While the labrys is certainly iconic of Minoan civilization, so is another symbol-cum-ritual-object: the sacred horns.

Found on the rooftops of the temple complexes and peak sanctuaries of ancient Crete as well as in the frescoes and other art, this unique symbol was christened the Horns of Consecration by Sir Arthur Evans a century ago.

But are they really horns? And even if they are, what do they stand for and how were they used?

Over in Ariadne’s Tribe, we’ve been discussing this issue for quite a while. One issue we’ve noticed is that the sacred horns don’t look at all like real cow or bull horns. 

Now, the Minoans were pretty good artists. Their depictions of people and animals in frescoes, on pottery, and on seals were very realistic. I’m pretty sure they were capable of making the sacred horns look like real bovine horns if that’s what they were trying to show. So what could this 'sacred horns' symbol really be?

Several researchers have noted the similarity between the Minoan sacred horns and the Egyptian horizon-plus-sunrise hieroglyph symbol, the akhet. I’ll admit, at first I wasn’t too keen on this connection, even though several of the folks in Ariadne’s Tribe did their best to convince me.

It was only when I started researching the related hieroglyph, the djew, that I began to understand how the two might be linked.

The djew is essentially the akhet symbol without the sun: It's the mountain that marks the place of sunrise on the horizon. It’s meant to depict the low mountains that rise on either side of the Nile valley.

More specifically and symbolically, it's the Cosmic Mountain, a concept whose function is the same as the World Tree in other mythologies. The root of the Cosmic Mountain reaches into the Underworld, while its peak reaches into the sky. In other words, it connects the different layers of existence. Mountains are pretty important in Minoan religion, so I figured I was heading in the right direction.

When I reached this point in my research, I decided it was time to do a little meditation to see if I could get the bits and pieces to connect. I figured the Minoan sacred horns had a connection, at some level, with the idea of the Cosmic Mountain. So I focused on the symbol of the horns and asked for any information I was allowed to have that might clue me in about their real nature and purpose. What response did I get?

The symbol is the Gate of the Sun.

That one rocked my head back a bit. And it made perfect sense. Just as the akhet and djew are echoed in the pylon gates of the ancient Egyptian temples, so the Cosmic Mountain – the place of the Sun’s rising and setting on the horizon – is echoed in the sacred horns, the Gate of the Sun.

This is important because double-peaked mountains were especially sacred to the Minoans. Mt. Juktas, near Knossos, was probably used as a natural sight for the rising and setting of the Sun, Moon, and other celestial objects. The Sun rising over the double-peaked mountain would look an awful lot like the Egyptian akhet symbol, or like the sacred horns with the Sun between their points.

During our discussions in Ariadne’s Tribe, we had touched on the possibility that the sacred horns themselves were used for astronomical sightings, since they were located along the edges of rooftops. So yes, that was probably a thing.

Identifying the sacred horns as the Gate of the Sun ties in another possibility as well: the idea of a Day Sun and a Night Sun, the Sun as it soars across the sky during the day and the Sun as it moves through the Underworld at night. The idea is not uncommon in ancient religions, from the Egyptian Ra in his solar barque to Shapash, the Canaanite Sun Goddess who journeys through the Underworld.

In Ariadne's Tribe, we happen to have a Sun Goddess; we call her Therasia. And she does actually have a counterpart in the Underworld: Eileithyia, the torch-bearing midwife-goddess.

So perhaps the sacred horns are the gate at which the two meet at sunrise and sunset, to share their thoughts with each other.