Labraunda

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In Antiquity, Labraunda (alternatively Labranda) in the mountains near the coast of Caria in Asia Minor was held sacred by Carians and Mysians alike. The site amid its sacred plane trees (Herodotus, v.119) was enriched in the Hellenistic style by the dynasty of Mausolus, satraps of Persia (c. 377-352 BCE), for whom it was the ancestral sacred shrine. Remains of Hellenistic houses and streets can still be traced, and there are numerous inscriptions. The cult icon here was Zeus Labraundos, a standing Zeus with the tall lotus-tipped scepter upright in his left hand and the double-headed axe, the labrys, over his right shoulder.

The first occurrence of "labrys" in English noted by the OED concerns this sanctuary: "It seems natural to interpret names of Carian sanctuaries like Labranda in the most literal sense as the place of the sacred labrys, which was the Lydian (or Carian) name for the Greek πέλεκυς, or double-edged axe." (quoting Journal of Hellenic Studies XXI. 108 (1901)). The same root labr- appears in the labyrinth of Knossos, which is interpreted as the "place of the axe." The double-headed axe was a central iconic motif at Labraunda. The axe cast of gold had been kept in the Lydian capital Sardes for centuries. The Lydian king Gyges awarded it to the Carians, to commemorate Carian support in a battle. This is the mythic anecdote: the social and political reality may have been more complicated, for such ritual objects are never lightly passed from hand to hand or moved from their fixed abode. Upon receiving this precious, purely ritual axe, the Carians kept it in the Temple of Zeus at Labraunda.

The Royal Swedish Institute at Athens has been in charge of archeology at Labraunda and has published its findings. The Swedish excavations at the Temple of Zeus were published in 1982 by Pontus Hellstrom and Thomas Thieme (Labraunda, vol. 1, part 3 ISBN 91-970338-2-0).

The figure of a double-sided axe is a feature of many coins of Halicarnassus. Coins at the museum at Bodrum bear the head of Apollo on the obverse and on the reverse the name of the reigning Carian ruler inscribed next to the figure of Zeus Labraunda carrying the double-bladed Carian axe.