Of what sort were the acts of worship in connection with the Minoan Religion? Sacrifice was certainly prominent, and the bull was probably the chief victim offered to the goddess. In one of the scenes on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, a bull is being sacrificed, and his blood is dripping into a vessel placed beneath his head. Behind is the figure of a woman, whose hands are stretched out, presumably to hold the cords with which the victim is bound. Two kids crouch on the ground below the bull, perhaps to be offered in their turn. Libation also formed part of the ceremonial, and on the same sarcophagus there are two scenes in which it occurs. In the one instance (Plate XXVIII.), the vessel into which the offering is being poured stands between two sacred Double Axes with birds perched upon them; in the other the libation-vessel stands upon an altar with a Double Axe behind it. The three receptacles of the Dictaean Libation Table suggest a threefold offering like that of mingled milk and honey, sweet wine, and water, which, in the Homeric period, was made to the Shades of the Dead and to the Nymphs. As was perhaps natural in the cult of a goddess, the chief part in the ritual seems to have been taken by priestesses. Men share in the ceremonies also, but not so frequently, and apparently in subordinate roles. Part of the ritual evidently consisted of dancing, and music also had its place, as is evident from the figures of the lyre and flute players on the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The question of whether the Minoans had any worship of ancesters or sacrifice to the dead is raised by several relics. Above the Shaft-Graves at Mycenae stood a circular altar, where offerings must have been made either to the Shades of the Dead or on behalf of them, and the scenes on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, resembling so curiously those of the Egyptian ceremony of 'the Opening of the Mouth,' suggest a belief in the continued existence of the spirit, either as an object to be propitiated by sacrifice, or as a being which needed to be sustained in its disembodied state by offerings of meat and drink.