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)

542 The double axe in relation to horns

to certain specimens of this ware1 now in the British Museum2.
They are flat bowls with a high handle shaped like a pair of bovine
horns. It differs from the ordinary ansa lunata or Mondhenkel of
North Italy and Central Europe, because it represents the forehead
and eyes of the beast as well as the horns. It has also an additional

Fig. 415. Fig. 416.

Fig. 417. Fig. 418.

feature of interest. Between the horns rises what I took to be a
stylised form of the double axe (fig. 415). This double axe, if such

1 See the elaborate articles of M. Mayer ' Ceramica dell' Apulia preellenica i. La
Messapia' in the Rom. Mitth. 1897 xii. 201—252 figs. 1—22 pi. 10, ' ii. La Peucezia'
ib. 1899 xiv. 13—80 figs. 1—20 pis. 2—5, 'Die Keramik des vorgriechischen Apuliens
iii. Daunia ' ib. 1904 xix. 188—243 figs. 1—11 suppl. pi. 1, 276—316 figs. 14—17 suppl.
pis. 2 and 3, ' iv. Daunia (Fortsetzung) v. Tarent' ib. 1908 xxiii. 167—262 figs. 1—9
pis. 8 and 9 suppl. pis. 1 —10.

2 Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases i. 2. 266 f. nos. H 253 pi. 27, H 254 pi. 27, H 252 pi. 27.
My figs. 415—418 are from photographs by the Museum photographer. H. B. Walters in
the Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases i. 2. 264 assigns the ware to the period c. 700—500 B.C.