By
Ellen Lorenzi-Prince © 2003
What is
considered unnamable among other peoples is available for all who want to hear
in Crete.
Diodorus Siculus, Library,
ca. 90 – 20 BCE
We do not know the name of this
goddess, although we might guess Ariadne or Britomartis. We have no written
record of her worship or her functions. She may have been a form of the chthonic
Maiden, like Persephone, who passed through death into power and immortality. Or
she may have been a priestess at the moment of transfiguration into Goddess. As
it is, she must speak to us without words, through her staring eyes, her bared
breasts, and her brandishing of sacred serpents.
Image
source: Minoan
Faïence Figurine, ca. 1600 BCE
