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The labrys, or pelekys, is the double axe Zeus uses to invoke storm and, the relatively modern Greek word for lightning is "star-axe" (ἀστροπελέκι astropeleki) [19] The worship of the double axe was kept up in the Greek island of Tenedos and in several cities in the south-west of Asia Minor, and it appears in later historical times ...
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.
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]
[26]: 161, 163 Such symbols were found in Minoan and Mycenaean sites. It is believed that the sacral knot was the symbol of holiness on human figures or cult-objects. [26]: 163 ff Its combination with the double-axe can be compared with the Egyptian ankh (eternal life), or with the tyet (welfare/life) a symbol of Isis (the knot of Isis). [31]
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.
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.
The sign of the double axe was used throughout the Mycenaean world as an apotropaic mark: its presence on an object would prevent it from being "killed". Axes were scratched on many of the stones of the palace.
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]