26 New Parthians, With No Tiaras, Seated Archers, Or Tyches In Sight

My latest Parthians come with no busts-in-tiara, no seated archers, no Tyche's presenting diadems to kings, and no garbled Greek legends. Here is the group as it currently stands, with some awaiting cleaning and conservation:


Recently, on a whim, perhaps to give my coin collection some context and some company, I started scouring sources for Parthian arrowheads. These have the distinct advantage of costing considerably less than my typical Parthian coin purchases. They have the disadvantage of being hard to definitively attribute - and, so, a disclaimer here: I believe most in my group, above, to be Parthian based on research I have done. Only six of my recent arrowhead purchases (including three from a VCoins dealer and three others that were ex-Agora Auctions from a Florida collection) were actually identified as such - that is, as Parthian. And, as it turns out, I eventually concluded that the ex-Agora ones are likely Macedonian rather than Parthian, and so they are not pictured in the group above. The others, above, were listed simply as generic ancient arrowheads, and so I attributed them myself, I believe successfully, based on selected sources. It is possible, however, that a couple non-Parthian arrowheads may have slipped in here. It is also possible that the Parthians copied earlier regional Pre-Scythian and Scythian types, and so some of these could predate Parthia. As you'll see below, it comes down to whose word - which scholar, that is - you choose to put your faith in when ID'ing arrowheads.

In any event this is quite a departure for me, especially since I haven't collected artifacts of the non-numismatic variety for years - for example, the two items at the start of this old thread: http://goccf.com/t/198163
(By the way, I'd love to see some of you revive that thread if you own any antiquities)

Parthian warriors were known - and feared - for their skill with bow and arrow. The Parthian sagitarii - the light cavalry - were particularly skillful at shooting while riding at fast gallop. A couple of years ago I described their prowess with the bow, and their "Parthian Shot" strategy that worked so effectively against Crassus' legionaries in the Battle of Carrhae: http://goccf.com/t/253250



Making a determination about attribution where these or any other ancient arrowheads are concerned can be challenging. It's truly astonishing how many ancient arrowheads are incorrectly described in listings, with the most common sellers' defaults being "Roman," "Scythian," or "Viking." I recall a CCF post a couple years back in which an ancient Chinese arrowhead had been sold to the poster as "Roman." The title of that post, complicating matters even more, was "Bronze Parthian (?) Arrowhead Pre-Coin." The poster thought it might have been Parthian. It wasn't.

As stated on Numiswiki's "Identifying Ancient Metal Arrowheads" page, "Even when the origin of arrowheads should be clear from the type, they are still often mis-described. In one example, the exact same type of arrowhead is labelled - in different archeological reports - as 12th century Mongol, 8th century Avar, 4th century Sarmatian, and 2nd century Roman."

An added complication is that some ancient cultures used arrowheads with a number of formal similarities. Parthian arrowheads, for example, are similar to some of the trilobate specimens from Macedonia. As if that is not enough to contend with, different sources (particularly the older references) seem to associate identical types to different cultures/regions - in other words, there are disagreements between these sources concerning the origins of some ancient types. In addition, it may be that some ancient cultures adopted types employed by others. As Joe Sermarini states the problem, "Unfortunately, ancient arrowheads are very poorly documented. There is no good overall reference. The references that do exist only cover a limited number of types and most are full of errors and conflicts. Many antiquities dealers arbitrarily call nearly all ancient bronze arrowheads, especially trilobate arrowheads, Roman. In fact, relatively few arrowheads can accurately be described as Roman."

There are certainly conflicting suggestions regarding Parthian types. Alex Malloy lists only socketed types as Parthian, while Oscar White Muscarella includes several tanged types too. Arrowheads with tangs would be associated with other (non-Parthian) cultures by scholars like Malloy. Similarly Malloy's type 116, which he identifies as Parthian and which is represented several times in my group above, was described in an earlier study by Erich Schmidt (1953) as "Achaemenid Persian" and by David Stronach (1978) as, more generally, "Post-Achaemenian" - a term which, technically, is applicable to Parthia in with regard to its geography and time. A paper I spotted on academia.edu has them as Scythian.

Sermarini clearly agrees with Malloy down the line with regard to his attributions - and with Malloy's description of the formal characteristics of Parthian arrowheads. I have trusted these two guys, above all others, in forming my fledgling collection. However, I have also referenced Oscar White Muscarella's Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and W. M. Flinders Petrie's Tools and Weapons illustrated by the Egyptian Collection in University College, London, and 2,000 Outlines From Other Sources. Technically the arrowheads in my group span the following types (all of these sources list them as Parthian or at least of Iranian or Iraqi origin from the Parthian period - which amounts to the same thing): Malloy Weapons 115-118, Petrie XLI-65 and 69, Muscarella 173 and 180, and Montilla 521-523, as well as 526.



Arrowheads are only very rarely listed by sellers with attributions to scholarly sources. Although it's a commercial rather than truly scholarly source, Malloy's Ancient and Medieval Art and Antiquities XXIV: Weapons, from 1993, seems to be the one that is cited most for arrowhead attribution. It is very short - frustratingly so - since, I believe, it is essentially just a very descriptive catalog of items Malloy had for sale at that time. It is available online at:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/nu...oy%20Weapons

I also relied heavily on the various other Numiswiki pages that Sermarini pulled together, especially:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/n...%20Arrowhead

Getting back to the common mislabeling: Occasionally one sees the types of arrowheads in my group pic described erroneously in listings as Roman, but Malloy (as well as Oscar White Muscarella and Joe Sermarini) identified these varieties as Parthian:


Parthian arrowheads are also sometimes listed by sellers as Scythian. Given that the Arsacids, the ruling family line in Parthia, are believed to have had Scythian roots, and also given Scythia and Parthia's close proximity (the Central Asian lands surrounding the Caspian Sea), this mislabeling is closer to the truth than the Roman mis-attribution, but it is still apparently incorrect. The fact that the Scythians sometimes used socketed trilobate types - as did the Parthians - probably adds to the confusion. But, unlike Parthian arrowheads, Scythian trilobates had a long, curving leaf-like (the fancy term is "deltoid lanceolate") forms and no barbs - at least according to Malloy.

Parthian arrowheads, by contrast, have socketed cylindrical stems (no tangs, as per Malloy), they are often (but not always) barbed, and are always trilobate and most often tri-bladed. Sermarini adds that they are "nearly all triblade or trilobate solid (and have) mostly small heads with (a) comparatively standard design."

Among the difficulties encountered in attributing these is the fact that, as previously stated, some Macedonian, and also some Byzantine arrowheads share some of the same attributes, including trilobate form and barbs. The differences can be subtle and therefore there is no comforting sense of absolute certainty where attributions are concerned. But I am cautiously optimistic (as opposed to absolutely certain) that most, if not all, of these launched from Parthian bows.

These arrowheads are all bronze and, as Parthian products, they should date to the span of the empire: between the 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD. That's a broad date range, I know, but - as mentioned in the Malloy excerpt above - the usage of different Parthian arrowhead types (there are several, as seen in his illustration) overlapped - it's not as though one distinct type was used in each period in Parthian history. All in my group are pretty small, ranging from 16 - 35 mm.

In addition to the frequent misattributions (and common lack of attributions) in listings, other challenges included the fact that ancient arrowheads are often sold in group lots with a mix from different ancient cultures - which is a problem if, like me, you're only after specimens from one distinct ancient culture. This forced me to purchase a number of arrowheads from outside Parthia - not something I had initially wanted to do. So, in addition to the group above, I also now own what I've tentatively identified as Graeco-Scythian, Macedonian, Hellenistic Greek, Roman Republican, and Achaemenid types. I'm not displaying those here with this post. Many in this additional group are in rough shape, some with BD, but a few are nice. BD and deposits do seem very common with arrowheads since, presumably, many are recent MD finds. A number in my group will need cleaning and conservation. Another issue: fakes definitely exist! I spotted many, particularly from China. They look bogus even to my untrained eyes.

Prices of the arrowheads in my group varied considerably, but most were purchased for under $20, and quite a few were actually less than $10.

I enjoyed searching for these and learning about them. (The learning part is an ongoing process - this is all new to me) They seem to be wanting to fill the role of a tertiary collecting focus for me (after my Elymaean and Parthian coins). Kushans used to hold that spot but I am in the process of unloading those. These arrowheads might be just what the doctor ordered to pick up the slack. They're fun - although I strongly suspect that the legionaries in Crassus' army didn't share that opinion.