The Bee in Greek Mythology

Abstract

The illustration which heads this paper shows a gold ornament in the form of a bee purchased in 1875 by the British Museum. It is a neat specimen of early granulated work; but, beyond the fact that it came from Crete, nothing is known as to the circumstances of its discovery. Similar finds have, however, been made elsewhere. Furtwängler in the Arch. Zeit. vol, 41, col. 274, notices among the acquisitions of the Berlin Museum for the year 1882 ‘sundry small plates of gold from the Crimea representing a head of Dionysus, Bees, and a Gorgoneiou.’ Our own national collection possesses fourteen bodies of bees in gold of late Etruscan workmanship, and also a bee stamped in gold leaf of the same date. With these may be compared the three hundred golden bees found along with an ox-head of gold in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks. Doubtless other examples could be cited; and it seems worth while to attempt some investigation of their significance.