Double-headed eagle

The double-headed eagle is an iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. A heraldic charge, it is used with the concept of an empire. Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originally a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi. It was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire, Albania and in Orthodox principalities (Serbia and Russia), representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or Aquila associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle.

The motif has predecessors in Bronze Age art, found in Mycenaean Greece, and in the Ancient Near East, especially in Mesopotamian and Hittite iconography. It re-appeared prominently during the High Middle Ages, being adopted by the Palaiologos dynasty of the Byzantine Empire. 11th or 12th century representations have also been found originating from Islamic Spain, France, the Bulgarian Empire and the Serbian principality of Raška. From the 13th century onward it appeared within the Islamic world in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and the Mamluk Sultanate,^[1] and within the Christian world in Albania, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, and Serbia.