The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries) (24 page)

Xenia
reached out for an object on the table. A young woman was brushing debris off of a small stone sculpture which was about the size of a human hand. She gave it to the trove-keeper.

Cassie recognized the object. She looked at
Xenia
questioningly. “Isn’t that like the giant sculpture we saw at
Knossos
. That horn thing?”

“Yes, it is,” the Greek woman replied encouragingly. “It is another example of the horns of consecration. This one would have been used at a small votive altar in a home perhaps.”

The girl stepped closer to inspect the relic. “The horns look pretty abstract to me. What are they supposed to be exactly?”

Xenia
smiled knowingly. “I think perhaps we should start by talking about what they are not.”

“Huh?”

Griffin
joined the discussion. “The conventional explanation is that horns of consecration are the horns of a bull.”

Cassie tilted her head to one side. “Oh, I see it now.”

“How do you know the horns belong to a bull?”
Xenia
asked pointedly.

“I guess because the Minoans had a thing about bulls. I mean, what with the acrobats jumping over them and all.”

“What if I were to tell you that horns of consecration have been found in European villages dating back to 7000 BCE?” the trove-keeper persisted.

“Then maybe Old Europeans had a thing about bulls too?” Cassie offered uncertainly.

“Horns of consecration represent regeneration,”
Griffin
explained. “Does it seem likely to you that a goddess-worshipping culture would take the horns of a bull as its most important symbol?”

Cassie gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t have a clue if they would or wouldn’t. Why don’t we make this painless and you tell me what you want me to know.”

Griffin
and
Xenia
looked at one another and laughed.

“I suppose we are being rather too hard on the girl,” the Scrivener admitted.

“Please come into my office. All will be clear in a moment.” The trove-keeper brought the small stone sculpture along with her.

The trio went through one of the doors on the back wall to a small office stacked with papers and books.

“Please sit,”
Xenia
invited.

Cassie took a chair while
Griffin
perched on the end of the desk.

Xenia
scanned her bookshelf and selected a volume. She thumbed through it quickly until she found the page she wanted. “You must remember that the ancient matristic cultures saw the goddess as the source of life, death, and rebirth. Not the rebirth that is called reincarnation but the rebirth of seasons. Winter is followed by spring and with it the goddess shows her power to bring forth new life out of death. The ancients worshipped the power to give life.”
Xenia
paused and then prompted gently, “Does a bull bring forth new life?”

“No, but a cow does,” Cassie blurted out the words automatically before the significance of what she’d just said had sunk in. “Holy cow!”

“Precisely.”
Griffin
laughed. “Holy cow. As Hathor in
Egypt
she was called the cow of heaven. Cows as well as bulls have horns. The overlord obsession with phallic symbols, like the horn, would automatically assume the gender of the animal to be male.”

“But there are lots of female animals they might have picked to symbolize regeneration. Why the cow?” Cassie was mystified.

“There are two reasons,”
Xenia
replied. “The cow became an important source of food. She could provide not only a calf, but also milk. Neolithic farmers began to incorporate this new food into their diet and they saw the cow as a special gift from their goddess. But there is an even more important reason.”

Xenia
opened the book she still held in her hands and laid it flat on the desk. The page she had selected showed a cow’s skull placed above an altar. “The name for this object is bucranium. The head and horns of cattle of either sex would be called a bucranium. The horns of consecration is an abstract symbol for this object.”

Cassie studied the image for a moment. It looked like one of those bleached cattle skulls from
Death Valley
.

“Now look at this image,”
Xenia
said as she flipped the page.

Cassie peered at it uncomprehending until she read the caption. “Diagram of female human reproductive system. “Holy sh—”

“I think you meant to say cow,”
Griffin
interrupted smoothly.

The girl couldn’t believe her eyes. The diagram exactly matched the shape of the bucranium. The uterus was shaped like a cow’s skull while the ovaries and fallopian tubes mimicked the curve of the cow’s horns. She looked up at
Xenia
. “But how would they know this? I mean unless they were dissecting cadavers way back when, how would they figure this out?”

“Because of excarnation,” the Scrivener said. “When a person died, her body would have been exposed to birds of prey to strip off the flesh before the bones would be cleaned for burial. A human body in various stages of decomposition could be observed with the internal organs exposed. It would have been a macabre epiphany, to be sure, but the connection would have been easy to make.”

Xenia
continued the thought. “We know the old Europeans recognized the similarity eight thousand years ago because they created statues and drawings of the goddess with a bucranium drawn directly over the pelvic region of her body. The bucranium symbolizes the power of the goddess to create life. Minoans shrines usually display ritual objects between the horns as part of their cult practice. To amplify the power of regeneration.”

“So what’s the deal with the bulls then?” Cassie was puzzled. “I mean I saw the animal in that bull leaping fresco and it wasn’t a cow.”

“The bull was the sacrificial animal of choice to the Minoans,”
Griffin
said. “His skull is also a bucranium which symbolizes regeneration but he is far more expendable. Cows were too valuable to sacrifice. They provided calves and milk. Every cow on
Crete
was known by her individual name. The bulls, alas, were not.”

Xenia
wordlessly handed the horns of consecration to
Griffin
. Cassie stood up to get a better view of what he was looking at.

“You see the markings just here and here,” the trove-keeper pointed to two small bees inscribed at the base of either horn.

Griffin
studied them in silence for several seconds. “They are quite similar to one of the hieroglyphics on the granite key but the match isn’t exact.” He sighed. “I was hoping this treasure hunt would be simple.”

“Perhaps this will help,”
Xenia
said. She picked up another small artifact which had been sitting on her desk.

Cassie recognized it instantly. “It’s one of those double axes like we saw all over the palace.”

“It’s called a labrys from the Lydian word meaning axe. The word labyrinth is derived from this object. The place of the labrys,”
Griffin
said.

The girl frowned. “That’s another thing that bothered me but we never got a chance to talk about it earlier. Why would a goddess culture choose a weapon for a sacred symbol?”

Griffin
’s face took on a cryptic expression. “You’ve already seen that nothing is quite what it seems. Where an overlord archaeologist sees a bull, we see a cow. Where they see an axe, we see something entirely different.”

“When is an axe not an axe?” Cassie asked, mystified.

“When it is a butterfly,”
Griffin
said softly.

The girl stared at him as if he’d lost him mind. “A butterfly,” she repeated skeptically.

“This symbol was painted on pottery, incised into sculpture and always in conjunction with images of the goddess.
 
For six thousand years in old
Europe
the double-triangle was always used in a context suggesting metamorphosis, rebirth. The caterpillar which becomes a butterfly is another universal symbol in old
Europe
for the power of the goddess to regenerate life. Double axes were never forged of material that would have made them useful as weaponry.”

Xenia
joined in. “The Kurgans used axes as weapons. When they first invaded
Greece
and later
Crete
, they would have seen the labrys as a weapon and a symbol of a war-mongering sky god. But that was not the way in which the original inhabitants viewed it.” She took the small bronze labrys in her hand and fitted it in the center of the horns of consecration which
Griffin
was still holding.

Cassie noticed for the first time that a hole had been drilled into the base of the horns and the handle of the small double axe fit neatly into it. It now stood upright between the horns.

Xenia
looked intently at Cassie. “There are always many ways of seeing the same object, no? A Minoan looking at the horns with the labrys at the center sees a double symbol of the power of the goddess to regenerate life.”

Griffin
picked up the thread. “An overlord warrior looking at the same objects would see the bull’s horns as a symbol of virility and the double axe as symbolic of conquest in battle.”

Xenia
took the objects back from
Griffin
. “It is a simple choice of whether to see life or to see death in these things. All of us in the Arkana believe the world has been looking at death too long.”

The mood in the room grew solemn until the trove-keeper smiled. “But I did not bring the labrys here to give you a lecture on the state of the world. Look at this.” She pointed to tiny birds inscribed on either wing of the bronze butterfly.

“Remarkable,” the Scrivener exclaimed as he leaned over for a closer look. “They look exactly like the symbols on the key. Unfortunately, there is no sequence, no message.” He sounded disappointed.

“It was not the sequence that I wished to show you,”
Xenia
said. “Clearly there is no message here but the same hand may have created both. Look at the image again and tell me if you think so.”

“Good heavens, I believe you’re right!”
Griffin
exclaimed. He drew the folded photographs of the key out of his pocket and compared the image of the bird on the key to the ones on the labrys. “It may have been the same artist! There’s clearly a connection of some sort. Where was this artifact found?”

“The horns of consecration and the labrys were both found at Psychro cave.”

Cassie laughed. “You’re kidding. You’ve got something here called a psycho cave?”

Griffin
rolled his eyes. “You do seem to enjoy mispronouncing things. Not psycho, psychro with an R.” He turned to
Xenia
. “That’s on the plateau, yes?”

The trove-keeper nodded. “The Lassithi plateau. It is less than two hours from here if you wish to go there tomorrow.”

“I think it would be worth checking.”
Griffin
rose as if he were getting ready to depart but
Xenia
laid a restraining hand on his arm.