The double-headed eagle is an iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. The earliest predecessors of the symbol can be found in the Ancient Near East (i.e., Mesopotamia and Hittite iconography) and Mycenaean Greece. Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the Palaiologos dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, a use possibly derived from the Roman Imperial Aquila. High medieval iterations of the motif can be found in Islamic Spain, France, the Bulgarian Empire and the Serbian principality of Raška. From the 13th century onward, it appeared within the Islamic world in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and the Mamluk Sultanate, and within the Christian world in Albania, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, and Serbia. 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.

Many-headed mythological beasts and bird creatures frequently appear in the Bronze Age and Iron Age pictorial legacy of the Ancient Near East, especially in Mesopotamia. They were later adopted by the Hittites. Use of the double-headed eagle in Hittite imagery has been interpreted as "royal insignia". A monumental Hittite relief of a double-headed eagle grasping two hares is found at the eastern pier of the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Hüyük. For more examples of double-headed eagles in the Hittite context see Jesse David Chariton's "The Function of the Double-Headed Eagle at Yazılıkaya." In Mycenaean Greece, double-headed eagles appear on Mycenaean pottery.

One of the earliest known depictions of a double-headed eagle appears on a ceremonial shaft-hole axe head from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), dated to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC (Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0).

After the Bronze Age collapse, there is a gap of more than two millennia before the re-appearance of the double-headed eagle motif. The earliest occurrence in the context of the Byzantine Empire appears to be on a silk brocade dated to the 10th century, which was, however, likely manufactured in Islamic Spain; similarly early examples, from the 10th or 11th century, are from Bulgaria and from France.

The early Byzantine Empire continued to use the (single-headed) imperial eagle motif. The double-headed eagle appears only in the medieval period, by about the 10th century in Byzantine art, but as an imperial emblem only much later, during the final century of the Palaiologos dynasty. In Western European sources, it appears as a Byzantine state emblem since at least the 15th century.

A modern theory, forwarded by Nicholas Zapheiriou, connected the introduction of the motif to Byzantine Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (1057–1059), whose family originated in Paphlagonia. Zapheiriou supposed that the Hittite motif of the double-headed bird, associated with the Paphlagonian city of Gangra (where it was known as Haga, Χάγκα), might have been brought to the Byzantine Empire by the Komnenoi.

The double-headed eagle motif was adopted in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the Turkish beyliks of medieval Anatolia in the early 13th century. A royal association of the motif is suggested by its appearance on the keystone of an arch of the citadel built at Konya (Ikonion) under Kayqubad I (r. 1220–1237).

The motif appears on Turkomen coins of this era, notably on coins minted under Artuqid ruler Nasir al-Din Mahmud of Hasankeyf (r. 1200–1222). It is also found on some stone reliefs on the towers of Diyarbakır Fortress.