Pickaxe

A pickaxe, or simply pick, is a heavy hand tool with a hard—most often metal—head attached perpendicular to the handle, with one end sharpened, the other a chisel edge. Pickaxes are conventionally designed for mining and other labor that involves breaking through hard surfaces, but they have also historically been improvised as weapons for those in need of one and can find no better alternative.

Description
As a tool created for breaking through hard earth, the head of a pickaxe consists of different edges on opposite ends of bar. One edge is fashioned into a sharp pick while the other is flattened to serve as a chisel. This head, most often but not always forged from metal, is then attached to a handle through a hole at its center. For their role in excavation, pickaxes are heavy, two-handed instruments, and as a result, they can be effectively turned against humans to deal lethal injury whether through blunt force trauma or by hacking with the pick end.

History
A basic yet indispensable tool for agriculture and mining, pickaxes have been utilized by humanity throughout its entire history. Without the pickaxe, extraction of metal resources such as iron, copper, zinc, tin, gold, and precious stones vital for warfare and trade could not have been possible. In the context of the Assassin-Templar War, Templar soldiers often relied upon pickaxes in their excavations of underground sites they believed might harbor Isu Temples.

In the 18th century, the Parisian Brotherhood were equipping their students with cheap pickaxes for basic training in the art of handling heavy weapons. In a similar vein, the outbreak of the French Revolution saw more pickaxes used in combat capacities, mostly by rioters and the lower-class who did not have access to better equipment and were willing to employ anything as a weapon.

Trivia

 * In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the pickaxe is one of many tools that can be found throughout the games and picked up to be used as improvised weapons.
 * In Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy, the pickaxe was a necessary item for completing the memory "Digging In" in Italian Wars: Chapter 3 – Mario Auditore. As a mining episode, it was the chief means by which the player obtained metal ores for crafting weapons and gems for crafting jewelry.
 * In Assassin's Creed: Unity, the pickaxe is a weapon that can be possessed and equipped for the very first time in the series. It is the starting, default heavy weapon, used by the player in training sessions with heavy weapons. It is also the weakest weapon in the entire game out of all classes, bearing values of 1 in all stats.

Appearances

 * Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
 * Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
 * Assassin's Creed: Revelations
 * Assassin's Creed: Unity