TWO EXAMPLES OF SYMBOLISM. 23 



but Homer relates that the attendants of Dionysus were slain by 



LyCUrgUS with an OX-gOad (for 5 avfyofytivoio AvKovpyov detv^evai j8ou7rAf)7i, 



II. VI., 135). He probably had a hatchet also, but the shape 

 of it no man knows ; and it is possible, too, since a negative 

 cannot be proved, that the worship on Mount Nysei'on, in 

 Thrace, involved a cult of the axe, and even of the double axe. 



As an example of a cult of the single axe that has but recently 

 become extinct in Mangaia, one of the Polynesian Islands, the 

 emblem of the god himself is depicted in Plate XXIII., 

 Vol. XXII. Journal of the Anthropological Institute. Schliemann 

 has shown that a cult of the double axe was in vogue at Mycenae 

 during the Bronze Age. We see in gold-plate the head of a cow, 

 of the goddess Hera, as he explains it, and fastened between 

 her horns is a double axe (Fig. 8). The Mycenaean potter has 

 painted on his vases the same design in various stages of artistic 

 degradation. Bronze axes of this form are common in the 

 votive deposits of the Cretan caves. Similar double-headed 

 axes are represented on all the medals of the Island of Tenedos 

 and on those of the Kings of Caria. They have been called 

 Carian axes, and have been associated with Zeus Labrandeus, 

 since Labranda is in Caria, and in the Lydian language this axe, 

 Te'AeKur, was called \d& P vs. 



It occurs as a token in the field of a Mycenaean gold ring and 

 as an amulet-ornament of gold from a tumulus at Thalles on the 

 boundary between Lydia and Caria.* This form has even 

 established itself in Pictography, and on a Cypriote cylinder 

 (Fig. 9) it may be seen not only repeated in pairs, but raised 

 between the horns of a cow, though the artist's want either of 

 knowledge or of skill has turned it into a four-rayed star.f 



Perhaps the most remarkable discovery in this connection has 

 been made by Mr. Arthur Evans, in the palace of Knossos, in 

 Crete ; in the hall of the double axe, where the labrys is carved 

 on the stones that constitute a central pier (Fig. 10), the sacred 



* Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, of Art in Phrygia, Caria, etc., p. 290. 

 t Cesnola, Salaminia, p. 120, Fig. 134. 



