AXE, CULT OF THE. — The axe, whether simple or double-bladed, or double axe, has influenced the religious beliefs of humanity. It has been interpreted by ancient and modern scholars alike as a symbol of the thunderbolt and the thunder god; axe-shaped stones were and still are amulets that protect especially against lightning and fire.
In the Mediterranean basin the axe attained considerable importance. The thunder god of the Hittites and Assyrians wields the axe in one hand and the thunderbolt in the other; on Hittite reliefs the axe is held by priests. In the historical period it is widespread in Asia Minor as an attribute of indigenous male and female deities, sometimes even androgynous: the Zeus of Labranda, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, etc.; it has also been found in the votive deposit of Ephesian Artemis. In Greece it is associated with foreign deities such as Dionysus and Hephaestus, the Satyrs, certain heroes (Pirithous, Heracles, Theseus), and is offered as a votive gift to Zeus at Dodona and Olympia, to Apollo at Delphi, to Artemis Orthia at Sparta; the double axe is used in the cult of Demeter at Epidaurus. In the West the Celts offered the axe to various deities: Mars, the Matrons, Mercury, etc.; Esus is depicted with the axe. In some parts of Gaul, rarely elsewhere, the axe is scratched, carved or painted on tombstones which often bear the formula “sub ascia dedicare”: its meaning has not yet been satisfactorily explained.
In Crete during the Minoan period the axe, according to some scholars, was an object of cult. Nowhere else did it attain such widespread diffusion, but precisely this fact should make us skeptical of exaggerated interpretations. The double axe on the blocks of Minoan palaces is probably merely a mason’s mark; on vases—thought to be cultic because decorated with the axe—it is merely an ornamental motif, and indeed such vases have never been found in places of cult. The double axe appears on seals and sealings in supposed religious scenes, but it is never the focal point of the scene depicted; in the shrine at Knossos, where a small double axe was found, it did not occupy a prominent position, nor does the axe on the sarcophagus of Hagia Triada, where it is merely an accessory of perhaps some importance. That it was not an essential element of cult is also shown by the numerous Minoan sanctuaries, Knossos excepted, in which it has never been found. It is common as a votive offering in open-air cults or in caves in the late Minoan period.
It is not proven that the cross on Constantine’s labarum was interpreted as a representation of the double axe.