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American magazine Section of fiear$f$ Sunday American, Atlanta, may 1$, m
irsete d JSuffragettes of 3000
Inleresiin q Discoveries in the
Hmeresnna4LJ/isconeries in me
UncientOru of Xercules which.
Seem toProoe the end ofthe
greatest UronjBan's llauerj
to JLiuely Queen Omphale only a
Temaru ofMoman's Oldest
onquest ofthelallot
Copyright, 1913, by the
Z Star Company.
Great Britain Rights Reserved.
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A Woman Leader of Ancient Tiryns
This remarkable wall painting, the first complete
picture of a woman of the advanced Cretan civiliza
tion of 3000 years ago, has recently been discovered
on one of the ruined palace walls of ancient Tiryns.
The corset and flounced skirt are astonishingly like our
fashions of yesterday. Women ruled in Tiryns. it is
believed, and this ancient lady is seen carrying an offer
ing to the Snake-Goddess, the dominant deity ol this
vanished civilization. The legend of Hercules and
Omphale is thought to be a record of a militant
suffragette uprising of the women of the city and also
those of old Crete.
| HE German society now
digging among the ruins
of the ancient civilization
of Crete has just un
earthed evidence of a successful
militant suffragette movement at
least 1200 years before our era, and
probably 2000 years before it. The
discoveries which lead the Ger
mans to the conclusion that women
on that distant date arose for their
rights, and got them, were made at
Tiryns, on the Greek mainland.
Tiryns, in its heyday, was one of
the greatest cities of the Cretans.
It has been famous for centuries as
the birthplace of Hercules, the
greatest strong man and most vig
orous demi god of legend. Tiryns
is now, and has been for centuries,
a mass of ruins, mostly deep in
earth. The sheep of the Greek
shepherds have grazed above its
palaces and temples for ages.
The conclusions of the scientists
throw a strong new light on this
legend of Hercules and his city
The famous story of his enslave
ment by Queen Omphale is only,
they say, a fanciful presentation
of the important fact that a great
woman’s suffrage movement which
swept over and conquered Crete
began and was first successful in
Tiryns. The method is one per
fectly familiar to all students ol
legend and mythology
The Cretan or Minoan language
has never yet been read. No Ro
setta stone, by which the hiero
glyphics of the Egyptians were
first deciphered, has been found to
give the clue to the Minoan char
acters. But at Tiryns there was
uncovered a mass of wonderful
wall paintings, jars and vases and
mosaics, most of which bore in
pictures the story of this women’s
uprising and its consequences
plainly that there can be
doubt that the German
have read their meaning rightly
These were not Greeks who built
Tiryns and who erected the mag
nificent palaces now being uncov
ered The builders had come from
Asia Minor, they were of the same
old Minoan race as the Trojans,
it was the might of the barbarian
Greek city of Argos, a neighbor,
which brought about the destruc
tion of the Minoan cities, and with
them Tiryns, about, perhaps, 500
B. C. The very ancient Greeks did
not hold women in very high
gard, and so they felt that it would
never do to admit that woman had
ever ruled, or there might be dan
ger of the Greek women setting
up their "rights” to dominate the
State and society. Thus came
about the peculiar twist in the
Hercules legend which none has
been able to explain hitherto.
It has been recognized as a
Lydian part of the story, which
1 means that it comes from Asia
Minor, and this adds to the
value of the new interpretation
As the story goes, the hero
Hercules is entrapped by
Queen Omphale, and devotes
himself to pleasures, losing
himself in the society o< wom
en so far as to put on feminine
attire, while his lively lady
Obiphale takes up his lion skin,
puts it on, and With the club
of Hercules in her hand flaunts
herself before the degenerate
hero, and proves herself the
real hero.
Even though according to
the legend Hercules does break
forth from his effeminacy at
times and vanquishes the Ce-
cropes, the goblins who used fj,,,
to waylay travellers and slew Little
Syleus, who compelled all trav- p e ( £) 0 g
ellers to dig in his vineyard, of a
woman is still the dominating Fashionable Lady
power. Queen Omphale has of Ancient Tiryns
him completely at her mercy.
In the astonishing wall paintings
at Tiryns the signs of the mastery
of the women In all the religious
rites first aroused the interest of
the scientists. Upon one wall is
a whole row of women bearing
their offerings to the great patron
goddess of the city and the sex—
Juno, or Hera, as the Greeks called
her. She was symbolized both in
Tiryns and in Crete as the great
snake-goddess, the patroness of
marriage and the ruler of men, for
in her hand Is always shown the
sceptre of dominance. Juno was
known in later times ever, as Juno
Ilegina, the Queen Goddess, a relic
of the age in which the primeval
woman of the older stock ruled 'all
mankind, and she Is always de
picted witfi that prominent chin
which betokens power and deter
mination, and the high forehead,
expressing great intel
lectual powers.
An Effigy of the Snake-Goddess of Tiryns,
the Ruler of All the Gods.