Tag: Labrys

Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION

Moderator’s Note: Carol Christ died from cancer in July, 2021. Her work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This blog was originally posted July 29, 2013. You can its original comments here.

labrys seal ring

“There’s a river of birds in migration, a nation of women with wings.” —Goddess chant, Libana

On the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I explain that many of the names given to “Minoan” (c. 3000-1450 BCE) Cretan artifacts and architecture are products of patriarchal and Eurocentric imaginations, and as such, are misleading.  For example the name “Minoan” was given to the culture of Bronze Age Crete in honor of “King Minos,” who was said to have ruled in Crete a few generations before the Trojan War–several hundred years after the end of the culture to which his name was attached.  In fact, despite his eagerness to find evidence that King Minos ruled at Knossos, the excavator Sir Arthur Evans finally had to concede that the best he could do was to produce a fresco of a “Prince of the Lilies” which he identifed as the image of the male ruler of the culture he called “Minoan.”  Evans’ Prince had white skin, a fact that Evans conveniently overlooked–because according to his own interpretation of “Minoan” iconography, white skin would mark the figure as female.  Mark Cameron, who reviewed Evans’ reconstruction of the fresco, suggested that the Prince is more likely to be a young woman who is perhaps leading a bull to take part in the bull-leaping games.  He also stated that the “crown” belonged to another fresco altogether.

Continue reading “Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION”

THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION by Carol P. Christ

carol-christ“There’s a river of birds in migration, a nation of women with wings.” —Goddess chant, Libanalabrys seal ring

On the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I explain that many of the names given to “Minoan” (c. 3000-1450 BCE) Cretan artifacts and architecture are products of patriarchal and Eurocentric imaginations, and as such, are misleading.  For example the name “Minoan” was given to the culture of Bronze Age Crete in honor of “King Minos,” who was said to have ruled in Crete a few generations before the Trojan War–several hundred years after the end of the culture to which his name was attached.  In fact, despite his eagerness to find evidence that King Minos ruled at Knossos, the excavator Sir Arthur Evans finally had to concede that the best he could do was to produce a fresco of a “Prince of the Lilies” which he identifed as the image of the male ruler of the culture he called “Minoan.”  Evans’ Prince had white skin, a fact that Evans conveniently overlooked–because according to his own interpretation of “Minoan” iconography, white skin would mark the figure as female.  Mark Cameron, who reviewed Evans’ reconstruction of the fresco, suggested that the Prince is more likely to be a young woman who is perhaps leading a bull to take part in the bull-leaping games.  He also stated that the “crown” belonged to another fresco altogether.

Evans’ failure to find evidence of a King or for that matter a Queen at the complex of buildings he called “The Palace of Knossos” calls into question his idea that these structures were palaces.  Nanno Marinatos argued that the “palace” was instead a ritual center for the surrounding village, as well as a community gathering place, a place for storing grain, wine, and oil in a sacred way, and a place where ritual objects were fashioned of clay, bronze, stone, and gold.  Following her lead, I renamed the “Palaces” “Sacred Centers.” In this blog I will experiment with renaming the “Minoan” culture “Ariadnian,” after the pre-Greek name Ariadne, which may be one of the names of the Goddess of Bronze Age Crete.

One of the most pervasive–and many would say–most enigmatic symbols of the Ariadnian culture is the labrys.  Continue reading “THE LABRYS: A RIVER OF BIRDS IN MIGRATION by Carol P. Christ”

The Wit of the Labrys by Xochitl Alvizo

Always wearing my Labrys
Always wearing my Labrys

Sometimes I wish I were wittier. Or more precisely, there are moments when I become acutely aware of my underdeveloped wit – and I long to know how to sharpen it!

I have some pretty witty people in my life – my dad, my feminist mentors, my best friends.  They generally fall into two categories, radical lesbian feminists and women-identified men.  The interesting thing about these friends and family members of mine is that they have something very important in common – they all live their lives going against the grain. They are not people content or resigned to the status quo. They are not satisfied with the default ways of the world – the violence, exploitation, hierarchies of valuing various people differently. They understand that all of this is brokenness, and at the same time, they know that all of this is very much part of our reality. I think this is where their wit comes in. For how does one live with a vision for a more beautiful and just world while also daily facing and struggling through the reality of the world as it is? I think their wit is a key factor in sustaining their Wild unstilted spirits. Continue reading “The Wit of the Labrys by Xochitl Alvizo”