a-ne-mo-i-je-re-ja
October 2013: To Maro and her daemons,” writes Eleni Ladia in the dedication of her archaeognostic study “Daemonology or Discourses on Daemons.” On page 30, adjacent to Anaximander’s musings that the soul’s essence is akin to air, I first encounter “the Priestess of the Winds,” a spectral figure mentioned only in two clay tablets from 1380 BC, recording offerings in oil.
These tablets are among the 3000 unearthed by Arthur Evans in the early 1900s during excavations at the Knossos Palace. Inscribed in clay, the script is named Linear B. Decades later, in 1952, linguist-architect Michael Ventris, alongside John Chadwig, and following Alice Kober’s groundwork, decipher Linear B, affirming it as the earliest form of the Greek language.
The tablets function as ledgers, cataloging goods for the palace, military equipment, labor forces, and livestock. Notably, two tablets detail oil offerings to various deities, among them a mention of the Priestess of the Winds, the a-ne-mo-i-je-re-ja. On this Mediterranean isle of Crete, the role of a Wind Priestess is of great importance. Her unique ability to coax the winds, crucial for the safe sailing of Minoan ships, is vital for seafaring and commerce, vital for establishing and maintaining the Minoan thalassocracy.
The Linear B script fascinates me. I study its symbols, the syllabograms. They have a strong visual presence and simultaneously encrypt their meaning. This script, no longer used after the destruction of the Knossos Palace in 1450 BC, becomes central for my artist’s book a decade later, as the priestess’s presence shadows my thoughts.
SPRING 2023: I find myself in heated debates about a unique artist’s book genre, where content and meaning are intentionally elusive, impenetrable, enigmatic. This ignites a conceptual intrigue and challenge. The inscription a-ne-mo-i-je-re-ja is no longer a mere typographic exercise, an artistic interpretation of symbols, but a longing to transcend time, to reach and communicate with the priestess in her dialect. This means that in the following months I must immerse myself in her world and learn to write or more accurately transliterate from modern Greek to Linear B, which is peculiar with its own rules of syllabification, orthography, and syntax.
I delve into the study of Minoan culture, the Knossos Palace architecture, the arts, particularly the exquisite frescoes portraying a refined lifestyle close to nature. I study their religion, the worship outside formal temples, in peak sanctuaries, and the significant societal role of women. Women hold prominent religious positions as goddesses or priestesses. Young women participate in dangerous “bull-leaping” games. Like young men, they are depicted with slender bodies, rich black hair, expressive eyes, elaborate garments. The predominant motifs in these frescoes - the azure sky and sea, dolphins amidst the waves - symbolize the Minoans’ affinity with and dominance over the sea. Worship and control of the winds must be pivotal for this maritime society. However, little is known about the Wind Priestess. Since one of the two inscriptions resides in the Heraklion Museum, I resolve to seek her in the likely locale of her rituals.
HERAKLION / KNOSSOS: At the Heraklion Museum, I stand before the Linear B tablet display. Tablet KN Fp 1+31 mentions that “in the month of Deukios, to Diktaean Zeus, to the sanctuary of Daidalos, to “pa-de,” to all the gods, to Therasia, at Amnisos, to all the gods, to Erinus, to the site of “47-da,” to the priestess of the winds -blank line- so much oil.” This museum’s and the British Museum’s tablets are the sole existing attestations of the Wind Priestess’s existence, justifiably rooted in the Minoans’ intense seafaring and sailing prowess.
Meeting with Dr. Flouda, head of Prehistoric and Minoan Antiquities, the windswept Amnisos port emerges as a probable ritual site of the priestess. Before exploring there, I visit the Knossos Palace at dawn to evade the sweltering sun and the crowds. The restored terracotta-colored columns, the vibrant ochre on the walls, the fresco replicas of the “Blue Ladies,” the “Parisian,” the throne room, the symbols of the double axe, fascinate me. Yet, within these halls and multi-leveled stone chambers, the priestess’s essence eludes me.
AMNISOS: The light dimmed, clouds and wind. The hill, an imposing presence. I climb amongst rocky slopes dotted with drimia maritima, plants with slender flowering stems. I reach a cave. I stand near its entrance gazing at the now lead-blue sea, the wind, a relentless presence. I close my eyes; at that twilight moment, I feel this was her space. Later, I descend in silence. Traveling across Crete, through olive groves, vineyards, archaeological sites, tracing the Minoan footsteps, it’s that dusk moment in Amnisos where I felt closest to her.
Now, on the ship back to Athens, months immersed in the study of the Minoan culture, the study of Linear B, in dialogues with experts, archaeologists and linguists, after visits to museums, to Knossos, Amnisos, the questions weigh heavier than at the beginning: how to give form to the intangible, convey emotion, visually render her enigmatic presence. Yes, I will write to her in her long-lost dialect, but the Linear B syllabograms, on handmade paper, rendered in Lapis Lazuli ink, silent and inaccessible… and yet as artist Shirin Salehi (2023) writes “in the space of the illegible, a way of reading, which resists definition, is being discovered, reluctant to be fully deciphered, it remains unknowable, and yet it is open to exploration. Embracing the strangeness instead of rejecting it, allows not to let any message prevail, offering openness.”
Dawn breaks... the lights of Piraeus harbor...October 2023.