of heaven. Similarities, not of name, but of attribute, suggest the Indo-European origin of certain lesser figures, Sun, Dawn,
and above all the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, who strikingly recall another pair of heavenly twins particularly associated
with horsemanship, the Asvin of early Indian poetry. The closest equivalents to Aphrodite, on the other hand, are found in
the love goddesses of the Near East, the Sumerian Inanna and the Semitic Astarte/Ishtar. This may mean, though, that
Aphrodite has acquired oriental traits rather than that she is wholly oriental by origin: the individual gods often appear to be
composite no less than the pantheon as a -whole. Artemis too belongs in part to a near eastern type, that of the 'Mistress of
Animals', while there are non-Indo-European traits in Apollo and Hephaestus. And the 'Kingship in Heaven' myth told by
Hesiod is a particularly clear case of borrowing from the Near East in mythology (above, pp. 89 f.).
Thanks to the decipherment of the Linear B script in 1952, we can give some account of the state of Greek religion in the
period 1400-1200 B.C. The Linear B tablets reveal that the pantheon of this Minoan-Mycenaean civilization was already to
a large extent that of classical Greece. Of great gods, Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon are certainly attested, and also, with varying
degrees of probability, Artemis, Hermes, Ares, and Dionysus. A 'Lady of Athana' is doubtless a precursor of Athena, and
several lesser figures appear-Eileithyia, the goddess of birth, Enyalios, a god of war who declined into an epithet of Ares,
and Paiaon, a healer who was similarly absorbed by Apollo. Aphrodite, Apollo, and (except very questionably) Demeter are
so far unattested, but they were not necessarily unknown. There is also, certainly, much that is unfamiliar, both among the
gods (who is 'Drimios son of Zeus'?) and in cult practice and organization. The impression that the art of the period
conveys, of a religion still dominated by pre-Greek goddesses of nature, is perhaps partly confirmed by a series of
anonymous divine 'Ladies' who appear in the texts; but in general the Minoan-Mycenaean divine world now seems much
more Greek than it did when only the artistic evidence was available.
Model Of The Sanctuary At Olympia. At the centre is the temple of Zeus and to its right the ash altar and the smaller, older