Goddess of the Tree,, (undated)

Lubell 8/10: 288a-j

Nine black and white prints of a woodblock showing three [Cretan?] women and a girl. One woman is seated under a tree holding [thistles?] in her hand, while three others are standing in front of her offering flowers. A double-headed axe, the son and the moon are in the background. 288a is inscribed “KOZO” on the verso. Print 288j is titled The Tree Goddess, is signed Winifred Milius Lubell, is printed on mustard-colored rice paper and was originally matted and wrapped. Print 288i is titled, matted and signed Winifred Milius Lubell. See woodblock, [Goddess of the Tree] (the block for Lubell 378, Lubell 442, Box 25). See also the print Lubell 378, which appears to be a color version of this print. On the back of the mat is a paper with the following paragraph partially transcribed from "P. 186 [of] the Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe", by Marija Gimbutas:

"Goddess of the Tree"

A gold signet ring, Minoan in character yet found in Mycenae and dated c. 1500 B.C yielded this design.

Here, a Cretan Goddess sits on a mountain under her sacred tree, receiving gifts of flowers and poppy-seeds from her worshippers. She controls both sun and moon, seen in the upper right, and the double axe, her emblem is also in the sky above her.

According to archeologist Marija Gimbutas, "the emblem of the Great Goddess in its origin has nothing to do with the axe, it antedates the appearance of metal aces by several thousand years. In the second millennium B.C, because of their increasing importance axes were made in imitation of a butterfly (therefore double-bladed). When finally the butterfly became a double-axe, the image of the Goddess as a butterfly continued to be engraved on double-axes………The Tombe of the Double-Axes at Knossos was in fact, a shrine of the Goddess. The process of transformation from a butterfly to a double-Axe must have been influenced by the similarity of shape between the two or by the influence of the nearby Indo-Europeans (Myceneans), to whom the axe of the Thunder-god was sacred since it was imbued with his potency."

288a-h – Sizes vary, ranging from 18.9 x 19 cm to 20 x 25.4 cm

288i – 15.3 x 17 cm (mat measures 38 x 27.8 cm)

288j – 15.8 x 23.6 cm

Image measures 10.2 x 12.7 cm