HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



Hagia Triada illustrates an offering scene before two large double 

 axes set in stepped pedestals. The cult of the dead and the divinity 

 or divinities of the Double Axes are thus in direct association (Evans). 

 Actual stepped pedestals of steatite, similar to those for the double 

 axes depicted on the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada, were found in the 

 Dictaean Cave, Psychro (Crete), in association with double axes. A 

 complete example from the Dictaean Cave, obtained by Sir Arthur 

 Evans in 1899, is reproduced in figure 12. 



At Knossos are pillar shrines of masonry covered with incised 

 figures of the bipennis. That the double ax at times also stood as the 

 visible impersonation of the divinity is the belief of Evans, who cites 

 as an illustration a painted Mycenaean vase now in the British Mu- 

 seum, recently found at Old Salamis in Cyprus. A detail from this 



vase is seen in figure 13. The orna- 

 mentation consists of the repeated 

 delineation of the double ax set be- 

 tween pairs of bulls. In each case 

 the ax rises from a distinctive piece 

 of Mycenaean 

 ritual furniture 

 known as "the 

 horns of conse- 

 cration". Each 

 bull likewise has 

 a double ax be- 

 tween his horns. 

 A good example 

 of the exaltation of the double ax appears on the 

 fragment of a steatite mold found at Siteia in 

 Crete and reproduced by S. Reinach. 1 The priest 

 or priestess holds aloft a bipennis in each hand. 

 Dr Atgier quotes Dr Bertholon of Tunis as 

 saying that among the ancient Lybians the ax, 

 at first of stone, later of metal, was the symbol 

 of the female divinity. 



Among the Egyptians, one of the insignia of 

 royalty or of command was the ax. Maurice 

 Delafosse 2 notes probable traces of Egyptian civilization in the Ivory 

 Coast region, where chiefs never appear at important functions 

 without being provided with one or several attributes of power, 



■La Crete avant l'histoire, V Anthropologic, xin, p. 26, 1902. 

 - L' Anthropologic, XI, 546, 1900. 



Fig. 13. — Double ax mounted on "horns of 

 consecration," between bulls' heads, 

 from which rise similar axes. Myce- 

 naean vase, Old Salamis, Cyprus. (After 

 Evans.) 



Fig. 14. — Parade ax of 

 worked copper; from the 

 upper Baule district, Ivory 

 Coast. (After Delafosse.) 



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