Blinkenberg, Christian: The thunderweapon in religion and folklore: a study in comparative archaeology (London , Edinburgh: Cambridge University Press, 1911)

24

THE THUNDERWEAPON

by a parallel which, as far as can be ascertained, goes back to
the same period and is a result of the same movement. The
double-axe of bronze belongs to the Mycensean sphere of
culture and to the western part of Asia Minor. In the
regions a little farther to the east and south, the eastern part of
Asia Minor, Assyria, and northern Syria, instead of the double-
axe, we find the single-edged, pierced axe as the chief implement
of the bronze age. In the same parts, chiefly the regions of the


Fig. ii.

Hittites and Assyrians, the local thundergod (Adad), according
to pictorial representations of a somewhat later period, wields
the single-edged axe. In fig. II the well-known relief from
Nimrud is reproduced, representing the statue of the thundergod
carried by Assurbanipal’s soldiers (cf. PERROT, Histoire de Part,
II. p. 76). Among corresponding Hittite representations found
during the later excavations, a relief from Sendschirli may be