Thunderbolt

In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the 'Sky Father'; this association is also found in later Hellenic representations of Zeus and Vedic descriptions of the vajra wielded by the god Indra.

It may have been a symbol of cosmic order, as expressed in the fragment from Heraclitus describing "the Thunderbolt that steers the course of all things".

[1] In its original usage the word may also have been a description of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies, as Plato suggested in Timaeus,[2] or, according to Victor Clube, meteors,[3] though this is not currently the case.

Drawing from this powerful association, the thunderbolt is often found in military symbolism and semiotic representations of electricity.

As such, it is an unsurpassed method of dramatic instantaneous retributive destruction: thunderbolts as divine weapons can be found in many mythologies.

Zeus ' head and thunderbolt on a coin from Epirus , 234 BC.
The thunderbolt pattern with an eagle on a coin from Olympia, Greece , 432-c.421 BC.
Zeus' head and thunderbolt on a coin from Capua , Campania , 216-211 BC.
Ptolemaic coin showing the Eagle of Zeus , holding a thunderbolt
Bas-relief of Jupiter, nude from the waist up and seated on a throne
Neo-Attic bas-relief sculpture of Jupiter , holding a thunderbolt in his right hand; detail from the Moncloa Puteal (Roman, 2nd century), National Archaeological Museum, Madrid