Minoan two-pronged spearhead

Two-pronged weapons were not unknown within the wider Mediterranean world. In addition to simple forks fashioned from bone or bronze, and bronze spear-butts terminating in a bifurcated form, archaeological discoveries provide more substantial examples. A copper spearhead with two points was recovered from the funerary deposit at Ágios Onoúfrios near Phaistos, while a Lycaonian warrior depicted on the stḗlē of Iconium is shown carrying a double-pointed lance. A black-figured amphora from Corneto (Etruscan Tarquinia) depicts a scene from the hunt for the Calydonian boar, part of a series of adventures that took place in the general area. Peleus is accompanied by Castor, who is attacking the boar with a two-pronged spear.

The literary and archaeological evidence suggests that double-pointed or bifurcated spears were known in the Late Helladic world and survived in later Greek tradition as a distinctive weapon type. The earliest reference appears in the Iliad, where Homer describes the Achaeans driving back Hector with ἔγχεα ἀμφίγυα, “double-pointed spears,” indicating that such weapons were recognized as a separate category of spear.

The two-pronged spearhead at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

Another Homeric passage may preserve a memory of the same tradition. Ajax is described wielding a massive ξυστὸν ναύμαχον, a naval-fighting pike over twenty cubits long. While the text does not explicitly state that this weapon was bifurcated, some scholars have connected it with the exceptionally long double-pointed spears depicted in Mycenaean iconography.

The most detailed tradition concerns the spear of Achilles. The Little Iliad describes it as bearing a δίκροος αἰχμή, a “forked spearhead,” mounted beneath a flashing golden collar. Ancient commentators preserved and elaborated on this description, explaining that the weapon was δίκρουν, “forked,” possessing two points. The same tradition also referred to the spear’s head as a δίκροος δίη, a “forked blade,” explicitly tracing the story back to Lesches’ Little Iliad.

Classical tragedians continued to treat Achilles’ spear as bifurcated. Aeschylus referred to it as a κάμαξ γλώσσημα διπλάσιον, a shaft furnished with a “double tongue,” an image suggesting a divided or twin-pointed blade. Sophocles likewise described it as a δορὸς διχόστομον πλᾶκτρον, the “split-mouthed striker of the spear,” emphasizing the weapon’s two-part form and associating its wounds with “twofold pains.”

Taken together, these accounts preserve a consistent tradition of double-pointed spears, variously called ἔγχος ἀμφίγυον, δίκροος αἰχμή, δίκροος δίη, κάμαξ γλώσσημα διπλάσιον, and δορὸς διχόστομον πλᾶκτρον. While the terminology differs, all describe a spear or spearhead characterized by two points, and several sources specifically identify this unusual weapon as the famous spear of Achilles.

While Zeus was characteristically associated with the thunderbolt and Poseidon with the trident, it has occasionally been argued that Hades possessed a corresponding emblem in the form of a forked or two-pronged spear. Both the existence and the symbolic significance of such an attribute, however, remain uncertain.

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Ancient accounts about two-pronged spears

Ἔγχος ἀμφίγυον (double-pointed spear)

ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ πυκινῇς ἐνέκυρσε φάλαγξι στῆ ῥα μάλ’ ἐγχριμφθείς· οἱ δ’ ἀντίοι υἷες Ἀχαιῶν νύσσοντες ξίφεσίν τε καὶ ἔγχεσιν ἀμφιγύοισιν ὦσαν ἀπὸ σφείων· “But when indeed he (Hector) encountered the dense battle-lines, he stood fast, pressing in close; and opposite him the sons of the Achaeans, thrusting with swords and double-pointed spears, drove him back away from them.” — Iliad, 8.145–8.148

Ξυστὸν ναύμαχον (naval-fighting pike)

Οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἔτ’ Αἴαντι μεγαλήτορι ἥνδανε θυμῷ ἑστάμεν ἔνθά περ ἄλλοι ἀφέστασαν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν· ἀλλ’ ὅ γε νηῶν ἴκρι’ ἐπῴχετο μακρὰ βιβάσθων, νώμα δὲ ξυστὸν μέγα ναύμαχον ἐν παλάμῃσι, κολλητὸν βλήτροισι δυωκαιεικοσίπηχυ. “But no longer did it please the spirit of great-hearted Ajax to stand there where the other sons of the Achaeans had given way; instead he went stalking along the benches of the ships with long strides,and in his hands he wielded a great ship-fighting spear,joined together with rivets, twenty-two cubits (10.18 m) long.” — Iliad 15.674–15.678

Δίκροος αἰχμή (forked spearhead)

ἀλλά μιν οἶος ἐπίστατο πῆλαι Ἀχιλλεύς “only Achilles knew how to wield it [his great ash-wood spear]” — Homer, Iliad, 16.142

Οἳ δὲ πλάττονται λέγοντες ὡς Πηλεὺς μὲν παρὰ Χείρωνος ἔμαθε τὴν χρῆσιν αὐτῆς, Ἀχιλλεὺς δὲ παρὰ Πηλέως, ὃ δὲ οὐδένα ἐδίδαξεν. Καὶ ὀ τῆς Μικρᾶς Ίλιάδος ποιητής:‘ἀμφὶ δὲ πόρκης χρύσεος ἀστράπτει, καὶ έπ' αὐτῶι δíκροος αἰχμή.’ “Some tell the fictitious tale that Peleus learned the use of it from Chiron, and Achilles from Peleus, and that he taught nobody else. The poet of the Little Iliad says: ‘About it a collar of gold flashes, and on it a forked blade.’” — Scholiast on the Iliad

Δίκροος δίη (forked blade)

ἔνχεος ζακότοιο “his malignant spear” — Pindar, Nemean Odes, 6.85b

Δίκρουν γάρ, ὤστε δύο ἀκμὰς ἔχειν... καὶ Αἰσχύλος (fr. 152)… καἰ Σοφοκλῆς (fr. 152)… μετάγουσι δὲ τὴν ἰστορίαν ἀπὸ τῆς Λέσχου Μικρᾶς Ἰλιάδος λέγοντος οὕτως ἀμφὶ δὲ δίκροος δίη “It was forked, so as to have two points... Witness Aeschylus... and Sophocles... They are borrowing the story from the Little Iliad of Lesches, who says 'About it—a forked blade.'” — Scholiast on Pindar

Κάμαξ γλώσσημα διπλάσιον (haft with double tongue)

Κάμακος εἶσι κάμακος γλώσσημα διπλάσιον “The shaft, the shaft with its double tongue, will come” — Aeschylus, Nereides, frag. 152 Nauck, apud Arthur Bernard Cook ‘Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol II, p. 799’

Δορὸς διχόστομον πλᾶκτρον (the split-mouthed striker of the spear)

ἢ δορὸς διχόστομον πλᾶκτρον·δίπτυχοι γὰρ ὀδύναι μιν ἤρικονἈχιλληΐου δόρατος “Or the split-mouthed striker of the spear;For it rent him—the twofold pangOf the spear that Achilles bore” — Sophocles, Achilléōs Erastaí, frag. 156 Nauck, 152 Jebb, apud Arthur Bernard Cook ‘Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol II, p. 799’