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The Sickle of Kronos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Martin P. Nilsson
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Extract

The sickle, as attribute of Kronos, was considered by certain scholars to be the sickle with which the corn is reaped, and this would be a reliable argument for the opinion that Kronos was from of old a god of the harvest. Recently W. Staudacher has advanced the opinion that the harpe, as the Greek word is, is a sickle-shaped sword of Oriental origin, and uses this as an argument for deriving the myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth from the Orient; but he has not succeeded in proving his thesis. I have expressed doubt that the harpe of Kronos was a sickle, and said that it may have been a sword, but I have also called attention to the fact that the harpe is said by Hesiod to be provided with sharp teeth, being reminded of certain implements from the Neolithic Age in which sharp chips of flint are inserted in a stick of bone or wood, as in e.g. harpoons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 46 , November 1951 , pp. 122 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1951

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References

1 There are many other interpretations of the sickle upon which it is superfluous to enter. They are recorded in the valuable article ‘Kronos’ by Max. Mayer in Roscher, II 1544.

2 Staudacher, W., Die Trennung von Himmel und Erde, 1942, 69.Google Scholar

3 Hesiod, Theog. 175 and 180: Homer, Iliad XVIII 551, is equivocal.

4 In my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, I 483 ff.

5 Iliad X 360: καρχαρρόδοντε δύω κύνε εἰδότε θήρης; XIII 198: δύ' αῑγα λήοντε κυνῶν ὑπὸ καρχαροδόντων ἁρπάξαντε.

6 See M. Ebert, Reallex. d. Vorgeschichte XII 72. Oldeberg, A., ‘Some Contributions to the Earliest History of the Sickle’, Acta archaeologica III (1932), 209Google Scholar, treats especially of the Stone Age in Scandinavia.

7 Caton-Thompson, Gertrud, The Desert Fayoum, London, 1934Google Scholar

8 H. Kees, Kulturgesch. d. alten Orients, I, Ägypten (Handbuch d. Allertumswiss.), 36, says: Der Schnitt erfolgte mit den primitiven hölzernen Sicheln, in die zur Schärfung Feuersteinsplitter eingezogen wurden, und zwar stets so, dass der Halm stehenbleibt, also möglichst wenig Stroh geerntet wird.

9 H. Schliemann, Ilios, 674, figs. 418–420; cf. W. Dörpfeld, Troja, 394.

10 Broholm, H. G., Danmarks Bronzealder, II, 173 with pl. 35.Google Scholar

11 See the quotation from Kees, above p. 122, n. 8. Sometimes an instrument similar to a fork (merga) or a comb was used to collect the stalks, see Wagenvoort, H., De Maiersvase van Hagia Triada, Mededelingen van het Nederlandsen historisch Instituut te Rome, 2 ser., IV (1934).Google ScholarCf. also the quotations from Columella and Varro below, n. 13.

12 DS s. v. ‘Faix’, II 2, 970, figs. 2869 and 2870.

13 Columella II 20, 3: multi falcibus veruculatis atque iis vel rostratis vel denticulatis medium culmen secant, multi mergis, alii pectinibus spicam ipsam legunt. Varro, de re rust., I 50: altero modo metunt, ut in Piceno, ubi ligneum habent incurvum bacillum, in quo sit extremo serrula ferrea. Haec cum comprendit fascem spicarum, desecat et stramenta stantia in segeti relinquit, ut postea subsecentur. Tertio modo metitur, ut sub urbe Roma et locis plerisque, ut stramentum medium subsicent, quod manu sinistra summum prendunt. A soldier reaping corn is represented on the column of Trajan.

14 The sickle given as a prize at the festival of Artemis Orthia at Sparta is rather a gardener's knife, which also is sickle-shaped.

15 E.g., the teeth appear very clearly on a Corinthian vase, figured by Cook, A. B., Zeus, III 796Google Scholar, fig. 597; Iolaus cuts off one of the bodies of the Hydra with a toothed sickle.

16 Hesiod, Opera 573:

17 Hesiod, Theogony 162.

18 I mentioned in Gesch. d. griech. Religion, I 486, n. 2 that Forrer derives the myth of the emasculation of Ouranos from the Hittite myth of Kumarbi. This has been taken up with better arguments by H. Güterbock, Kumarbi Mythen vom churritischen Kronos (Istanbuler Schriften, No. 16), Zürich, 1946, and ‘The Hittite Version of the Hurrian Kumarbi Myths: Oriental Forerunners of Hesiod’, AJA LII (1948), 123; a lengthy review by Götze, A., Journ. of the Amer. Oriental Soc., LXIX (1949), 178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar