UNA RAPPRESENTAZIONE ARCAICA DI PAN A CRETA? NOTE SU UNA PLACCHETTA LITICA DA FESTÒS

Abstract

A small stone plaque discovered in 1928 in the area of the Upper Western Court of the Minoan Palace at Phaistos bears an incised decoration representing Pan (very probably in a cave) with lagobolon and syrinx behind a plant. The paper aims to determine chronology and meanings of the stone plaque: in spite of the presence of a huge Hellenistic building in the same Court, an Archaic chronology can be inferred for the small object. This very ancient chronology of the representation of Pan (the most ancient one outside the Arcadia) is of some importance in view of the mention of a particular genealogy of Pan expressed by the Cretan Epimenides. It is inferred a possible link between the Pan representation and the male initiation rites known in Crete from the literary sources; the plan represented in the plaque behind the god could be identify with the «epimenideian» scilla, used in an Arcadian male ritual to strike a statue of Pan.