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 axe carried by priests and priestesses 623

god such as Sutekh. More probably it shows a priestess carrying
the crescent axe for some ritual purpose. If so, the nearest parallels
are a lentoid steatite from Knossos (fig. 523)1 and a clay sealing
from Kato Zakro (fig. 524)'2, on which G. Karo:i recognised ' Minoan '

Fig. 523. Fig. 524.

priestesses bearing the double axe and the sacred robe of their
goddess. Or should we rather say 'the sacred robe of their goddess
and the double axe of their god ' ?

Two stone moulds found near Palaikastro in 1899 exhibit a
whole series of designs relating to the Cretan axe-cult4. These in-

1 Sir A. J. Evans in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1901—1902 viii. 101 f. fig. 59 ( = my
fig. 523, scale \) speaks of the figure on this intaglio, found near 'the Court of the Oil
Spout' in the Cnossian palace, as apparently a female divinity. But why?

2 D. G. Hogarth in the Jonm. Hell. Stud. 1902 xxii. 78 f. fig. 5 ( = my fig. 524,
scale -}) thinks that between the two draped figures of this impression is 'a labrys sus-
pended in air' (cp. supra p. 514 ff.). G. Karo in the Archiv f. Rel. 1904 vii. 148 fig. 32
gives a redrawing of the seal, in which the labrys is definitely carried by the left-hand
figure.

3 G. Karo in the Archiv f. Rel. 1904 vii. 147 figs. 31 and 32.

4 S. A. Xanthoudides in the 'E<£. 'Ap%. 1900 p. 26 ff. pi. 3 f. ( = my fig. 525 ff.), Milani