DECORATED MEDIEVAL OR EARLY MODERN AXES FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ROMANIAN HISTORY IN BUCHAREST

The authors of the article deal with three axe heads and one complete axe from the National Museum of Romanian History in Romania, which can be dated from the end of the High Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period. The museum received these objects to its depositories between the year 1975 and 2015. Their mutual feature is that they were deco-rated and have not been assessed yet in regard to their shape or decoration. This decoration concerns mostly form in the case of axe with inv. no. 37793. Its head has got the openwork cheek and blade (9 holes), where 6 concave cuts are present as well. Moreover, there are 10 probable nails made of yellow non-ferrous metal in its handle and one maker’s mark on its neck that probably comprises a lime tree leaf and branch. The other three axe heads have got punched decoration. The decoration of the axe from Balta Neagră (donation no. 1555) consists mainly of lines, circles, cogged curves and their combinations. Then the specimen from Fântâna Mare (inv. no. 178595) was lavishly embellished by patterns made of cogged lines and on the axe head from Suceava (inv. no. 72492) a punched quatrefoil was only applied.