Virtual Reality: Tree Cult and Epiphanic Ritual in Aegean Glyptic Iconography.

Abstract

For the first half of the twentieth century and even up until quite recently Minoan religion has been interpreted through an evolutionist lens. Glyptic iconography depicting ritual activity inconjunction with trees and stones has been considered evidence for the evolutionary trajectoryof Minoan religion from an earlier “primitive” phase, characterised by aniconism, to a moresophisticated stage signied by anthropomorphism. In contrast, this article proposes thatMinoan religion was simultaneously physiomorphic, theriomorphic and anthropomorphic.Through examination of the Minoan imagery of epiphany set within natural landscapes, inconjunction with comparative ethnographic analysis of cult acti..