Phoenician Bronze Inscribed Arrowhead

A (reiterhammer) head made as a single solid iron bar, one end shaped as a squared hammer and the other as a pointed curved spike; the head showing a strong quadrangular outline; the spike is a 'raven beak' shape of pointed section, oval socket with saltire cross flanked by two vertical lines on either side. 174 grams, 14.2 cm



From a North American collection formed in the 1970s-1990s. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

This war hammer is of the type used by European cavalry in the 16th century, represented in iconography (battle of San Romano, painting by Paolo Uccello of 1455 AD; portrait of Maurice of Saxony made in 1578 AD by Lucas Cranach the Younger) and showing parallels with similar examples in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Reiterhammers of this type are called ‘raven’s beak’ (bec de courbin) in the sources; the shaft was originally a wooden shank reinforced by metal shafts with one-handed handle, but in the later models, like our specimen, the astile could be entirely in metal, thinner than the wooden one, with guard and knob to better ensure the grip on the handle for a user wearing a glove. The war hammer was developed to counter the protection offered by plate armour, which made simple cutting weapons useless. In a military context dominated by the figure of the knight in plate armour, the sword lost its status as a weapon par excellence. The evolution of this offensive weapon ran in parallel with that of complete armour. When the latter developed ridges to limit the damage from thrusting hits, the war hammer gained prominence as a penetrating weapon. Weapons capable of concentrating a considerable force on a narrow target, a joint or a precise point of the armour proved to be more effective in the fray. As much as the mace of arms and the archer’s axe, the war-hammer became a decisive melee weapon for the knight. The weapon, descended from the East-Roman akouphion, began to be used by armoured knights in the 14th century, due to the need to better the axe and the mace of arms with a piece of equipment capable of inflicting injuries through armour. It reached its full development only at the end of the 15th century, but its wide use in the 16th century is widely documented by archaeological artefacts and iconography, like the one representing the battle of Dreux, in an engraving of 1588 AD, one of the first clashes of the Wars of Religion in France, where knights are visible fighting on horseback with such weapons in their hands. The war hammer was often visible in tournaments, and, much like sword hilts, war hammers became richly decorated with etching and gilding, often appearing to be works of art. However, they never lost their primary function as dangerous weapons (Edge-Miles Paddock, 1988, p.149). With the seventeenth century and the establishment of portable firearms (pistol and petronel) as weapons of the new heavy cavalry (Cuirassiers and Reiters) the war hammer disappeared from western battlefields. In Eastern Europe, its variants, such as the Polish nazdiak, remained in use among cavalry forces until the 18th century, when it finally fell into disuse along with the axe and mace, starting from the Napoleonic Wars, when the model of the horseman armed only with sabre and pistol became dominant.

With plain globular body, circular short shaft expanding to a circular flat base. 386 grams, 83 mm



From the collection of a London, UK, gentleman, 1990s. 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.

A complete suite of rectangular iron plates to form a protective coat; the plates provided with a series of holes close to the long edges by which they were laced together into articulating panels; one plate with inscription in Chinese script recording: 'first month of the Datong era / control of the propagation of Armour. Yanhui'. 8.5 kg total, 3-11.1 cm



From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s. Accompanied by a positive archaeometallurgy report by Dr Brian Gilmour PhD, Dip Cons, FSA, FCIFA, FRMS. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12051-216403. This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

The Datong Era (大同, 1224–1233) is a name used for the reign of Puxian Wannu, a Jurchen warlord who established the Eastern Xia Dynasty in 13th century China. However, the war with the Jurchen states took more than 30 years: having first invaded the Jurchen borders in 1211, the Mongols finally defeated the Jin Empire only in 1234, while the Eastern Xia fell in 1246.