The Double-Axe

A Contextual Approach to the Understanding of a Cretan Symbol in the Neopalatial Period

Bibliographic Data

ID9397501
AuthorsMatthew Haysom (British School at Athens, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume29
Issue1
Pages35-55
Publication date2010-01-05
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOxford Journal of Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0262-5253 • E-ISSN: 1468-0092
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0092.2009.00339.x
OpenAlexW2109899441
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited27

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

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Argument (complex analysis · Art · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Period (music · Power (physics · Sociology · Symbol (formal · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Ancient Near East History · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Philosophy

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