Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides while the wooden handle was very short. The Roman historian Procopius described its use as a throwing weapon by the Franks: “Each man carried a sword and shield and an ax. The francisca was used both as a throwing and close-combat weapon. The Franks made up the western German confederation that would evolve into a multipart kingdom under the Merovingian rulers and then an empire under the Carolingian rulers of the seventh and eighth centuries, particularly Charlemagne. This ax was called the francisca (from the Latin word for Frank). By the fifth century, a battle-ax with a narrow, wedge-shaped head, usually a flat arch or S-shaped top side with a rather flat, beveled convex edge of approximately three inches turned back at the heel in a concave sweep at the underside, appeared in northern Europe in the hands of the Franks. Roman legionaries carried a standard pickax with a short edge on a 19-inch head and a 30-inch haft. Unlike its farm implement predecessor, the battle-ax was meant to cut flesh, not wood. The single-beveled edge head was soon developed. Axes with double front and rear edges cropped up in some ancient cultures but, realistically speaking, were too heavy for real efficiency. For warfare, the battle-ax was most efficient in a light design. By the Iron Age (1000 bc), the wedge-shaped iron ax head was the standard form, drilled near the butt for hafting. From rather blunt faces in rectangular shapes, the ax head took on the familiar, slightly convex front edge and tapered back to the blunted butt. With the discovery of metals came the various work of accommodating axes for warfare. Many stony minerals were used for the head, and the edge was sharpened on both sides and double beveled. Socketing required the haft to be drilled with a hole to fit a shaped stone through the haft or on top of it.

Techniques of handle attachment included wedging, flanging, winging, and socketing. The first ax heads were made of stone and used by hand a wood handle known as the haft made ax wielding easier. The so-called battle-ax cultures (3200 to 1800 bc) extended over much of northern Europe from the late Stone Age through the early Bronze Age. The shafted ax has been around since 6000 bc, in both peaceful and warlike uses.

Japanese battle axe