hose of the Egyptian ceremony of 'the Opening of
the Mouth,' suggest a belief in the continued existence of the
spirit, either as an object to be propitiated by sacrifice, or
as a being which needed to be sustained in its disembodied state
by offerings of meat and drink.

The relation of the Minoan King to the religion of his country
is a point of some interest, though the facts known are scarcely
sufficient to afford ground for more than surmise. The very structure
of the palace at Knossos gives evidence of the importance of the
part which he played in spiritual matters, and of the intimate
connection which existed in the Minoan, as in so many other ancient
faiths, between Royalty and Religion. There are not only several
shrines and altars in the palace, but it is probable, as Dr. Mackenzie
has pointed out,[*] that the so-called bathrooms at Knossos and
Phaestos are not bathrooms at all, but small chapels or oratories,
so that altogether religion bulks very largely in the arrangements
of the Royal dwelling. In fact, the Kings and Queens of Knossos
were Priest-Kings and Priest-Queens, the heads of the spiritual
as well as of the material life of their people; and it is not at
all unlikely, from what is known of the religious views of other
ancient peoples, that the Priest-King was looked upon as an incarnation
of divinity. If so, of what divinity? It is here that, in all
likelihood, we get near the heart of the Minotaur legend. 'The
characteristic mythical monster of Crete,' says Miss Jane Harrison,[**]
'was the bull-headed Minotaur. Behind the legend of Pasiphae, made
monstrous by the misunderstanding of immigrant conquerors, it can
scarcely be doubted that there lurks some sacred mystical ceremony
of ritual wedlock ([Greek: ieros gamos]) with a primitive bull-headed
divinity.... The bull-Dionysos of Thrace, when he came to Crete,
found a monstrous god, own cousin to himself.... Of the ritual of
the bull-god in Crete, we know that it consisted in part of the
tearing and eating of a bull, and behind is the dreadful suspicion
of human sacrifice.' The actual evidence found on Minoan sites for
the existence of such a bull-headed divinity is somewhat slight, the
clearest instance being a seal-impression from Knossos, representing
a monster who bears an animal head, possibly a bull's, upon a human
body, and who is evidently regarded as divine, since he is seated
and reverently approached by a human worshipper; but, taken in