Pangu's Cosmic Axe and its earthly counterpart

The paper proposes a symbolic comparison between a ceremonial bronze axe of the late Xia period (about 1800-1600 BC), held in the Shanghai Museum, and the axe with which Pangu, in Chinese creation myth, breaks the cosmic egg and separates Heaven and Earth.

The axe, almost square, without a cutting edge and weighing over five kilograms, bears on both faces a central hole surrounded by six turquoise inlays in a cross, a circle of twelve inlays and a thin ring. These numbers recall the structure of the Sphere of Changes derived from the I Ching hexagrams: six hexagrams in the polar circles, twelve in the tropics, then the equator, with the central hole as the Channel. It is suggested that the object, held flat, may symbolically represent Pangu's axe.