Fenestrated axe of Vafeió

A unique Syro-Egyptian fenestrated axe, manufactured in the 20th–18th century BC found in a 15th-century BC Mycenaean tomb in Greece, combines Egyptian and Levantine features with a distinctive Minoan ribbed cap.

An unparallelled, heavy transitional or medium fenestrated axe—wrongly called epsilon (crescentic) axe—of the Syro-Egyptian type from the 20^th–18^th century BC was found in the Mycenaean (LH IIB, i.e. 15^th century BC) tomb at Vafeió, Laconia. What makes this axe special are its Minoan ribbed cap; its raised mid-rib reinforcement ending in a pointed oval; and its three socket loops of Egyptian influence, which grant it characteristics of Egyptian crescentic axes and makes it part of a rare group of axe-heads attested through finds from the Levant as well as depictions in Egyptian tombs, setting it aside from the vast majority of fenestrated axes from the Levant which mainly have a closed socket or shaft-holes connected by a continuous straight butt. The hafting method of the Vafeió fenestrated axe can be ascribed to a fusion of Egyptian and Levantine traditions: The special traits of the Vafeió axe, its socket loops, were traced to a mould from Byblos and the Sakçegözü axe; both very likely date to the Middle Bronze Age. Curiously, its weight (479.16 g), corresponds to a Near Eastern unit of measurement, the West Syrian mina. The axe-head either reached Crete directly from the Levant or had entered the island via Egypt during the period of intense Minoan-Egyptian contacts in the 18^th dynasty (1550–1292 BC).

Fenestrated axes are well defined both chronologically and geographically: they date to the earlier part of the Middle Bronze Age in Syria and the Levant, with contemporary attestations in sites in Anatolia and the Egyptian Delta that were in contact with these regions. The geographic scope in which fenestrated axes were used in the Middle Bronze Age was limited to the area of Syro-Palestine and Mesopotamia, with the possibility that variants were created also in Iran. Fenestrated axes never gained popularity in Egypt, where epsilon or crescentic axes were popular as a weapon in both the Old and Middle Kingdoms. These were replaced during the Second Intermediate Period and into the early New Kingdom by axe types with long, narrow, straight blades secured to the handles by lugs.

The axe displayed at the National Museum of Archaeology, Athens, Greece. Modified image from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

The LH IIB tomb at Vafeió brought to light two unusual objects: a seal showing a person in long robes holding a fenestrated axe, and the Vafeió axe, the latter a unique and heavy fenestrated axe with no parallels in the Aegean to date. Some have argued for a non-Aegean, Levantine origin of this type of axe. The Vafeió axe seems a Levantine product produced sometime between the 20th and late 18th centuries BC. Some of the symbolic meaning of the axe as an attribute of rulership in the Levant was transferred to Minoan Crete. By the time the axe and its iconography reached Vafeió and was deposited in the tomb, it was a centuries-old ceremonial weapon, and without doubt it was perceived as a formidable symbol of power. The axe is about 14.5 cm high and weighs 479.16 g, corresponding to a Near Eastern unit of measurement. The axe-head is certainly not a miniature. On the contrary, its weight seems to be significantly above-average when compared with West Asian fenestrated axe-heads, and due to its sturdiness, the axe-head appears to be quite functional. The axe-head shows to large fenestrations that are separated by a narrow ridge from three socket loops with rhombic hafting holes and elongated ends, of which the central one is slightly longer than the other two. On one side the ridge separating the fenestrations from the socket loops is hollowed out to accommodate the haft. The blade is reinforced by a raised mid-rib ending in a pointed oval. This distinctive feature reappears on the depiction of the semicircular axe on the seal from the same tomb, although it is unclear whether the seal-cutter was referring to an axe with socket loops like the one found in the grave, or a crescentic axe (Epsilon-axe) with hafting tangs that were inserted into the haft and protruded on the back side. An axe of this type with hafting tangs sticking out on the back side of the haft may be represented in Beni Hasan Tomb 17, although socket loops might be meant in this depiction as well.

Minoan “dignitaries” carrying axes: CMS II.3.198 Vathia; CMS I.225 Vapheio; CMS II.3.147 Malia; and CMS II.8.258 Knossos. Reproduced from Yasur-Landau (2015).

The Vafeió axe was first considered a “Syro-Egyptian” type that was perhaps manufactured on Crete. It was Evans who spoke out in favor of interpreting the axe as a Minoan variant of a Near Eastern axe. This view was supported by Hans-Günter Buchholz, who regarded the Vafeió fenestrated axe as an Aegean product. The “foreignness” of these axes was accepted by later scholars, some also noting differences between the Vafeió axe and Levantine fenestrated axes, mainly in the form of the shaft. Most recently, it was argued that the Vafeió axe shows both Egyptian and Levantine traits, but it was most likely produced in the Levant. The difficulties in determining the region of manufacture of the Vafeió axe indeed arise from morphological features distinguishing it from all other known fenestrated axes. The first unusual feature is the ribbed cap enclosing the upper end of the haft probably in order to protect it. Such ribbed fittings are paralleled in Minoan ceremonial double axes (Cf. Marinatos 1935), which indicates that this feature was added on Crete from where the axe was transferred to Laconia. The second and even more important morphological peculiarity concerns the shape of the Vafeió axe-head, which according to Maran, should be attributed to a merging of West Asiatic and Egyptian traditions of hafting axes. Already in the earlier part of the 20th century, William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1917) and Hans Bonnet (1926) used iconographical evidence and actual objects to compare the Vafeió fenestrated axe-head with axes from Egypt and West Asia. It has fenestrations and a deep, semicircular form like all transitional fenestrated axes, but what makes the axe from Laconia special are its three socket loops, since all but one of the actual finds of fenestrated axes from Western Asia either have a closed socket or shaft-holes connected by a continuous straight butt. It was Bonnet who in 1926 pointed to the similarity of the socket loops of the Vafeió axe-head to the hafting method of Egyptian crescentic battle-axes. The latter were equipped with three per forated tangs which were inserted into the haft and attached to it by rivets. Egyptian finds of axes with preserved wooden hafts show that the three points in the haft designed to receive the rivets were reinforced by cylindrical bronze/copper ferrules. The socket loops of the Vafeió axe-head represent, as was first recognized by Bonnet, the implementation in casting of such metal fittings. Based on this observation he concluded that the Vafeió axe typologically constitutes an intermediary form between an Egyptian tradition of inserting the axe blade with tangs into the haft and the West Asiatic tradition of mounting the blade with a socket onto the haft. After Bonnet published his assessment, two unstratified halves of bivalve stone moulds from Byblos were published which were used for casting axe-heads with three socket loops and a blade that does not have closed fenestrations, but rather two large open scallops. The Byblos axe head moulds also share with the Vafeió axe the unusual feature of a raised mid-rib on the blade, which, in one of the moulds, even ends in a pointed oval similar to the ones on the axe-head from Laconia.

Halves of bivalve moulds for casting semicircular axe-heads with socket loops from Byblos. Reproduced from Maran (2015).

Furthermore, a hoard found in the region of Sakçegözü (Southeastern Turkey) yielded a semicircular axe-head, again with two deep open scallops instead of fenestrations, and three grooved socket loops.

Semicircular axe-head with socket loops from the Middle Bronze Age from the region of Sakçegözü, presenting a similar hafting method to the fenestrated axe from Vafeió. Reproduced from Maran (2015).

Geoffrey D. Summers emphasized that, typologically, the axe-head is an intermediary form between crescentic and fenestrated axes, and he thus in dependently reached the same conclusion as Bonnet before. The moulds from Byblos prove beyond doubt the manufacture of semicircular axes with socket loops in the Levant, and they thus allow a geographical attribution of the most unusual morphological detail of the Vafeió axe-head. The main difference to the Laconian axe-head consists in the fact that the hitherto known Levantine examples with socket loops are not equipped with fenestrations but open scallops, but since fenestrated axes were such a common weapon in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Levant, we can assume that axe heads combining socket loops with fenestrations were also produced there. While Bonnet and Flinders Petrie did not know of these finds, they based their conclusions on depictions of axes possibly with socket loops from the large-scale painted decoration on the walls of Egyptian tombs of the Middle and New Kingdom. In the tomb of Chnumhotep in Beni Hasan (Tomb XIV) dating to the 12th dynasty an axe hafted with three socket loops appears to be represented held by a foreigner (called a “Libyan” by Kühnert-Eggebrecht). The depicted axe does not seem to have fenestrations but open scallops, while the ends of the three socket loops seem to protrude from the haft, which represents a common feature with the Vafeió axe. Approximately contemporary with the find context of the Vafeió axe is the representa tion of two semicircular axes from the tomb of Rechmire in Thebes dating to the 18th dynasty. Again, no fenestrations are indicated, but in this case the socket loops do not have drawn-out ends. The Tomb of Rechmire is well known for its depictions of foreign emissaries carrying tribute, though the axes are being brought by Egyptians as part of equipment designated to be used in the rites before Anubis. Similarly, in the tomb of Sennefer in Thebes, which also dates to the 18th dynasty, it is again Egyptians who carry West Asiatic semicircular axes of uncertain type as constituents of funerary equipment. Considerably later than the Vafeió tomb is a whole group of semicircular axes which is part of the weapons of the royal armoury represented on walls of a side chamber in the tomb of Ramses III (Valley of the Kings [KV] Tomb XI) of the 20th dynasty. These axes possess socket loops and two fenestrations for each axe-head. In the tomb of Ramses III the axes form an integral part of the royal armoury and are shown together with staffs ending in a lion’s head. This evidence could suggest that, although semicircular West Asiatic axes in Egypt never became an integral part of weaponry, from the early New Kingdom onwards, perhaps due to processes of appropriation that were expedited by the integration of foreign troops into the Egyptian army, such axes may have lost their status as exotic objects, thus rendering a strict separation from “local” objects obsolete. Therefore, before being passed on from Crete to Laconia, the Vafeió fenestrated axe-head had either reached Crete directly from the Levant or had entered the island via Egypt. A transfer of a certain number of Near Eastern semicircular axes of fenestrated and probably also unfenestrated types from Egypt to Crete may have taken place during the period of intense Minoan-Egyptian contacts in the 18th dynasty.

Semicircular axes depicted in Egyptian tombs of the Middle and New Kingdom; no scale. 1, Beni Hasan, Tomb XIV; 2–3, Thebes, Tomb of Rekhmire; 4–5, Thebes, Tomb of Ramesses III (KV 11). Reproduced from Maran (2015).

If, however, the Vafeió axe-head was not a Near Eastern import but an Aegean product, this would add an intriguing additional level to the already highly complex entangled biography of the object. To support such an interpretation one could point to the fact that the Vafeió axe head as well as the lapis lazuli pendants and beads from Mycenae and Thebes (see below) all bear witness to a particular form of semicircular axe with socket loops, which is extremely rarely attested in Western Asia and Egypt. On the other hand, as has been shown, all main morpho logical features of the Vafeió axe-head can be matched either by actual finds from the Levant or iconographical evidence from Egypt. Moreover, the axe-head lacks any sign of an adaptation to the shapes or decorations of Aegean axes, while conversely the hafting method with socket loops is unknown from other axes of the Bronze Age Aegean. Another important argument in favor of a Near Eastern origin of the Vafeió axe-head is the correspondence of its weight to a West Syrian mina. Tellingly, the sole feature of the axe that is unparalleled in Egypt and West Asia is the aforementioned ribbed cylindrical cap, which, however, was not firmly attached through casting with the axe-head, but was added during its reworking, probably on Crete. For these reasons, although an Aegean manufacture of semicircular axes of Near Eastern type cannot be excluded, it is rather unlikely.

If indeed, as Maran convincingly argued, the Vafeió axe was a Levan tine product, it was produced long before the end of the Middle Bronze Age, sometime between the 20th and late 18th centuries BC. The Vafeió axe was very likely brought from Crete, as indicated by the accompanying seals of Cretan manufacture as well as the addition of a ribbed cylindrical cap on top of the axe’s shaft, which is possibly of Cretan manufacture.

The mechanism by which this weapon reached the Aegean, perhaps first arriving on Crete, may be hypothetically related to the custom of presenting weapons as part of diplomatic gits. Thus, Caphtorian weapons encrusted in gold and lapis lazuli are mentioned in the archives of Mari, part of a diplomatic gift exchange. As indicated in the later 14th-century BC gifts from King Tushratta of the Mitanni to the Egyptian king, weapons given could include both luxurious ones encrusted in gold and silver, as well as more ordinary weapons of bronze. The Vafeió axe may have therefore begun its life as a git brought to Crete not long ater its production, perhaps contemporary with the Cretan gits mentioned at Mari. The axe’s haft was then reworked on Crete and the grooved cap was added to it. It may further be hypothesized here that this was conducted before the axe was turned into another diplomatic git, this time to a Laconian chief. By the time it reached Vafeió and was deposited in the tomb, it was a centuries-old ceremonial weapon, perhaps with a rich oral history attached to it; and without a doubt, it was perceived (because of its age and uniqueness) as a formidable symbol of power.

A 15th-century BC lāwāgetās⁠ ("military leader")—equipped with the Dendra panoply, a boar's tusk helmet, a figure-of-eight shield, a type Ci horned sword, and the Vafeió axe—standing before the Lion Gate, the entrance to the Acropolis of Mycenae.

Some Minoan sealstones and other media show bearded men clad in long robes patterned with diagonal lines and occasionally with tasseled edges, of possible Syrian influence. At least two of the seals show them holding fenestrated axes: CMS II.3.198 from Vathia (Late Minoan I), and CMS I.225 from the Vafeió tholos tomb (Late Helladic II, based on the context of its find, but possibly manufactured in the Middle Minoan III or Late Minoan I). Two other seals, CMS II.3.147 from Malia (MM III–LM I) and CMS II.8.258 from Knossos (LM I), depict similarly clad individuals carrying either axes or stone hammers. If the robed figures are taken to be priests, the fenestrated axes may be attributes of priestly authority, but also being related to the ability to perform violent acts. To others, these are depictions of rulers: the axe, again, is interpreted as a symbol of authority. The seal from the Vafeió tomb was found on the wrist of the interred person, while the axe was likely found near the deceased’s feet. The proximity between the interred dignitary and the axe signaled an attribute of power.

The fenestrated axe was a typical weapon of the Middle Bronze Age, and became a potent symbol of power of the ruler, as well as of some deities, in Syria and the southern Levant. From the 16^th century BC onward, in the Late Bronze Age, the iconography shows it mainly as an attribute of deities, while on the battlefield it was replaced entirely by newer forms of axes. The seal iconography seems to show that fenestrated axes entered the Minoan iconography in LM I (1600–1100 BC) or earlier.

Socketed, fenestrated axes seem to include three developmental phases: early eye axes, where the socket of the axe is longer than the blade; “transitions” or “medium” axes, in which the blade and the socket are roughly equal in length; and duckbill axes, in which the socket is shorter than the blade. Anchor axes (late 3^rd—early 2^nd millennium) evolved into eye axes, used in the southern Levant, used between 3^rd millennium BC until the early part of the MB I (1920–1700 BC). Duckbill axes were used throughout the MB I.

The duckbill axes were the last of the fenestrated axes in the southern Levant, and by MB II (ca. 1700–1590 BC) they were entirely replaced by the socketed, notched chisel axe, which makes its first appearance already in the mid-MB I in Tomb 14 at Gesher. It seems that by the end of the 18th century BC, fenestrated axes were no longer in use in the southern Levant, yet finds from Ebla may indicate that production could have continued in Syria into the MB II.

The fenestrated axe as an attribute of a warlike Syrian king is clearly shown in a fragment of a royal basalt statue from Shrine G3 in Ebla, dated to ca. 1800–1700 BC. This fragment depicts a fenestrated axe of the duckbill type. Fenestrated axes were also a divine attribute, as at tested in both glyptic art and figurines. A prime example is a Middle Bronze Age hematite cylinder seal that was found in Tell el-Dabʿa, dated to the early days of the 13th Dynasty. The main motif on this seal is a Syrian weather god in smiting posture, holding a fenestrated axe in one hand and a mace in the other. The use of the fenestrated axe as an instrument of sacrifice is vividly depicted on a northern Mesopotamian bronze beaker, probably dating to the 19th century BC. On its lower register, a bearded man wearing a kilt holds a fenestrated axe in one hand and is about to strike an animal which resembles a dog. The Ishtar Stele found in Ebla in Shrine G3 dated to MB IB (1825–1775 BC) depicts the use of the fenestrated axe as an instrument of a ritual sacrifice of a prisoner in the aftermath of a battle. The prisoner looks toward the warrior about the smite him with a fenestrated axe, of the wider, “medium” blade.

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Sources

• Yasur-Landau, Assaf. 2015. "From Byblos to Vapheio: Fenestrated Axes between the Aegean and the Levant." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373: 139–150.

• Maran, Joseph. 2015. "Near Eastern Semicircular Axes in the Late Bronze Age Aegean as Entangled Objects." In Ein Minoer im Exil: Festschrift für Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, edited by Diamantis Panagiotopoulos, Oliver Dickinson, and Ute Günkel-Maschek, 243–270. Universitätsforschungen zur Prähistorischen Archäologie 270. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.