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LOT 1500
Large Luristan Socketted Bronze Adze
2ND-EARLY 1ST MILLENNIUM B.C.
6 1/2 in. (570 grams, 16.5 cm).
An adze-axe head with central shaft hole and curved blades, flange to socket.
ProvenanceAcquired in the 1990s.
Ex Abelita family collection.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Cf. Christie's, The Axel Guttmann Collection of Ancient Arms and Armour, part 2, London, 2004, item 34, p.32.
FootnotesThe adze-axe was a fundamental weapon of many Bronze Age cultures around the world. The form lends itself to dual purposes - for war and peace. As a tool, it functions in fabricating wood and as a weapon, its heavy mass and compact form make it a deadly striking and chopping weapon, even able to defeat light armour.
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AUCTIONS:
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Hellenistic Bronze Cuirass Section
3rd-1st century B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £286
Possibly the upper right front element of a composite cuirass for a cataphract (armoured horseman), part of the edge around the neck and shoulders preserved, rivets and clasp for attachment of the back section present. 261 grams, 23 cm
UK private collection, acquired in 1996. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
A near complete armour for cataphract was found in the French excavations in Al-Khanoum, a Hellenistic city in Afghanistan. The cavalry of Seleucid, Ptolemaic and other Hellenistic Kingdoms formed regiments of heavy armoured horsemen, who in the west, employed a combination of lamellar and segmented armour together with muscled armour of Greek type. Cataphract armour in the West had more Greek element, for example more plate armour and less scale and lamellar. -
Luristan Bronze Spearhead Group
13th-11th century B.C.Estimate: £80 - 100 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £44
Comprising a tanged spearhead with heavily ridged and tapered blade, short collared shaft and square-section tapered tang bent at the tip; a spearhead with foliate narrow blade, short tang with fastening hole. 300 grams total, 26.2-28.7 cm
Acquired 1980-2015. Ex Abelita family collection. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Both types of spearheads were found in Amlash and Marlik, and are connected with the types 1 and 2 of the Khorasani classification. The type 1 is characterised by a bent tang and was the evolution of a typology which began much earlier in Mesopotamia and the fertile crescent, the type 4 of the Stronach classification, with straight square-section tang, usually thickened at the base with a button tang. -
Large Mesopotamian Bronze Javelin Head
3rd-2nd millennium B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £124
Foliate blade, rhomboidal in section, raised mid-rib, medium length stem widening at the base and forming a small stop, rectangular-section tang with bent terminal. 187 grams, 45 cm
Ex London art market, 1980-1990s. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
The specimen belongs to the category of tripartite spears with long pointed biconvex blade and single bevelled tang. They seem to be a Mesopotamian and Susian (Elamite) variant, and this type also includes decorated blades, like the spear from Tello with the inscription 'King of Kish'.
