Fashion Plate
Among the many lesser-known objects found with the famous Snake Goddess and Snake Priestess figurines in the Knossos Temple Repository were several clay models of dresses, including this one:
Larger xoana, or wooden/ceramic idols, were often clothed in real finery specially woven and dyed for the temple; the custom is documented in later, Classical times, and at least one seal from the Bronze Age shows a priestess approaching a sanctuary with a robe folded over her arm, perhaps her own vestments or an offering to the goddess. Was the little clay Snake Goddess or her votary supplied with fabric dresses, little bits of cloth with trimmings or embroidery, such as girls might play with?
I can't help but think of Barbie being laid to rest in the repository with a couple of outfits, except, of course, that these figures were not playthings but goddesses who had apparently been decommissioned from their duties in the sanctuary. Perhaps their power had waned, or they had become obsolete. They were broken into pieces, a kind of ritual death, and carefully buried with offerings of appeasement, for even in fragments they might yet have power, a sort of ancient radioactivity that must be delicately handled.
What else might appease a retired goddess than some new dresses?