Details

LOT 0267

Assyrian Bronze Axehead with Cuneiform Inscription

8TH CENTURY B.C.

3 3/4 in. (141 grams, 94 mm).

Comprising a barrel-shaped socket with rounded collars and a hole to the rear to accept a mounting peg, a wedge-shaped blade with a stepped neck; incised cuneiform text on both faces of the blade and the socket; votive type.

Provenance

Private collection, acquired on the European art market in 2002.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13206-249182.

Literature

See Various la Mésopotamie entre le Tigre et l'Euphrate, cat. exp. (Musée d'art de Setagaya, 5 août 2000 - 3 décembre 2000, for an inscribed Assyrian axe; Fukuoka, Musée d'art asiatique d'art asiatique, 16 décembre 2000 - 4 mars 2001, Tokyo, NHK, 2001, p. 154, n° 220.

Footnotes

The royal inscriptions on weapons were common in Mesopotamia. Our blade, although younger, finds a parallel with an Assyrian cuneiform-inscribed bronze axe blade bearing the name of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I, dating back to the reign of King Adad-Nirari I (1307-1275 BC) from Assyria, currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.