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Cretan Kernoi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Extract

It is only recently that the ritual object κέρνος or κέρχνος described by Athenaeus has been discovered, recognized, and explained by the labours of Philios, Kourouniotes, and Rubensohn. It was a clay vessel, to which were attached a number of small cups containing various grains and liquids, offered as first fruits of the harvest, especially in the Eleusinian worship, to the divinity. It was carried in procession on the head of the priestess (κερνοφορεῖν, κερνοφορία) to the accompaniment of ritual dancing (κερνοφόρον ὄρχημα) Besides the grains, the liquids and the unwashed wool, in the central bowl of the kernos was placed the παλάθιον upon which was set a lighted lamp or candle.

There is thus no doubt about the form and use of the kernos of the Greek period. But its existence and use have been traced also to the prehistoric period by Mr. Bosanquet, who has described similar Pre-Mycenaean vessels found many years ago in Melos, and now preserved in various European museums. He has also described and explained as a kernos another vessel consisting of three small vases, found in a tomb at στὸν Κάπρο near Phylakopi in Melos, and belonging to the so-called Cycladic (Early Minoan) period, and also in the excavations of the British School at Phylakopi prehistoric kernoi were found. Further, Mr. Dawkins considers that forty-four conical cups, which he found broken off some such complex vessels, together with idols and other ritual objects, in a Minoan house at Palaikastro in Crete, belonged to kernoi.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1906

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References

page 9 note 1 Κέρνος in Athenaeus and the inventories of ancient writers, κέρχνος in inscriptions, e.g. of the Eleusinian epistatai 408–407 B.C. Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1894, pp. 192 sqq. and 1895, pp. 61 sqq.

page 9 note 2 xi. 476 f and 478 d.

page 9 note 3 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1885, pp. 171–174, Pl. 9, Nos. 5–9.

page 9 note 4 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1898, pp. 21–28.

page 9 note 5 Athen. Mitt, xxiii. (1898), pp. 271–306.

page 9 note 6 See also L. Couve in Daremberg et Saglio, s.v. κέρνος

page 9 note 7 B.S.A. iii. p. 57, Pl. IV.

page 9 note 8 B.S.A. iii. p. 54, Fig. 5. In the article κέρνος (Dar. et Saglio) quoted above, L. Couve wrongly regards the Phylakopi kernoi as Post-Mycenaean, and the one from σ τὸν Κάπρο as Mycenaean.

page 10 note 1 Phylakopi, p. 102, Pl. VIII, 14.

page 10 note 2 B.S.A. x. pp. 221 sqq.

page 10 note 3 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., 1903, pp. 188–189. ᾿Αθηνᾶ vol. ΙΣΤ pp. 411 seqq.

page 10 note 4 See a brief account in Παναθήναια 103 (Jan. 15, 1905), and Evans, A. J., Essai de classification, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 11 note 1 B.S.A. iii. p. 54, Fig. 3.

page 12 note 1 B.S.A. iii. p. 59.

page 12 note 2 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1898, p. 163, Pl. 10, Nos. 11–15. I do not think that the use of these stone plaques as palettes is as yet proved. The traces of red colour found on one of them by Tsountas may be accidental. I rather suspect that they also are sacred tables-of-offering carried in the hand or fixed to the floor, and that for this reason the lower surface is generally convex, which does not suit the explanation as palettes.

page 13 note 1 To be published in Ἐφ. Ἀρχ.

page 13 note 2 Rendiconti d. Real. Acc. dei Lincei, xiv. fasc. 12, pp. 30 sqq., and Memorie del R. Istituto Lombardo, xxi.–xxii. della serie iii. fasc. v. 1905, pp. 248–252.

page 13 note 3 B.S.A. ix. p. 41, Fig. 20 a, b, d, e.

page 13 note 4 B.S.A. vi. p. 114, Fig. 50, Pl. XI.

page 13 note 5 J.H.S. xvii. pp. 350 sqq. Fig. 25, and xxi. p. 113, and Fig. 7. See also Karo, , Altkretische Cultstätten, Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, vii. p. 121, Fig. 2.Google Scholar

page 13 note 6 J.H.S. xvii. p. 357.

page 13 note 7 Mon. Ant. xiv. pp. 167 sqq. Figg. 77–82.

page 14 note 1 All these are preserved in the Candia Museum, and are to be published by the British School.

page 14 note 2 These are shortly to be published.

page 14 note 3 Mon. Ant. xiv. pp. 101–108, Fig. 38, Pl. X.

page 14 note 4 Mon. Ant. xii. Pl. VIII.; Karo, op. cit. Fig. 20.

page 14 note 5 B.S.A. x. pp. 220 sqq. A restoration of such a kernos consisting of a bowl with four of these cups fastened to its lip, a part of which is ancient, has now been placed in the Candia Museum.

page 15 note 1 For these tombs and vases see Halbherr in Am. Journ. Arch. v. pp. 287 sqq.; Taramelli, ibid. v. pp. 294 sqq.; and Mariani, ibid. v. pp. 302 sqq.

page 15 note 2 B.S.A. x. p. 224.

page 18 note 1 Athen. Mitt, xxiii, pp. 304–305.

page 18 note 2 Dar. et Saglio, s. v. Kernos, p. 825. For the discovery of another in a late Mycenaean tomb in Skyros, see B.S.A. xi. p. 79.

page 18 note 3 Pollux, iv. 103.

page 18 note 4 B.S.A. x. p. 217, Fig. 6.

page 19 note 1 ᾿Αλεξιφάρμακα 217 f.

page 19 note 2 Dar. et Saglio, s. v. Kernos.

page 19 note 3 Athen. Mitt, xxiii, p. 290, and Svoronos, , Journ. Int. de numism. i. p. 55.Google Scholar

page 19 note 4 Athen. Mitt, xxiii, p. 291.

page 19 note 5 Ibid. Pl. XIII, and Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1885, p. 172, Pl. 9.

page 19 note 6 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1890, Pl. 5; Athen. Mitt, xxiii, p. 289; B.S.A. x. p. 221.

page 19 note 7 Harrison, , Prolegomena, pp. 158Google Scholarsqq.; Dar. et Saglio, s. v. Kernos; Athen. Mitt, xxiii. pp. 272 sqq.

page 19 note 8 Meursius, , Creta, pp. 27, 50, 201–207.Google Scholar The worship of Britomartis at Lato is proved by the inscription of the treaty between Lato and Olous. Comparetti, , Mus. Ital. i. 141Google Scholar; Collitz Bechtel, iii. 2. Hälfte, p. 333.

page 20 note 1 B.S. A. x. p. 221. See also above, p. 7, Fig. 5.

page 20 note 2 In memory of the multiplication of the five loaves by our Lord. In the Jewish worship also loaves were offered, and the artoklasia is perhaps a mixture of Jewish and Greek religious usages. et Chipiez, Perrot, Hist. de l'Art, iv. p. 311Google Scholar, and I Kings, vii. v. 48.

page 21 note 1 Ἐκκλησίας, Τυπικὸν Μєγ, edition of Ἀν. Κωνσταντινίδης, Athens, 1901, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 An imitation of Jewish ἑπτάφωτος λυχνία. See Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. pp. 311 sqq. Figs. 160–163. The loaves with lighted candles above recall the above mentioned ἀμφιφῶντες