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LOT 1844
Greek Lead Slingshot with Inscription
4TH-3RD CENTURY B.C.
1 1/4 in. (32.7 grams, 31 mm).
Lenticular type with casting seam to the rim, raised 'AΓΟΡΟΥ' legend (genitive for Agouros = immature, unripe).
ProvenanceEx German art market, 2000s.
Acquired from an EU collector living in London.
From the collection of a Surrey, UK, gentleman.
Cf. for similar bullets (different inscription) Tsaravopoulos, A., ‘Evidence of war in a Pirates’City of the Hellenistic Period (Island Antikythera/Aigilia Greece)’ in Sirbu, V., Schuster, C., Hortopan, D., Warriors and their weapons in bronze and iron ages, Proceedings of the 21st International Colloquium of Funerary Archaeology 25th-28th May, 2023, Târgu Jiu, Gorj County (Romania), Braila, 2023, pp.301-320, figs.15-18.
FootnotesSometimes the bullet carries a joke for the enemy. Here, the bullet bears the inscription ‘immature’, signifying that the enemy will receive not a nice fruit to eat, but an unripe fruit, a fruit he never wants to get.
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Ex Abelita family collection, 1980s-2000s.
A certain number of similar blades, some considered to be spearheads and others to be daggers, all with bent tang, derived from Tepe Hissar Culture III. Some of them, like our specimen, have a button terminal, others have a plain, pointed terminal. The general dating of these specimens is fixed to the early 2nd millennium B.C. -
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Ex Abelita family collection, 1980s-2000s.
A number of similar blades, some considered to be spearheads and others to be daggers, all with a bent tang, derived from Tepe Hissar Culture III. Some of them, like our specimen, have a button terminal, and some others have a plain, pointed terminal. The general dating of these specimens is fixed to the early 2nd millennium B.C.
