DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0724
The decoration of the double axe 649
Vienna (fig. 572)1. But projecting lugs were also suggestive of
Fig. 576-
human arms, and it needed no great effort of imagination to trans-
form the axe into a ^^-anthropomor-
phic pendant (fig. 575)2, complicated at
will by the addition of rings, chains, etc.
I figure an advanced type from a grave at
Tribano near Padua (fig. 576)3 and two
other examples from Italy that show an
accumulation of apotropaeic elements
(fig- 577)4-
The prophylactic value of such pen-
dants was doubtless high. It became
higher still, when the sacred axe without
losing all semblance of its essential shape
was modified into a gong; for, as I
have elsewhere insisted3, great is the
virtue of beaten bronze. Pythagoras, for
instance, declared that the sound of
bronze being beaten was the voice of
some deity shut up within it6. Tombs Fig_
of the Early Iron Age in the vicinity of
Bologna have yielded a number of such gongs together with their
1 M. Hoernes Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Eziropa Wien 1898 pp. 443, 472
pi. 10, 9 ( = my fig. 572) ' Antikensammlung des Allerh. Kaiserhauses zu Wien, Saal XII,
Schrank vi, Nr. 315,' id. op. cit? p. 519 fig. 5, J. Dechelette op. cit. ii. 1. 481 f. fig. 205, 3.
2 M. Hoernes op. cit.1 p. 441 f. fig. 136 ( = my fig. 575): a from Obervintl in the
Puster Thai, Tyrol; b from the neighbourhood of Bologna ; c, d, e from Prozor near
Otocac, Croatia. See also L. Siret Questions de chronologie et d' ethnographie ib&iques
Paris 1913 i. 365 ff. fig. 136 ff.
3 M. Hoernes op. cit.1 p. 442 pi. 10, 26 ( = my fig. 576).
4 H. B. Walters in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Bronzes p. 53 no. 344 (from Italy) and p. 57
no. 383 (from Ruvo) describes the first as a ' Human Figure, rudely represented by a
plate of bronze' and the second as a ' Plate in the form of an axe-head ': he adds that
the thing suspended on either side of the latter is ' a man or ape crouching and holding
up some object between chin and knees.' My fig. 577 is from a photograph taken by
Mr W. H. Hayles.
5 fount. Hell. Stud. 1902 xxii. 5—28, supra i. 592 n.
6 Aristot. frag. 191 Rose ap. Porph. v. Pyth. 41, cp. Ail. var. hist. 4. 17.
Vienna (fig. 572)1. But projecting lugs were also suggestive of
Fig. 576-
human arms, and it needed no great effort of imagination to trans-
form the axe into a ^^-anthropomor-
phic pendant (fig. 575)2, complicated at
will by the addition of rings, chains, etc.
I figure an advanced type from a grave at
Tribano near Padua (fig. 576)3 and two
other examples from Italy that show an
accumulation of apotropaeic elements
(fig- 577)4-
The prophylactic value of such pen-
dants was doubtless high. It became
higher still, when the sacred axe without
losing all semblance of its essential shape
was modified into a gong; for, as I
have elsewhere insisted3, great is the
virtue of beaten bronze. Pythagoras, for
instance, declared that the sound of
bronze being beaten was the voice of
some deity shut up within it6. Tombs Fig_
of the Early Iron Age in the vicinity of
Bologna have yielded a number of such gongs together with their
1 M. Hoernes Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Eziropa Wien 1898 pp. 443, 472
pi. 10, 9 ( = my fig. 572) ' Antikensammlung des Allerh. Kaiserhauses zu Wien, Saal XII,
Schrank vi, Nr. 315,' id. op. cit? p. 519 fig. 5, J. Dechelette op. cit. ii. 1. 481 f. fig. 205, 3.
2 M. Hoernes op. cit.1 p. 441 f. fig. 136 ( = my fig. 575): a from Obervintl in the
Puster Thai, Tyrol; b from the neighbourhood of Bologna ; c, d, e from Prozor near
Otocac, Croatia. See also L. Siret Questions de chronologie et d' ethnographie ib&iques
Paris 1913 i. 365 ff. fig. 136 ff.
3 M. Hoernes op. cit.1 p. 442 pi. 10, 26 ( = my fig. 576).
4 H. B. Walters in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Bronzes p. 53 no. 344 (from Italy) and p. 57
no. 383 (from Ruvo) describes the first as a ' Human Figure, rudely represented by a
plate of bronze' and the second as a ' Plate in the form of an axe-head ': he adds that
the thing suspended on either side of the latter is ' a man or ape crouching and holding
up some object between chin and knees.' My fig. 577 is from a photograph taken by
Mr W. H. Hayles.
5 fount. Hell. Stud. 1902 xxii. 5—28, supra i. 592 n.
6 Aristot. frag. 191 Rose ap. Porph. v. Pyth. 41, cp. Ail. var. hist. 4. 17.