THE DOUBLE-AXE: A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF A CRETAN SYMBOL IN THE NEOPALATIAL PERIOD

• Published in: Oxford journal of archaeology 2010-02, Vol.29 (1), p.35-55
• Main Author: HAYSOM, MATTHEW
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ancient civilizations; Bronze Age; Cultural anthropology; Europe; Metal Ages; Methodology and general studies; Prehistory and protohistory; Religion; South East Europe; Symbols; Typology, technology and attribute analysis
• ISSN: 0262-5253; 1468-0092
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0092.2009.00339.x

Summary The Double‐Axe has always been considered as one of the most important religious symbols in Minoan Crete. This paper reassesses the significance of the Double‐Axe and puts forward a new interpretation for it. It recognizes the great potential for change in symbolic meanings during the Bronze Age and seeks to understand the Double‐Axe in as narrow a period as is realistically possible by filtering out evidence from other periods. Central to the argument is the principle that the meaning of symbols is contextually dependent. It builds, therefore, a new interpretation of the Double‐Axe on the basis of as wide a range of contextual associations as possible, both within iconographic sources and in the wider material record. From these contextual associations, it suggests that in the Neopalatial period the Double‐Axe was a symbol primarily associated with a social group which exercised power in the economic, military and religious realms and that it became a solely religious symbol only later.