e two uraei of the Winged
Disk design.]

In his "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult," Sir Arthur Evans has shown that
all possible transitional forms can be found (in Crete and the AEgean
area) between the representation of the actual goddess and her
pillar-and tree-manifestations, until the stage is reached where the sun
itself appears above the pillar between the lions.[346] In the large
series of seals from Mesopotamia and Western Asia which have been
described in Mr. William Hayes Ward's monograph,[347] we find manifold
links between both the Egyptian and the Minoan cults.

The tree-form of the Great Mother there becomes transformed into the
"tree of life" and the winged disk is perched upon its summit. Thus we
have a duplication of the life-giving deities. The "tree of life" of the
Great Mother surmounted by the winged disk which is really her surrogate
or that of the sun-god, who took over from her the power of life-giving
(Figs. 25 and 26).

In an interesting Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada[348] the
life-giving power is _tripled_. There is not only the tree representing
the Great Mother herself; but also the double axe (the winged-disk
homologue of the sun-god); and the more direct representation of him as
a bird perched upon the axe (Fig. 25, _f_).

The identification of the Great Mother with the tree or pillar seems
also to have led to her confusion with the pestle with which the
materials for her draught of immortality was pounded. She was also the
bowl or mortar in which the pestle worked.[349]

As the Great Mother became confused with the pestle, so, "the
Soma-plant, whose stalks are crushed by the priests to make the
Soma-libation, becomes in the _Vedas_ itself the Crusher or Smiter, by a
very characteristic and frequent Oriental conceit in accordance with
which the agent and the person or thing acted on are identified".[350]

"The pressing-stones by means of which Soma is crushed typify
thunderbolts." "In the _Rig-Veda_, we read of him [Soma] as
_jyotihrathah_, _i.e._ 'mounted on a car of light' (IX, 5, 86, verse
43); or again: 'Like a hero he holds weapons in his hand ... mounted on
a chariot' (IX, 4, 76, verse 2)"--(p. 171).

"Soma was the giver of power, of riches and treasures, flocks and herds,
but above all, the giver of immortality" (p. 140).

Sir Arthur Evans is of opinion "that in the case of the Cypriote
cylinders the attendant monsters and, to a certain extent, the symbolic
column its