Moppets, “battle-ax,” is defined by Gesenius to be “a mallet, a maul, a war-club”; and he makes it identical with mephits, which in Proverbs 25:1818A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow. (Proverbs 25:18), is rendered “maul.” Others, however, think that a heavy bladed instrument is meant. The Egyptian battle-ax was from two to two and a half feet in length, with a single blade, which was secured to the handle by bronze pins, while the handle in that part was bound with thongs to keep the wood from splitting. The soldier on a march either held it in his hand, or hung it on his back with the blade downward. The shape of the blade was the segment of a circle, divided at the back into two smaller segments whose points were fastened by the pins already named. The blade was made either of bronze or of steel. Another kind of battle-ax was about three feet in length, and had a large metal ball at the end, to which the blade was fixed. Either of these weapons was terrible, from the combination of weight with sharpness.
While the Persians often used the battle-ax it was rarely used by the Assyrians, though it is sometimes represented on the monuments. These weapons seem to have had short handles and large heads, and to have been wielded with one hand. Some of them had two heads, like the bipennis of the Romans and the labra of the Lydians and Carians. The Chaldeans and Babylonians also made use of battle-axes. One belonging to the former is represented on an ancient clay tablet as having the blade of the ax balanced by three heavy spikes on the opposite side of the handle.