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Drawing of a golden ring found at Mycenae depicting cult of the seated poppy goddess, in which the labrys is central and prominent. In ancient Crete, the double axe was an important sacred symbol of the Minoan religion. [14]
The Arkalochori Axe is a 2nd millennium BC Minoan bronze votive double axe head or labrys excavated by Spyridon Marinatos in 1934 in the Arkalochori cave in Crete, [1] which is believed to have been used for religious rituals. [2]
Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent. The old view was that, in stark contrast to contemporary cultures in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria, Minoan religious practice was not centred around massive formal public temples.
It appears in pottery decoration and is a motif of the Shrine of the Double Axes at the palace, as well as of many shrines throughout Crete and the Aegean. And finally, it appears in Linear B on Knossos Tablet Gg702 as da-pu 2 -ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, which probably represents the Mycenaean Greek, Daburinthoio potniai , "to the mistress of the ...
The double axe or labrys was a cultural, almost certainly religious, symbol of the Minoan culture, often used for votive offerings, as were goddess figures with uplifted hands. The rear of the plate shows a female figure with raised arms holding two double axes. A small piece of the lower edge of the mould is broken-off as well.
Minoan horn-topped altars, which Arthur Evans called Horns of Consecration, are represented in seal impressions and have been found as far afield as Cyprus. Minoan sacred symbols include the bull (and its horns of consecration), the labrys (double-headed axe), the pillar, the serpent, the sun-disc, the tree, and even the Ankh.
Numerous such symbols in ivory, faience, painted in frescoes or engraved in seals sometimes combined with the symbol of the double-edged axe or labrys which was the most important Minoan religious symbol. [26]: 161, 163 Such symbols were found in Minoan and Mycenaean sites.
The symbol also appears on Minoan sealstones, [4] often accompanied by double axes and bucrania, which are part of the iconography of Minoan bull sacrifice. Horns of consecration are among the cultic images painted on the Minoan coffins called larnakes, sometimes in isolation; they may have flowers between the horns, or the labrys. [5]