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, 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.
Double-headed eagle in Jiroft, Iran, 3rd millennium BC.
Double-headed eagle on the Sphinx Gates of the Hittites in Anatolia, today in Alaca Höyük, Turkey
The double-headed eagle device used in the flag of Kingdom of Vaspurakan (r. 908–1021)
Emblem of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, entrance of St. George's Cathedral, Istanbul
The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.
Moscovia, Herberstein, 1549
Russia, Mercator, 1595
Russia seu Moscovia, Mercator, Atlas Cosmographicae, 1596
Russia vulgo Moscovia, Atlas Maior, 1645