Double-headed eagle
Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the Palaiologos dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, a use possibly derived from the Roman Imperial Aquila.
High medieval iterations of the motif can be found in Islamic Spain, France, the Bulgarian Empire and the Serbian principality of Raška.
[4] A monumental Hittite relief of a double-headed eagle grasping two hares is found at the eastern pier of the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Hüyük.
"[5] In Mycenaean Greece, erroneous evidence for the double-eagle motif was found in Grave Circle A, an elite Mycenaean cemetery; the motif was part of a series of gold jewelry, possibly a necklace with a repeating design of two birds sitting chest facing each other with their heads and faces turned in the opposite directions.
Some found the motif to bear resemblance to the double-headed god symbol of Sumeria and BMAC culture of south central Asia.
[10] A modern theory, forwarded by Zapheiriou (1947), connected the introduction of the motif to Byzantine Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (1057–1059), whose family originated in Paphlagonia.
Zapheiriou supposed that the Hittite motif of the double-headed bird, associated with the Paphlagonian city of Gangra (where it was known as Haga, Χάγκα), might have been brought to the Byzantine Empire by the Komnenoi.
[11] The double-headed eagle motif was adopted in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the Turkic beyliks of medieval Anatolia in the early 13th century.
A royal association of the motif is suggested by its appearance on the keystone of an arch of the citadel built at Konya (Ikonion) under Kayqubad I (r.
The oldest preserved depiction of a double-headed eagle in Serbia is the one found in the donor portrait of Miroslav of Hum in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Bijelo Polje, dating to 1190.
[citation needed] An exceptional medieval depiction of a double-headed eagle in the West, attributed to Otto IV, is found in a copy of the Chronica Majora of Matthew of Paris (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Parker MS 16 fol.
The white double-headed eagle on a red shield was used for the Serbian Kingdom Nemanjić dynasty, and the Despot Stefan Lazarević.
During John Hunyadi's campaign in Niš in 1443, Skanderbeg and a few hundred Albanians defected from the Turkish ranks and used the double-headed eagle flag.
[19] The Kastrioti's coat of arms, depicting a black double-headed eagle on a red field, became famous when he led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire resulting in the independence of Albania from 1443 to 1479.
This was the flag of the League of Lezhë, which was the first unified Albanian state in the Middle Ages and the oldest Parliament with extant records.
[20][21][22][23]After the fall of Constantinople, the use of two-headed eagle symbols spread to Grand Duchy of Moscow after Ivan III's second marriage (1472) to Zoe Palaiologina (a niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, who reigned 1449–1453),[24] The last prince of Tver, Mikhail III of Tver (1453–1505), was stamping his coins with two-headed eagle symbol.
An English heraldic tradition, apparently going back to the 17th century, attributes coats of arms with double-headed eagles to the Anglo-Saxon earls of Mercia, Leofwine and Leofric.
