The Palaikastro Hymn and the modern myth of the Cretan Zeus (Article) -- Ancient History Encyclopedia

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The Palaikastro Hymn and the modern myth of the Cretan Zeus

by Mark Alonge, Stanford University (submitted by Jan van der Crabben)
published on 07 November 2011

The Palaikastro Hymn—better known as the Hymn of the Kouretes—does not celebrate a god of pre-Hellenic pedigree, who is Zeus in name only, as scholars have believed with virtual unanimity. Rather, an understanding of the conventions of Greek hymnic performance in its ritual context goes far to elucidating many of the ostensibly peculiar features of the Hymn. Moving out from Palaikastro, in eastern Crete, to survey the island as a whole, I show that the Cretan iconographic and epigraphic records contradict the widely accepted theory of a special, Minoan “Cretan Zeus.”

Written by Mark Alonge, Stanford University, linked by Jan van der Crabben, published 07 November 2011. Source URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/alonge/120512.pdf.

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