Diagram of Iron-Age War Hammer

[Uath]

This is just a diagram of an actual artifact. It's the earliest evidence of a war hammer (Not counting maces) I've been able to find. It's from 5th Century BCE Hungary. I'm going to see if I can find a pic of the actual artifact. I know nothing about its weight. The handle was almost certainly lost, but it would be great to know the probable overall length. Beautiful is the word!

 

[Swedish_Steel]

Probably cast bronze over clay core. Almost certainly ceremonial, whatever that means. Nice though. Definitely probably not made of iron. Many really fancy weapon-looking things like axes and such from the bronze- and early iron age are (were?) made from cast bronze around a clay core.

/Petter, studying archaeology in Sweden.

 

[Uath]

That's what I was thinking also, bronze. That's so interesting about the clay core. I would have thought it would have been poured directly (lost wax). I'm still looking, but 500BC is earlier than I though I would find a war hammer.

 

[Uath]

Hard to call this particularly a "Hammer," but it does have a hammer-shaped face. Also the axe-end is pretty blunt, whether on purpose or damaged by time. I'm looking for war hammers in particular. Axes were super-common in the Bronze Age (and even in the Copper Age, as evidenced by Otzi's copper axe head, 3350 BC)

This is from the Persian Bronze Age:

 

[Wulf]

To my knowledge, what we generally refer to as a war hammer was developed much later, and used primarily to adapt combat methods to the increasing use of metal plate armor during the early middle ages. They could be used to pierce armor as well as to knock or pull a mounted warrior off his horse.

Google "lucerne hammer" as well and you'll find some beautiful specimens from the late dark ages and early renaissance period.

 

[Uath]

Oh yes, this was a continuation of another thread. I totally agree with you about the later war hammers. My purpose was to find an actual example of the earliest war hammer I could, that was definitely "Hammer" shaped.. Granted the difference between, hammers, maces, and axes, is blurred at best. Still, we all know what hammers look like. There's no doubt they had them, especially as tools, but tools get used hard and don't survive well.
I was pretty surprised to find one from 500 BC. That was really cool. What would be even cooler is to find one from the Saxon invasion (460 AD) to the Viking Invasions (800 AD). Thor aside, it seems they were way more into seaxs, axes, and swords. Oh well, the hunt is on. I will definitely look at the Lucerne Hammers.

 

[Wulf]

The hammer, and then the war hammer, is really just an evolution of the club, which we've been using to wreak havoc on our enemies since our cave-dwelling days Looking forward to seeing what else you can dig up

 

[Uath]

Found one, found one!!!

This is a Scandinavian hammer head from 10 AD. It was on e-bay, so it's authenticity isn't definite. It's definitely a tool, judging by its shape, but I'll take what I can get:

Oh yes, this is an AXE forum, so here's to all you Viking axe people:

 

[Uath]

Ah yes, another Viking Hammer. This is from the actual Viking age. It's a blacksmith hammer:

I believe this was found in Russia.

Here's another: