Axes of Perun, also called "hatchet amulets", are archaeological artifacts worn as a pendant and shaped like a battle axe in honor of Perun, the supreme deity of Slavic religion. They are counterparts to Nordic Mjolnir amulets. They are mostly found in modern day Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and parts of Scandinavia. Connection with the Slavic pre-Christian god Perun was made by V. P. Darkevich, although some authors prefer the association with Norse material culture. [1]
The axes range in length from 4 to 5.5 cm (1.6 to 2.2 in), and blade width from 2.8 to 4 cm (1.1 to 1.6 in). Bronze is the most common material of their construction. Most have been dated between the 11th and 12th century, and over 60 specimens have been collected.
Two basic designs of the axe have been found throughout Russia and its boundaries.
Specimens of both designs include a hole in the centre of the blade, and both have been decorated with zigzag lines, representing lightning or more likely imitating inlaid ornamentation patterns of real axes, near the edge of the blade.
A halberd is a two-handed polearm that came to prominent use from the 13th to 16th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It can have a hook or thorn on the back side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants. The halberd was usually 1.5 to 1.8 metres long.
Veles, also known as Volos, is a major god of earth, waters, livestock, and the underworld in Slavic paganism. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Odin, Loki and Hermes.
Slavic paganism, Slavic mythology, or Slavic religion is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century.
Mokosh is a Slavic goddess mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, protector of women's work and women's destiny. She watches over spinning and weaving, shearing of sheep, and protects women in childbirth. Mokosh is the Mother Goddess.
Knowledge about military technology of the Viking Age is based on relatively sparse archaeological finds, pictorial representations, and to some extent on the accounts in the Norse sagas and laws recorded in the 12th–14th century.
A billhook or bill hook, also called a pruning knife or spar hook, is a versatile cutting tool used widely in agriculture and forestry for cutting woody material such as shrubs, small trees and branches. It is distinct from the sickle. It was commonly used in Europe with an important variety of traditional local patterns. Elsewhere, it was also developed locally such as in the Indian subcontinent, or introduced regionally as in the Americas, South Africa, and Oceania by European settlers.
The Zbruch Idol, Sviatovid is a 9th-century sculpture, more precisely an example of a bałwan, and one of the few monuments of pre-Christian Slavic beliefs. The pillar was commonly incorrectly associated with the Slavic deity Svetovit, although current opinions on the exact meaning of all the bas-reliefs and their symbols differ. It is thought that the three tiers of bas-relief represent the three levels of the world, from the bottom underworld, to the middle mortal world and the uppermost, largest, world of heavenly gods.
Nepenthes beccariana is a tropical pitcher plant. The species was described in 1908 by John Muirhead Macfarlane based on a specimen collected from the island of Nias, which lies off the western coast of Sumatra. It appears to be closely related to both N. longifolia and N. sumatrana, and the former is possibly a heterotypic synonym of this taxon.
The tradition of egg decoration in Slavic cultures originated in pagan times, and was transformed by the process of religious syncretism into the Christian Easter egg. Over time, many new techniques were added. Some versions of these decorated eggs have retained their pagan symbolism, while others have added Christian symbols and motifs.
Việt Khê is an archaeological site in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam. Excavations there yielded a number of coffins containing relics of the Dong Son culture in Bronze Age. The Việt Khê construction site is located on the southern base of a hill which overlooks the Hàn River near Thủy Nguyên District, Haiphong. Five wooden coffins were excavated in 1961, each of which were aligned in the east-west direction, with at least two pairs of coffins being configured in a linear manner.
An axe is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split, and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialised uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, also called a haft or a helve.
Kresnik is a Slavic god associated with fire, the summer solstice, and storms. His mythical home, a sacred mountain at the top of the world, represents the axis mundi.
In Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, iris, eagle, firmament, horses and carts, and weapons. The supreme god in the Kievan Rus' during the 9th-10th centuries, Perun was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.
Many different weapons were created and used in Anglo-Saxon England between the fifth and eleventh centuries. Spears, used for piercing and throwing, were the most common weapon. Other commonplace weapons included the sword, axe, and knife—however, bows and arrows, as well as slings, were not frequently used by the Anglo-Saxons. For defensive purposes, the shield was the most common item used by warriors, although sometimes mail and helmets were used.
Nepenthes abgracilis is a tropical pitcher plant native to the Philippines. It is known only from northeastern Mindanao, including Mount Legaspi. Little is known about the altitudinal distribution of this species, but the holotype was collected at 670 m.
The tabar is a type of battle axe. The term tabar is used for axes originating from the Ottoman Empire, Persia, India and surrounding countries and cultures. As a loanword taken through Iranian Scythian, the word tabar is also used in most Slavic languages as the word for axe.
Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) has a theology that is generally monistic, consisting in the vision of a transcendental, supreme God which begets the universe and lives immanentised as the universe itself, present in decentralised and autonomous way in all its phenomena, generated by a multiplicity of deities which are independent hypostases, facets, particles or energies of the consciousness and will of the supreme God itself.
Nullotitan is a genus of lithostrotian titanosaur from the Chorrillo Formation from Santa Cruz Province in Argentina. The type and only species is Nullotitan glaciaris. It was a contemporary of the ornithopod Isasicursor which was described in the same paper.
Interpretatio slavica is the practice by the Slavic peoples to identify the gods of neighboring peoples and the names of Christian saints with the names of Slavic deities.
Phorcys is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian that lived during the Middle Permian period (Guadalupian) of what is now South Africa. It is known from two specimens, both portions from the back of the skull, that were described and named in 2022 as a new genus and species P. dubei by Christian Kammerer and Bruce Rubidge. The generic name is from Phorcys of Greek mythology, the father of the Gorgons from which the gorgonopsians are named after, and refers to its status as one of the oldest representatives of the group in the fossil record. Phorcys was recovered from the lowest strata of the Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone (AZ) of the Beaufort Group, making it one of the oldest known gorgonopsians in the fossil record—second only to fragmentary remains of an indeterminate gorgonopsian from the older underlying Eodicynodon Assemblage Zone.