DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0061
SYRIANIZING MINOAN AXE FROM VAPHEIO TOMB 417
while that with the lion and ram must be referred to an epoch approaching
that of those borne by the axe-bearing personages of our Minoan signet types.
The ceremonial Axe of Mallia—surely, like the giant sword that Distin-
accompanied it, part of the actual regalia of a local Priest-king—with its from tnie
downward curving blade and ornamented butt, represents a variant of a true Pnentil1
... . type
Oriental form, going back, like its animal decoration, to Sumerian models of likl= that
the Fourth Millennium B.C. The Chaldaean form with a many-spiked butt
is disseminated to Persia on one side1, and throughout Hittite Asia Minor2
on the other, and appears in the hands of a Hittite warrior on a relief at
Boghaz Keui. A secondary derivation of this type of axe with long curving
blade was transported, apparently by Phoenician agencies, to the Adriatic
Coastland embracing Southern Dalmatia and North Albania.3
In Crete, apart from the ceremonial weapon of Mallia, axes of this Asiatic
kind are not found, though single axes of ordinary type occur not infre-
quently among the hieroglyphic signs,* and are found in derivative shapes
in both linear Classes. We have some hints that these, too, at times stood
in a religious connexion,5 but the usual type of implement both for ordinary
use and for sacral purposes was the double axe.
Its ritual prominence, indeed, makes it the more remarkable that in Syrian
the last palatial Age these long-robed figures should make their appearance through
holding single-bladed axes of a Syrian class. It must be certainly taken to cyPrus-
indicate that a very strong politico-religious influence was making itself felt
at this epoch—whether coming" from Syria itself or, as seems most probable
in a main degree from Cyprus, now in the course of Minoan colonization,
possibly also from some vantage port on the opposite Cilician Coast. It is
to be observed that both the longer and the broader versions of the Syrian
axe shown in Fig. 345, d,e are from Cyprus.0
The persistence of this Syro-Egyptian type is, however, best illus-
trated in the great Tyrian foundation of the North African shore. On the
1 R. Dussaud, Syria xi (1930), p. 268 seqq men from a hoard of bronze axes of this type,
(from Nihavan). found near Castelnuovo (Novi) in the Gulf of
2 A good illustrative specimen was found by Cattaro is in the Ashmolean Museum.
Mr. AllenRoweatBeisaninPalestine,whocom- '' Scripta Mima, i, p. 1S5, No. 19. Other
pareditwiththatoftbeBoghazKeuirelief(yli'kr. examples of this type on hieroglyphic seals
Journ. of Palestine, 1926: see, too, J. Gars- have since come to my knowledge,
tang, The Hittite Empire, p. 86, and PI. XIV). 5 For figures, of both sexes and apparently
3 New evidence on this provenance of the of a religious character, with appendages like
Adriatic bronze type was brought forward by the single blade of an axe, see P. of M., i,
Dr.R.VulpiatthelnternationalPrehistoricand pp. 615, 6r6, and ii, Pt, I, pp. 248, 249.
Protohistoric Congress inLondon, 1932. (See G In the Ashmolean Museum.
Istros (Bucarest, 1934), p. 45 seqq.). A sped-
while that with the lion and ram must be referred to an epoch approaching
that of those borne by the axe-bearing personages of our Minoan signet types.
The ceremonial Axe of Mallia—surely, like the giant sword that Distin-
accompanied it, part of the actual regalia of a local Priest-king—with its from tnie
downward curving blade and ornamented butt, represents a variant of a true Pnentil1
... . type
Oriental form, going back, like its animal decoration, to Sumerian models of likl= that
the Fourth Millennium B.C. The Chaldaean form with a many-spiked butt
is disseminated to Persia on one side1, and throughout Hittite Asia Minor2
on the other, and appears in the hands of a Hittite warrior on a relief at
Boghaz Keui. A secondary derivation of this type of axe with long curving
blade was transported, apparently by Phoenician agencies, to the Adriatic
Coastland embracing Southern Dalmatia and North Albania.3
In Crete, apart from the ceremonial weapon of Mallia, axes of this Asiatic
kind are not found, though single axes of ordinary type occur not infre-
quently among the hieroglyphic signs,* and are found in derivative shapes
in both linear Classes. We have some hints that these, too, at times stood
in a religious connexion,5 but the usual type of implement both for ordinary
use and for sacral purposes was the double axe.
Its ritual prominence, indeed, makes it the more remarkable that in Syrian
the last palatial Age these long-robed figures should make their appearance through
holding single-bladed axes of a Syrian class. It must be certainly taken to cyPrus-
indicate that a very strong politico-religious influence was making itself felt
at this epoch—whether coming" from Syria itself or, as seems most probable
in a main degree from Cyprus, now in the course of Minoan colonization,
possibly also from some vantage port on the opposite Cilician Coast. It is
to be observed that both the longer and the broader versions of the Syrian
axe shown in Fig. 345, d,e are from Cyprus.0
The persistence of this Syro-Egyptian type is, however, best illus-
trated in the great Tyrian foundation of the North African shore. On the
1 R. Dussaud, Syria xi (1930), p. 268 seqq men from a hoard of bronze axes of this type,
(from Nihavan). found near Castelnuovo (Novi) in the Gulf of
2 A good illustrative specimen was found by Cattaro is in the Ashmolean Museum.
Mr. AllenRoweatBeisaninPalestine,whocom- '' Scripta Mima, i, p. 1S5, No. 19. Other
pareditwiththatoftbeBoghazKeuirelief(yli'kr. examples of this type on hieroglyphic seals
Journ. of Palestine, 1926: see, too, J. Gars- have since come to my knowledge,
tang, The Hittite Empire, p. 86, and PI. XIV). 5 For figures, of both sexes and apparently
3 New evidence on this provenance of the of a religious character, with appendages like
Adriatic bronze type was brought forward by the single blade of an axe, see P. of M., i,
Dr.R.VulpiatthelnternationalPrehistoricand pp. 615, 6r6, and ii, Pt, I, pp. 248, 249.
Protohistoric Congress inLondon, 1932. (See G In the Ashmolean Museum.
Istros (Bucarest, 1934), p. 45 seqq.). A sped-