The ›Divine Couple‹ ring from Poros and the origins of the Minoan calendar

Abstract

The Minoan gold ring presented here was found in a large rock-cut tomb at Poros, Herakleion and dates to the LM I B period. The subject of the depiction, the ›divine couple‹, is also known from other religious representations, specifically on rings and in the form of the ›Sacred Conversation‹. Altogether novel in Minoan iconography, however, is the rendering of a group of five celestial bodies above the gods. In a concise ideographic way, this represents nothing less than the way the Minoan lunisolar calendar operated: the sun represents the solstice or equinox as a standard point of reference for reckoning time, and the phases of the moon illustrate the duration of the lunar month. The full moon most likely indicates the specific date on which the great ceremonial event of the two gods’ encounter took place. Additional iconographic evidence from two stone moulds from Palaikastro suggests that, besides a lunisolar calendar, the Minoans had probably worked out the principles of an astral calendar, with reference to the vegetation cycle and the corresponding religious semiotics.