AXE, CULT OF THE. — The axe, whether single-edged, double-edged, or double axe, has influenced humanity’s religious beliefs. By ancient and modern peoples alike it has been interpreted as a sign of the thunderbolt and of the god of lightning; 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 Hittite and Assyrian god of lightning holds the axe in one hand and the thunderbolt in the other; in 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 divinities, sometimes even androgynous ones: the Zeus of Labranda, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, etc.; it has also been found in the votive deposit of Ephesian Artemis. In Greece it is borne by foreign divinities, such as Dionysus and Hephaestus, by the Satyrs, and by certain heroes (Piritico, Heracles, Theseus), and it is a votive gift offered to Zeus at Dodona and Olympia, to Apollo at Delphi, and to Artemis Orthia at Sparta; at Epidaurus it is used for the cult of Demeter. In the West the Celts offered the axe to various divinities: Mars, the Matrons, Mercury, etc.; Esus is represented with the axe. In some parts of Gaul, and rarely elsewhere, the axe is scratched, carved, or painted on funerary inscriptions, which often also bear the formula «sub ascia dedicare»: for the present, its meaning has not been satisfactorily explained.
In Crete, during the Minoan period, the axe, according to some scholars, was an object of worship. In no other country did it achieve such widespread diffusion, but this very fact should make us skeptical in the face of excessive interpretations. The double axe on the blocks of Minoan palaces was probably merely a stonemason’s mark; on the vases—believed to have been intended for worship because they were decorated with the axe—it is only an ornamental motif, and indeed such vases have never been found in places of worship. The double axe appears on seals and on clay sealings in alleged religious scenes, but it is never the center of the scene depicted; in the small tablet from Knossos, where a small double axe was found, it did not occupy a prominent position, just as it does not on the sarcophagus of Haghia Triada, where it is merely an accessory, perhaps an important one. That it is not an essential element of the cult is also demonstrated by the numerous Minoan sanctuaries in which, with the exception of Knossos, it has never been found. It is frequent as a votive offering in open-air or cave cults in the late Minoan period.
It has not been proved that the cross on Constan-
tine’s labarum was interpreted as a representation of the double axe.