Labrys (lábrys) is, according to Plutarch (Quaestiones Graecae 2.302a), the Lydian word for the double-bitted axe. In Greek it was called πέλεκυς (pélekys). The plural of labrys is labryes (λάβρυες).
Plutarch relates that the word labrys was a Lydian word for 'axe': Λυδοὶ γὰρ ‘λάβρυν’ τὸν πέλεκυν ὀνομάζουσι . ("For Lydians name the double-edged axe 'Labyrs'").
Many scholars including Arthur Evans assert that the word labyrinth is derived from labrys and thus implies 'house of the double axe'. A priestly corporation in Delphi was named Labyades; the original name was probably Labryades, servants of the double axe. In Roman times at Patrai and Messene, a goddess Laphria was worshipped, commonly identified with Artemis. Her name was said to be derived from the region around Delphi.
In Crete the "double axe" is not a weapon, and it always accompanies female goddesses, not male gods. Beekes regards the relation of labyrinth with labrys as speculative, and rather proposes a relation with laura (λαύρα ), 'narrow street', or to the Carian theonym Dabraundos (Δαβραυνδος ).
It is also possible that the word labyrinth is derived from the Egyptian, meaning: "the temple at the entrance of the lake”. The Egyptian labyrinth near Lake Moeris is described by Herodotus and Strabo. The inscription in on reads (da-pu_2-ri-to-jo-po-ti-ni-ja). The conventional reading is λαβυρίνθοιο πότνια (labyrinthoio potnia; 'mistress of the labyrinth'). According to some modern scholars it could read *δαφυρίνθοιο (*daphyrinthoio), or something similar, and hence be without a certain link with either the λάβρυς or the labyrinth.
A link has also been posited with the double axe symbols at Çatalhöyük, dating to the Neolithic age. In Labraunda in Caria, as well as in the coinage of the Hecatomnid rulers of Caria, the double axe accompanies the storm god Zeus Labraundos.
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An axe (æks sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split, and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialised uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, also called a haft or a helve. Before the modern axe, the stone-age hand axe without a handle was used from 1.5 million years BP. Hafted axes (those with a handle) date only from 6,000 BC.
The Lydians (known as Sparda to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian group. Questions raised regarding their origins, reaching well into the 2nd millennium BCE, continue to be debated by language historians and archeologists. A distinct Lydian culture lasted, in all probability, until at least shortly before the Common Era, having been attested the last time among extant records by Strabo in Kibyra in south-west Anatolia around his time (1st century BCE).
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices.
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