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THE DOUBLE‐AXE: A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF A CRETAN SYMBOL IN THE NEOPALATIAL PERIOD
Author(s) -
HAYSOM MATTHEW
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
oxford journal of archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.382
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1468-0092
pISSN - 0262-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0092.2009.00339.x
Subject(s) - symbol (formal) , period (music) , interpretation (philosophy) , history , argument (complex analysis) , meaning (existential) , power (physics) , context (archaeology) , ancient history , archaeology , sociology , aesthetics , linguistics , epistemology , art , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics
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.