In the Mycenaean tablets, the word po-ti-ni-ja (Potnia) occurs mainly in religious contexts The object of this paper is to study this divine name, examining the Linear B texts Examples of Potnia can be classified into three kinds, (1) Potnia without any modification, (2) Potnia with modifying words, (3) derivatives The most crucial discussion that has been raised about Potnia is whether it is used as an epithet or is the real name of a certain goddess Among those who think it an epithet or a generic term, J Leuven develops his idea by allocating Olympian Goddesses to each case according to the context, for example, e-re-wi-jo po-ti-ni-ja should be Hera, po-ti-ni-ja a-si-wi-ja Artemis, po-ti-ni-ja with no modification Aphrodite and so on His interpretation is persuasive enough for Potnia with modifying words, but insufficient in cases when Potnia occurs alone, that is, he fails to explain why Potnia as an epithet could be used without any modification This surely would have caused much confusion if there had been no common notion about Potnia Moreover he neglects the fact that divine names such as Hera and Artemis are actually mentioned in the tablets, which would have made it unnecessary to say e-re-wi-jo po-ti-ni-ja instead of Hera Having examined all examples of Potnia, I think the word is neither an epithet nor a generic term, but the real name of a goddess She appears to have been worshipped over a broad area of the Mycenaean world, because we can find her name in every Mycenaean site which has Linear B tablets All Mycenaeans would have been able to understand who was mentioned even if it was written as just Potnia However, at the same time, she must have had some kind of locality As the modifying words of place names show, she would have some unique cult at each site The third and most conspicuous characteristics of Potnia is her close relationship with animals and vegetation, as is shown by words such as po-ti-ni-ja i-qe-ja and si-to-po-ti-ni-ja The divinity who satisfies all these aspects of universality and locality, animals and vegetation can be none other than the Mother Goddess or Earth Mother I conclude, therefore, that Potnia is the Mycenaean name of the Mother Goddess The Mother Goddess was worshipped widely in the Mediterranean world before the proto-Greeks came from the north, and she was called "the Lady" in Anatolian Hence the word "Potnia" is the Greek translation of her name Her name was Greek, but Near Eastern in origin As she was the goddess of the Earth, the Greeks seem to have begun to call her "Gaia", and the name "Potnia" became obsolete It must have been thought that the name "Gaia" conveyed her reality more accurately However she left her trace in the Olympian Goddesses of later times All the Olympian Goddesses have a vegetation-cult trait, even Artemis, as is seen in Euripides' "Hippolytos", and the name Hera also used to mean "the lady" or "the queen" as a derivative of ηρωζ It means that they took various aspects from Potnia in the process of fusion and differentiation of so many primitive goddesses In Sophocles' "Philoctetes", the Chorus cries out to the Earth, "ματερ ποτνια" (395) The word order of this phrase clearly shows that ποτνια is not an epithet The Greeks of the classical period had perceived that, as a vague memory in the undercurrent of their minds, Potnia is the Earth Mother
