A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 3. - 1960 (Nyíregyháza, 1963)

Makkay János: Strange Prehistoric Finds in the Jósa András Museum

carcasses of lions or dogs be able to watch before entrances of buildings and portals of temples, be able to scare away evil spirits and unbidden intruders. Such an idea existed as we know in the early bronze age of Hungary — it is shown by the finds from Jászdózsa.

40 Consequently the figures on the pot-lids must have guarded the contents of the vessels. In the case of the pyxis and lid from Mochlos this content may have been even some gold treasure.

41*

2 In the shaft-tomb 5. of Mykénai there was the small wooden box found on which there are two dog-figures lying. As to this

—treasures may have been held in it again. By this find is shown that it was the age of Mykénai that passed on the age of Homer the belief in using dogs as symbolical watches. The same is proved also by the lion-gate of Mykénai, which is the most artistic expression of the belief in symbolical guarding by lions, really the most artistic one among all finds till now. Homer writes that before the palace of the king of the Phaeacs there were gold and silver dogs watching.

44 According to other lines of him, also living dogs were watching before the palaces of the kings.

45-46 С. H. Gordon states that a parallel with this in the Semitic area one can't find but in the Keret-legend of Ugarit,

47 and could and ought to be traced back to same Indo-european ascendancy. According, however, to the sumerian facts and figures

38-39 it is unnecessary to reckon with any Indo-european influence. Be the kingly palaces of Homer or Ugarit watched by packs of hounds so we have to see in this by no means any influence this and similar ones was made possible by the archaical structure of the Homeric society. A patriarchal slave society does not exclude at all that a kingly palace could be watched by the same kind of pack of hounds — as the hut of a shepherd. In Mesopotamia, however we can't find but in the third mill, any pack of hound watching buildings. They were replaced by statues later. In this custome of symbolical guarding (by statues and figurines of animals) —- conversely — one really has to see some ascendancy from the Near East to the relics in Greece as well as in the prehistoric finds from Southeastern Europe. The question is only, wether the influences of the Near East directly or indirectly affected the mykénaean-homeric poetry, respetcively, the religious fundament of it. Otherwise, it's quite impossible that the custome would have started from Greece in order to come to Ugarit — as it is supposed by F. Dirlmeier.

49 We have every right to accept that the idea to use as watches statues of animals set on the lids of vessels, remained as a heritage from the late neolithic age of Southeastern Europe and it came as such a one to the religion and art Mykénai. They are the late neolithic clay lids described and quoted above, which could be taken for starting-point.

5-14 We look for their origine in the Near East. These European finds might have impressed the finds of similar type from the Mykénean age. At least, there are no chronological obstacles against this supposition. Namely our finds, as to their dates, can't be far off the Indo-European migrations of about 1900 that is the roots of the Mykénean civilisation. According to the pyxis-lid of Mochlos, the idea was already known by the Cretan world too, long before the age of Mykénai. Thus the art of Mykénai could have inherited in from the Southeast-European late neolithic as well as from the Cretan sources of art. For all that, as to Southeast-Europe as to Crete came this conception and its picturing from the Near East. Probably the appearance of it in two areas can be reduced to one root which however branched off in some and the same time. For transmitter of the influences to Southeast-Europe we take the age of the Larisa and the Tisza-culture. For it had extremely close connections with the Near East, especially in the plastic art.

55-56 Accordingly the Mykénaean age might have „on the spot" inherited this custome, this way of picturing. By its tight contact with Phoenicia and Asia Minor, however, it could have got from the East newer impulses too. This is proved in the first line by the lion-gate of Mykénai. The relation of this with the lion-statues before the entrances and porches in Mesopotamia seems as quite clear. These newer impulses from the East revived an ancient custome, belief, and picturing sunk already into oblivion. To the Homeric greek Religion, however, came the belief in symbolical guarding by influences of Asia Minor or Phoenicia, more new than even those we mentioned, but as a heritage from the age of Mykénai. There are indirect facts proving that the statues of animals on the lids guarded the contents of the vessels symbolically. So in the first line big vessels from Kish 25