GreeceMycaenean axe head from Greece, Europe. Part of the Pitt Rivers Museum Founding Collection. Given to the Museum in 1884.

This eye-hafted, double-ended axe-head or 'labrys' is said to come from Achaea, a prefecture (administrative region) of Greece situated on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. Bronze weapons such as this were often offered as votive gifts to war goddesses or deposited in graves of high-status individuals. This example probably dates to the early Mycenaean period (c.1600-1400 BC), during the later stages of the Bronze Age in Greece. The labrys is an important symbol of European prehistory but by 1200 BC it has been superseded by the central European single-bladed form of axe.