Keys
KEYS. Doors held shut with bars, and bars and bolts, were common long before locks and keys became prevalent. Some of the oldest myths reflect this. In Babylonian mythology, for example, Marduk makes gates to the heavens and secures them with bolts. Many later divinities in the ancient world were both guardians of closed doors and bearers of keys.
The possession of keys usually signified power over regions guarded by the locks that the keys could open or close. The regions in question were often the underworld or places of the afterlife—for example, the realm of Hades, the Abyss in the Book of Revelation, and the Mandaean "dark worlds" that had locks and keys different from all others. The keeper of keys was charged not only with guarding the passage as human beings went from this world to the next but also with keeping the dead where they belonged. A Babylonian funerary chant entreats the gatekeeper of the underworld to keep close watch over the dead, lest they return.
The locked realm can also be this earth, the seas, or even the cosmos itself. In Greek mythology Cybele holds the key to Earth, shutting her up in winter and opening her again in the spring. Similarly, Janus opens the door of the sky and releases the dawn. In Mesopotamian myth, Ninib guards the lock of heaven and earth and opens the deep, while Ea unlocks fountains. The Egyptian Serapis has keys to the earth and sea. In Breton folklore menhirs are the keys to the sea and also the keys to hell; if they were turned in their locks and the locks should open, the sea would rush in.
Because in the ancient world many divinities were key bearers, their priestesses bore keys signifying that the divine powers belonged to them as well, or that they were guardians of the sanctuaries of the gods. Priestesses were represented carrying on their shoulders large rectangular keys. A key pictured on a gravestone indicated the burial place of a priestess.
There is a morphological relationship between the key and the nem ankh sign, where the anserated cross of the Egyptian gods is carried by its top as if it were a key, especially in ceremonies for the dead. Here the cross, playing the role of the key, opens the gates of death onto immortality.
Keys also symbolize a task to be performed and the means of performing it. In the Hebrew scriptures the accession to kingly power occurred through "laying the key of the House of David upon [his] shoulders" (Is. 22:22). For ancient Jewish and some non-Jewish royalty, the passing on of keys was a natural symbol for the transfer of the monarch's task and the power to accomplish it.
The key symbolizes initiation into the mysteries of the cult. In Mithraic rites the lion-headed figure who is central to the ceremony holds in his hands two keys. It is possible that they function in the same way as the two "keys of the kingdom" held by Saint Peter in Christianity: One represents excommunication whereby the door is locked against the unworthy soul, while the other represents absolution whereby the door is opened and the initiate achieves salvation.
Bibliography
Information about the symbolism of keys can be found in various primary sources. J. A. MacCulloch's "Locks and Keys," in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1915), contains material covering the development of locks, locks and bolts, and keys as mechanical contrivances as well as symbols. Franz Cumont in The Mysteries of Mithra, 2d ed., translated by Thomas J. McCormack (New York, 1910), and Robert C. Zaehner in Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma (Oxford, 1955) both discuss at length the initiation rites of Mithraism and speculate about the keys of the lion-headed god.
New Sources
Lurker, Manfred. "Schlüssel." In Wörterbuch der Symbolik. Stuttgart, Germany, 1983, p. 603.
Ortner, S. B. "On Key Symbols." The American Anthropologist 75 (1973).
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