The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-07-30
COW IDOLS.

The many COW idols dug up by DIR.
| Schliemann in the ancient palace at
| Iiryns are apt to revive the interest in
a controversy from which he has GER
| tainly come out as the victor.
| Animal worship is one of the oldest
| cults. Its remnants are traceable in
India and Egypt, as well as in Troy
| and Greece-nay, among our Teutonic
| forefathers. The COW anI the steer,
more especially, are to be met with in
the mythology of many nations, as
| symbols of cosmogonic force, in
| nourlshlng or creative sense. In the
oldest representations relating to the
creation of the world, the COW, coming
forth out of the primeval waters, ap-
pears as the mother of the young Sun
god. Hesiod's Gaia is both the cow
and the earth, the nourishing mother
of all forms of existence. SO is the
Teutonic COW Audhumla, from whose
doings, in the rise and origin of all
things and beings, the very gods were
tabled to have sprung.
Sacred, gold-horned cows-remind-
ing us of the Mycenean idols-appear
III the lays of the Icelandic Edda, even
as among the ancient Hiudoo. In
German and Scandinavian myth, COWS
and steers play so large part that we
are impressed thereby in quite My
cenean or Trojan manner. When the
Teutons and the Cimbrians went on
their war raid, two thousand years
ago, they carried brazen bull as
sacred idol with them. Captive Ro-
mans, before being set free by them,
had to take an oath on that bulls i'm
age. A sea-steer was said to be the
progenitor of the Frankish royal race
of the Merowings. The kings OF that
line, symbolicaiy preserving the old
mythic tradition, drove about in car
drawn by team of oxen. A golden
bulls head was found in King Chill
peric's tomb. Sacred COWS were taken
by Morse kings into battle as divine
guides and protectresses. So it is re-
corded of the Swedish king, Eistein
Bell, and his sacred COW, Sibilia. There
is similar record about King Deg
VaIdr Cows were often used by the
hn1el as prophetic leaders on i'm
ppant occasions.
Shall we then wonder that the found
er of Ilion CLOS, or II, whose name
possibly has contact with the Saxon
chieftain's name, Ella) was guided by
a speckled COW to the place to be
chosen for the settlement on the famed
hill in the Troad?
From his former work on Mycene
and Tiryns, which contains narrative
of his first excavations there, it will be
seen that DR.. Schliemann had already
then unearthed a great many cow idols
in gold, silver, and terra-cotta from
that once hallowed ground. 1t was
done, so to say, in consequence of
challenge offered to him. Having ex-
pressed an opinion that the "glaucopis
Athene" of the Trojans was originally
an owl-faced deity or idol, DR.. Schlie-
mann was at first met with a storm of
dissent on the part of some scholars
rash enough to mix up their notions of
the age of Phidias with their Judgment
about prehistoric Troy. Among those,
however, who would not at once re-
ject the idea of DR.. Schliemann was
Max Muller, in himself a host of learn
ing. But before giving a decided opin-
ion of his own, the eminent Oxford
professor asked for proof of '.Hera
Boopis" having been a cow-headed
monster.
Upon that, the ever-ready excavator
set to work at Tiryns and Mycene with
the most perfect confidence; for did
not both these cities lie close to the
ancient Heraion, or temple of Hera?
In truth, the result of his diggings far
exceeded his own expectations. He
found thousands of cows of terra-cotta;
also fifty-six cow-heads of gold; one of
silver, with gold horns; some cow
dc
dreds of female idols, with crescent
shaped projections like cow-horns pro-
ceeding from the breast; also females
with cow-heads.
The very name of Mycene is derived
by DR.. Schliemann, with great ikeli-
hood, from the mooing or lowing of
the COW. Mycene and Tiryns are in
close neighborhood. Both stand on
Argive soil, where Convinced Hera"
was evidently lingering remnant of
fuller ancient animal worship. In
course of time the grosser cult more
and more receded. But the head or
the horns of q beast often continued to
adorn or to disiioure :; deity's image,
even among such ighly-cultured races
as the Egyptians and the Greeks. Mr..
Gladstone, well yersed as he is in Ho-
merle lore, has endeavored, in the pre-
face to DR.. Schliemann's work on My
Gene and Tiryns, to refer this Argive
expression about "Cow-faced Herah to
the influence of an Egyptian immigra-
ton. He added; 'But it was a mode
against which the whole spirit of Hell
lenism, according to the authentic
type of that spirit supplied in the
poems, utterly revolted.- CaSselps
Magazine.