Canaanite Bronze Dirk

13TH-12TH CENTURY B.C.

15 1/2 in. (289 grams total, 39.5 cm high including stand).

With lentoid-section blade, tongue-shaped in plan, integral tapering hilt with flared finial, lateral flanges to accept a panel of bone or wood to each face forming the grip.

Provenance

Ex Joseph J. Gancie (1923-2010), Washington, Silver Spring, Maryland.
with Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc., sale 1035, 27 January 2013, lot 162a.

Literature

Cf. Khorasani, M.M., Arms and Armour from Iran - The Bronze Age to the End of the Qajar Period, Tübingen, 2006, p.377, cat.6.

Footnotes

The dirk belongs to the type III in the Medvedskaya classification, used in Near East from the 13th to the 6th century B.C. The type is the 32a of the Maxwell-Hyslop study. The Asiatic daggers of this type are confined to Syria and Persia, but Transcaucasia also provides an interesting analogy from Kalekent on the Baku peninsula, where a pointed straight-sided dagger blade has a flanged hilt with the whole of the side flanges bent over the centre.

CONDITION

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LOT 0257