RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Rosenberg, Richard
T1 Medieval hafted axe from the Kolowrat Palace in Prague : Notes on the functional interpretation of the tool
JF Staletá Praha
YR 2021
VO 37
IS 2
SP 140
OP 154
DO 10.56112/sp.2021.2.04
UL https://staletapraha.cz/en/artkey/pha-202102-0004.php
AB Axes are relatively frequent additions to collections, but their records and description are usually insufficient. For this purpose the state standard nomenclature ought to be observed, to facilitate the comprehensibility and compatibility of the description of this tool type. The paper shows the range of comprehensive information which can be obtained from a similar find for subsequent arguments of its form and function. A detailed examination of the tool, its analogies, illustrations and especially recent use revealed that it is most likely a carpenter's chopping or scoring axe, which is still used in manual rough carpentry to chop the mass of the raw log into a beam, or related actions. The archaeological find comes from a second half of the 13th century layer. The dating corresponds with the heading illustration in the 1248 Statutes of the Carpenters' Guild in Bologna, the earliest iconographic depiction known to the author.