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Details
LOT 1424
Viking Age Bearded Battle Axehead
EARLY 11TH-12TH CENTURY A.D.
5 3/4 in. (532 grams total, axe: 14.7 cm).
A Baltic hand-forged iron axehead with scooped socket, broad blade with extension to the lower edge, hole to the blade.
Provenance
Acquired on the London art market, 1990s.
Private collection, London.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Literature
Cf. Sedov, B.B., Finno-Ugri i Balti v Epokhi Srednevekovija, Moscow, 1987, table V, item 20; see also similar specimen in the British Museum inv. no.1852,0329.473.
Footnotes
The more common weapons of Finno-Ugrian people were axes, commonly found from all Finnic areas, as well as spears. Among Baltic-Finnic people, especially in Finland and Karelia, knives called 'puukko' were common, as well as axes, spears, flat bows and longbows, while swords were usually imported from Germanic areas, Sweden or from elsewhere Scandinavia, some having often typically Scandinavian animal ornaments. Iron axeheads of this typology show a sub-trapezoidal asymmetrical blade, often perforated through the centre. They are characterised by two projecting spurs from the top and the bottom of the back of the shaft-hole.
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