 5).

« السابقةمتابعة »