A dagger-ax, the characteristic weapon of the Chinese Bronze Age during the Shang Dynasty and then made from iron from the Zhou Dynasty onwards. The dagger-shaped bronze blade, usually with a flat tang but occasionally with a shaft hole, was mounted perpendicular to the wooden shaft. The blade had a crosspiece parallel to the shaft to help hold it in place. Bronze Age blades and non-functional jade replicas of blades often appear as mortuary gifts in Shang tombs. The earliest ge yet known have come from Erlitou, c mid-2nd millennium BC. In the Eastern Zhou period the ge was sometimes combined with a spear, the ge blade at right angles to the spearhead, to form a ji. The ji was in existence by the late 6th or early 5th century BC. They are chopping implements.