Evans, Arthur: The ‘Tomb of the Double Axes’ and associated group, and the pillar rooms and ritual vessels of the ‘Little Palace’ at Knossos’ (London, 1914)

54

THE TOMB OF THE DOUBLE AXES

shrine of Knossos, where the ' Horns of Consecration' with perforations for the
axe-shafts were still in place. The painted sarcophagus of Hagia Triada, on
the other hand, actually illustrates a scene of offering before two large double
axes set in stepped pedestals showing veined imitations of marble. Steatite
pedestals of this kind were found, together with many specimens of the votive
blades themselves, in the Cave of Psychro (see p. 72, fig. 82), and a fragment of

Fig. 71. Sacral bronze double axe. (§)

another from a shrine of the Little Palace of Knossos will be described
below.1

As in the parallel case of the sacred pillars and columns of Minoan cult—
or of the objects of natural formation such as the curious limestone concretions
of the shrine in the ' Little Palace'—these Double Axes were regarded as fetish
or baetylic representatives of divinities, the divine possession of which could be
attained by special rites. The divine presence is itself indicated in the case of
the columns and altar horns by a settled dove—also at times associated with
the figure of the great Minoan Goddess itself. In the cult scene of the Hagia
Triada sarcophagus the same idea is expressed by the bird alighted on each of
the Double Axes, perhaps the sacred woodpecker,2 afterwards identified with the
Cretan Zeus. On the other hand, the chthonic side of the worship makes itself
apparent in the serpents with which certain cult images were associated, and

1 See below, p. 72.

2 This suggestion was made by me at the Oxford Meeting of the Oriental Congress.