Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

The double axe in relation to horns 541

Marmora1 in 1840 described and figured a thin plaque of lead in the
Capuchin Museum at Palma, said to have come from the talayot of
Son-Texeguet near Lluc-Major in Minorca (fig. 413). He supposed
that it was of Phoenician or Carthaginian origin, and suggested,
shrewdly enough, that it looked rather like the skin of an ox-head.
The horns have degenerated into concentric circles like the eyes.
And four small holes show that it was suspended as an amulet. A
close parallel to it was published in 1892 by E. Cartailhac2 from the

Fig- 4r3- FiS- 414-

collection of M. Moragues (fig. 414)—another thin leaden plaque
apparently representing a conventionalised bucranium with a similar
treatment of the horns and eyes.

The decadence of the 'Minoan' type can, however, be best seen
in the old indigenous pottery of Apulia. In 19083 I drew attention

1 Le Cte A. de La Marmora Voyage en Sardaigne Paris 1840 ii. 533 Atlas pi. 39, 4
( = my fig. 413).

2 E. Cartailhac Monuments primitifs des ties Baliares Toulouse 1892 p. 68 f. fig. 82
( = my fig. 414 inverted), J. Dechelette Manuel d, archeologie prihistorique Paris 1910
ii. 1. 476.

3 ' The Cretan Axe-cult outside Crete' in the Transactions of the Third International
Congress for the History of Religions Oxford 1908 ii. 188 f. figs. 6, 7, 8, 9.