mentioned above, and as it appeared on the head of the golden image at Bambyke, which some called Semiramis.[72.1] The close association of the Mediterranean goddess and of the goddess of Askalon, Phoenicia, and Bambyke with doves may have been caused by several independent reasons; one may well have been the habitual frequenting of her temple by the birds. This would easily grow into a belief that the goddess when she wished to reveal something of her presence and power to the external eye would manifest herself in the bird. This we may call theriomorphic imagination that goes _pari passu_ easily with the anthropomorphic. But none of these monuments come near to proving that this Mediterranean race directly worshipped birds, nor do they suggest any such theory as that the human divinity emerged from the bird. We shall, in fact, find that evidence of this kind that I have been examining, used recklessly in similar cases, leads to absurd results.[72.2] Here it is well to remark in passing that the cult of {73} the Dove-goddess is a test case for trying the question of Oriental influence on the west. It cannot be traced back to Babylon, and no one would now maintain the old theory that the dove-shrines of Mycenae were an import from the Phoenician Astarte cult. Sir Arthur Evans’ discoveries enable us to carry back this particular worship in the Aegean to pre-Mycenaean times. We could with better right maintain that the Syrians borrowed it from the Aegean or possibly from Askalon, where, as Dr. Evans has pointed out, Minoan influences were strong. But the most reasonable view is that which he expresses that “the divine associations of the dove were a primitive heritage of primitive Greece and Anatolia.”[73.1]