BYZANTINE IRON AXE

Comments: A specimen from Scutari (Albania), approximately dated to the 6th or 7th century AD allows us to date this exceptional bipennis (double axe) to the time of the first clash of the Romans against the Slavs. The employ of such weapon in the Roman elite bodies is expressly recorded by Corippus (in his work In Laudem Justini) who, writing in the 6th century is remembering the Imperial Excubitores as armed with belt swords, gold javelins, gilded shields, golden helmets with red crests and double axes (bipennis) : "...on the left and on the right sides You could see the ranged ranks, and the double cutting axes brightening in a shining light, identical in their terrible cruelty...".

The escort of the axe bearers was for the Emperor, the ideal continuation of the ancient tradition of the Lictores, who joined the ancient Consules with their double axe, symbol of the power and of the justice of Rome. The specimen exhibits a hole for the insertion of the wooden shaft, often lavishly painted for the Imperial Guardsmen. This is visible for example in the Mosaic of the Nea Moni Monastery, in Chios, dated at the 11th century AD, where a warrior of the Betrayal (the Biblical scene of the arrest of Jesus) is armed with an elaborate shield covered with pearls or precious stones, and a bipennis with a half golden and half dark green shaft. Some scholars claim the man as the representation of a Varangian Guardsman.