DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0138
112 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR
the spell of the Labrys derivation. When used on the
walls of Knossos all these signs, including the double axe,
are alphabetic in value, and architectural in function.
They were used as masons' marks, and they were
chosen as masons' marks because they had a particular
value or meaning in the pictographic script of the time.1
We cannot even accept the suggestion 2 that stones in-
tended for Knossos were marked at the quarry with the
double axe, because its name was especially associated
with the Labrys. If this were so, we should have to
admit that the Minoan railways were badly organised, and
that the stones got mixed in transit.
So far we can go with Dr. Rouse, but no farther. It is
one thing to say that the double axe, as marked on build-
ing blocks, is probably only a mason's mark, but quite
another thing to deny that the pictographic sign that was
sometimes thus used was essentially religious in origin,
and could be used in other connections with a religious
meaning, The evidence is overwhelming from every site
in Crete that the double axe, like the sacrificial " horns of
consecration " with which it is often found, was intimately
connected with religious worship ; and it is highly pro-
bable that, like the Pillar,' and less commonly the Shield,4
it was originally regarded as the visible habitation of the
divine spirit. In the early aniconic stage of religion, be-
fore the days of graven images,6 the object in which the
divine spirit was thought to be immanent was sometimes
the axe or shield that was man's weapon of defence
1 See D.S.A. viii. fig. 64, p. 107 ; P.T. p. 166, note a; J.U.S.
xiv. figs. 23b, 39, pp. 291, 299, 353, 366. So in Rend. xiv. 1905,
fig. b, p. 390, a derivative of the double axe is seen in the linear
script of Hagia Triada, Evans's Class A.
a Made by H. R. Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 326.
3 M.T.P. == J.H.S. xxi. pp. 99-204.
4 P.T. pp. 100, 101. For the ancilia at Rome, see J.H.S. xxi.
p. 129.
6 Later the aniconic and the iconic existed side by side. See
W. M. Ramsay, H.D.B. extra vol. p. 121.
the spell of the Labrys derivation. When used on the
walls of Knossos all these signs, including the double axe,
are alphabetic in value, and architectural in function.
They were used as masons' marks, and they were
chosen as masons' marks because they had a particular
value or meaning in the pictographic script of the time.1
We cannot even accept the suggestion 2 that stones in-
tended for Knossos were marked at the quarry with the
double axe, because its name was especially associated
with the Labrys. If this were so, we should have to
admit that the Minoan railways were badly organised, and
that the stones got mixed in transit.
So far we can go with Dr. Rouse, but no farther. It is
one thing to say that the double axe, as marked on build-
ing blocks, is probably only a mason's mark, but quite
another thing to deny that the pictographic sign that was
sometimes thus used was essentially religious in origin,
and could be used in other connections with a religious
meaning, The evidence is overwhelming from every site
in Crete that the double axe, like the sacrificial " horns of
consecration " with which it is often found, was intimately
connected with religious worship ; and it is highly pro-
bable that, like the Pillar,' and less commonly the Shield,4
it was originally regarded as the visible habitation of the
divine spirit. In the early aniconic stage of religion, be-
fore the days of graven images,6 the object in which the
divine spirit was thought to be immanent was sometimes
the axe or shield that was man's weapon of defence
1 See D.S.A. viii. fig. 64, p. 107 ; P.T. p. 166, note a; J.U.S.
xiv. figs. 23b, 39, pp. 291, 299, 353, 366. So in Rend. xiv. 1905,
fig. b, p. 390, a derivative of the double axe is seen in the linear
script of Hagia Triada, Evans's Class A.
a Made by H. R. Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 326.
3 M.T.P. == J.H.S. xxi. pp. 99-204.
4 P.T. pp. 100, 101. For the ancilia at Rome, see J.H.S. xxi.
p. 129.
6 Later the aniconic and the iconic existed side by side. See
W. M. Ramsay, H.D.B. extra vol. p. 121.