New Gallery Of Ancient Bronze Weaponry From Western Asia

Thanks, Ron. Perhaps, though, not as impressive as some of the elaborately wrapped grips of Echizen swords.

I hope this thread continues to grow, as I find the subject fascinating. The essay is clear and very informative, and the gallery of bronze weaponry is awesome. I have never seen the like of some of these blades and hilts before.

I have a few arrowheads, and tried to identify them from the images in the gallery, but some are either outwith the time period and region, or they are possibly fake.

Just a thought, but it has already been mentioned that a warrior's sword would be buried with him for use in the afterlife. In the making of a blade for a mighty warrior (which would take months) it took on it's own spirit, so man and blade could become one. In some cultures when the warrior was buried, the blade was purposely bent and buried with him, so that no one else could use it. They would be reunited intact in the afterlife.

A brilliant piece of work Bob. Thanks for sharing.

Jim

Hi Bob, if it's OK with the Mods I'd rather put the arrowheads in another thread, and leave this one for your work. It would be a shame to spoil this thread.

Jim

I finally got around to properly photographing and cataloging round two of my weapons acquisitions. For anyone who may be interested, descriptions of this round are at this link:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/bo...en#msg732249

The direct link to the gallery is here:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ga...p?album=7069

Very nice Bob....I found it really interesting reading through your gallery.
I also noticed that a large number of your pieces have excellent provenance as well.
Your photographic skills are pretty impressive too....
An outstanding collection Bob! Congratulations Paul

Bob, I always enjoy seeing you blades. It is a wonderful collection with a lot of history behind it.

An impressive work - even more impressive with round two.

As others have previously mentioned, your photographic skills are second to none Bob.

Jim

Here's an interesting and mysterious item.

Recently picked up a decent sized lot of ancient Iranian arrowheads, and have more goodies on the way. The following was included in the lot. This hilt, with broken blade, would have been part of a tiny pseudo-weapon, an imitation of a Luristani dagger. It's about three thousand years old. With the broken blade, it measures 2 3/4". I would imagine that, with blade intact, it would have measured about 3 1/4". These miniature imitation daggers are very rare. I've only seen two for sale since I started collecting the weaponry a couple years back. (This being one of the two - the other is described later in this post) It's remarkable that it was, basically, just an "extra" in the arrowheads lot.



Such small imitative weapons are described by Houshang Mahboubian as surgical instruments. Whether or not that is a reasonable speculation, I don't know. Mahboubian, who possesses what has been described as "one of the most magnificent collections of early Iranian bronzes in the world," illustrates a number of them in his book Art of Ancient Iran: Copper and Bronze. (See below) Most of his examples have, as this one does, a double ear pommel. Here's a picture from his book:


My image, above, crops off most of the more conventional-looking instruments above the "daggers."

By contrast, I found this listing from a specimen quite similar to mine (but considerably more expensive!), from a 2019 sale. This one was entirely intact, but measured only 72 mm (less than 3"):
"Luristan Bronze Miniature Dagger, Votive Rare
Luristan, ca. 1000 BC
Accurate miniature version of a typical Luristan dagger with double-eared pommel, long grip and lanceolate blade. The small scale is rare and points to a votive or ceremonial function of the item."
https://www.catawiki.com/l/29931947...-votive-rare

I suppose the votive interpretation makes more sense to me than the surgical instrument theory. Why, after all, would the ancient Iranians have had certain surgical instruments designed exclusively based on function (as in the upper part of the illustration), and some others that were designed to look like tiny daggers with fancy pommels? Also, we know that weapons were buried with the mercenaries who traveled throughout the region. Most of the ancient Iranian weapons one sees on the market were originally burial goods. So, we can infer that such weapons had some special symbolic or ritual significance beyond their obvious usage. It's not a big leap, then, to imagine that small-scale imitative daggers may have been used for some ritualistic or symbolic purpose as well.