Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The decoration of the double axe 647
with geometric ware in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta
(fig. 568)^ And yet another, made of bone, was acquired at Athens
and is now in the interesting collection of Aegean antiquities lent by
R. M. Dawkins to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge (fig. 569)1
Fig. 568. Fig. 569.
The resemblance of these little axes to butterflies is probably
accidental. But the circles with which they are covered belong to
a system of decoration widely prevalent in the Hallstatt period-'
and are almost certainly prophylactic in character^ J. D^chelette
took them to be solar disks ^ and others have assumed that they
are 'eyes^.' In any case the axe as a sacred object was protected
by their presence upon it.
Diminutive axes of bronze passed during the Early Iron Age
d. oest. arch. Inst. 1901 iv. 49 figs. 67 ( = my fig. 567) and 68 ( = my fig. 566) :
an der Schuttstatte ostlich des Buleuterion ' (map ib. p. 16 fig. 6).
' Geftinden
^ J. P. Droop in the Anii. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1906— 1907 xiii. 117 fig. 6, ^ ( = my fig. 568).
2 Scale \.
^ Numerous examples will be found in the plates of E. v. Sacken Das Grabfeld von
Hallstatt in Oberosterreich und dessen Alterthiimer Wien 1868.
* An analogy is afforded by the swastika found as a decorative device on axes, double
or single. Thus A. Heron de Villefosse and E. Michon, among other acquisitions of the
Louvre in 1899, mention :
' 109. Petite hachette votive a double tranchant, ornee sur ses
deux faces de croix gammees legerement gravees au pointille et au trait ; belle patine
vert clair. Grece ' (Jahrb. d. kais. deutsch. arch. Inst. 1900 xv Arch. Anz. p. 157). And
a single-bladed axe from Piedmont is similarly marked (O. Montelius la civilisation
pr-imitive en Italie depiiis Vintrodtiction des mitaux Stockholm 1895 i. 183 pi. 33, 15,
J.
Dechelette Manuel d'archeologie pr^historique Paris 1910 ii. i. 481 f. fig. 205, ^).
*
J. Dechelette op. cit. ii. i. 457 ff. fig. 190.
i— 4 and G. Eisen 'The
* Cp. J. Dechelette op. cit. Paris 1913 ii. 2. 870 f. fig. 364,
characteristics of Eye Beads from the earliest times to the present ' in the Am. fourn.
Arch. 1916 XX. I— 27 with 19 figs, in text and a col. pi. (see also some of the beads
figured by the same author in his article on ' Button Beads—with special reference to those
of the Etruscan and Roman periods' ib. 1916 xx. 299—307 with two col. pis.).