“The sanctuary of Eileithyia at Amnissos, known from numerous later literary sources, is the sole case of a sanctuary that is considered to have been identified in excavation and is attested by the Knossian tablets. The frequent reference to Amnissos in the administrative records of the early LM IIIA:2 period is perhaps due to the particular importance of the coastal site as one of the two harbors of Knossos (Davaras and Masson 1983, 383–384; Schäfer 1991, 111–112). The first line of the leaf-shaped tablet Gg(3) 705 from the West Wing of the palace of Knossos records the dispatch of an amphora of honey to Amnissos for e-re-u-ti-ja. This name is transcribed into alphabetic Greek as Eleuthia/Ἐλευθίᾱ, and she has been identified as the goddess of childbirth Eileithyia, known from Homer and many other ancient authors and scholars (Ventris and Chadwick 1956, 310; Aura Jorro and Adrados 1985, 244). . . . Concerning the etymology of the early type Eleuthia, various interpretations have been proposed, the most probable reducing it to an Indo-European root meaning “free of weight,” and possibly referring to the goddess’s role as midwife (Ruipérez and Melena 1996, 187). According to another viewpoint, it derives from the root eleuth- of the verbal type eleusomai (to come, to arrive), while arguments that the name is of pre-Hellenic provenance have also been formulated (Frisk 1960, 456; Schäfer, ed., 1992, 84).
The reference in Homer’s Odyssey (19.188–190) to the cave where the goddess was worshipped at Amnissos echoes the fame of the cult practiced there at least during the Late Minoan period. The initial association of the cave found at Amnissos by I. Hazzidakis in 1885 with Eileithyia was based on this particular passage in Homer (Marinatos 1929, 95). The excavations conducted subsequently by S. Marinatos between 1929 and 1938 confirmed the use of the cave from Neolithic into Late Minoan times, as well as during the Geometric, Hellenistic, and early Roman Imperial periods (Marinatos 1929, 97, 99, 103; 1930; Betancourt and Marinatos 2000). During historical times “mogostokos” Eileithyia, that is, the goddess who brought the pangs of childbirth, was worshipped all over Greece and was identified by various variations of her name in the local dialects: Eleuthyia in Crete, Eleuthia or Eleusia in Laconia, and Eleuthie in Ionia (Frisk 1960, 455). She was particularly popular, however, in many cities of Crete, including Lato, Inatos, Aptera, and Amnissos (Nosch 2009, 27). Although it has been maintained that during the first millennium b.c. a fusing of Eileithyia with Artemis took place (Antoniou 1980, 228–229), it is noteworthy that both deities are recorded independently in the Linear B tablets from Knossos and from Pylos, respectively. The question of the continuity of worship in the Amnissos Cave remains open (Schäfer, ed., 1992, 84); nevertheless, the reference in the Knossian documents to the sanctuary of the goddess advocates the origin of the late cult of Eileithyia from an earlier Minoan goddess of childbirth (Nilsson 1949, 30; Willetts 1962, 168–172).
The brief text incised on the Knossian tablet Gg(3) 705 by Scribe 140, from the Chamber of the Jewel Fresco (Olivier 1967, 85) provides a pretext for certain hypotheses relating to the nature of worship at the site. Honey played an important role in cult, as indicated by the large number of Knossian tablets recording this item. The quantity of honey offered is stated in tablet Gg(3) 705 by the logogram *209VAS, denoting a fixed unit, the precise capacity of which is not known (Ruipérez and Melena 1996, 187). Nonetheless, the attribution of a corresponding quantity “to all the gods” (pa-si te-o-i), in the second line of the tablet, allows us to assume that Eileithyia was the principal deity of Amnissos. Recorded in the third line also is an amphora of honey, which is offered to another deity, whose name is only preserved fragmentarily. Proposed is the restoration of the dative case e-ne-si-da-jo-ne of the possible name of a male divinity, Ένεσιδάhων (Enesidahon; Aura Jorro and Adrados 1985, 219), who is associated with Amnissos in tablet KN M 719 by the same scribe, from the same space. According to some researchers, this is an epithet qualifying Poseidon (Jorro and Adrados 1985, 219). . . .
Tablets KN Od(2) 714.b and Od(2) 715.a, by the specialist Scribe 103 from the Chamber of the Jewel Fresco (Olivier 1967, 44–50, 131–132), concern one other aspect of the economics of worship. Eileithyia receives from the Knossian bureaucrats one intact unit of wool, which is equivalent to 30 kilos of the product, while in tablet Od(2) 716.a she perhaps receives an additional four units of wool. The destination of these offerings is not stated, but it is perhaps related to craft-industrial activity, since the names a-*65-na and ta-wa-ko-to, recorded in these registers, are of persons in a weaving workshop (Enegren 2008, 98, 173). By analogy with the sources of historical times (Soph. OC, 461–493) regarding the dedication of offerings to the gods, it has been proposed that the wool was perhaps intended for the adornment with garlands of the amphorae of honey (Weilhartner 2005, 45).7.”
- Georgia Flouda, The Goddess Eileithyia in the Knossian Linear B Tablets
