Huge southeast european battle axe

[Victrix]

Originally Posted by AHorsa

I think the regular army might have used local arms and armour.

In 2009 the axe on discussion and a couple of similar pieces wearing a cross were sold at Hermann Historica: http://www.hermann-historica-archiv.de/ Maybe it was a hoard?
I will write them a mail asking what made them locate it in southeast europe and if they have more information. Maybe they can remember.

Interesting to see a nearly identical axe on the foto from ebay / picclick. The seller is from Serbia. So it would fit the attributed region. The double bladed axe looks somehow odd. I don´t think it is a real piece.

Yes those ebay items look more dubious. I don’t think I would consider buying something “excavated” on ebay, especially not from Bulgaria and E.Europe. The item under discussion looks more interesting but probably wise to let an expert handle it in real life to verify it.

I attach another photo from Ljubljana of Schiavonesca swords which are massive in size. I think armed conflict in that region had very high stakes as mentioned previously, and that this is reflected in the scale and brutal functionality of the arms.