Viking Age and Later Axehead Group

Featuring a gently curved single-edged iron blade and one-sided fuller, curved handle with knot pommel; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 525 grams total, 35 cm high including stand



Dutch art market. Private collection of K.S., Cologne, Germany, acquired 1996.

One of the military insignia of a Celtic warrior was the war-knife, usually between 33 and 35 cm long. For example, in the collection of Celtic military equipment from Galish-Lovachka, the archaeologists have found a short sword with an X-shaped handle (l = 41 cm), two middle La Tène swords (72.5 and 75 cm long), 12 large curved knives, 27 spearheads, two javelin heads, 14 arrowheads, and nine iron chain belts for hanging a sword. The war-knife was also used for hunting, as a spare weapon, or to cut the throat of an enemy in a surprise attack.

With a broad, lentoid-section blade and wide raised flange down centre, rounded tip, straight sides, well marked shoulders with narrow tang, one hole for rivet to attach an organic hilt; mounted on a custom-made stand. 880 grams total, 38 cm wide including stand



Acquired 1980-1990s. From the private collection of H.N., Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire, UK.

This kind of weapon was used in the early 2nd millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia and in Syria and as late as the mid-first millennium in Luristan.

Flat in cross-section with a convex cutting edge and rounded butt. 178 grams, 20.3 cm



Acquired 1980-2015. Ex Abelita family collection.

This flat axe belongs to Type 1, sub-type a.4 of the Çetin-Bilgi classification of flat axes. They have concave-sided blade, rectangular in section, a splayed cutting edge and a narrow butt. The first examples of axe-type weapons appear in the last phase of the Late Chalcolithic Age in the Middle East and Anatolia.