LOT 0304

Scythian Iron Akinakes Sword with Decorations

4TH CENTURY B.C.

23 in. (481 grams, 58.5 cm).

Of Central Asian typology, strong hilt and narrow ogival guard with Steppe style ornamentation, tipped hilt, triangular tapering blade fitted with a central triangular blood channel with sixteen grooves.

Ex private collection of Mr M.B., Mainz, Germany, since the 1980s.
Acquired from the above, 2004.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12283-214520.

See Gorelik, M., Weapons of Ancient East, IV millennium BC-IV century BC, Saint Petersburg, 2003, in Russian, see pl.VIII, no.53, for a similar sword; cf. Meliukova, A.I., Vooruzhenie skifov. Moskva: Nauka Svod arheologicheskih istochnikov, Moscow, 1964, pl.18,10, for a near identical sword from Sofievska.

The akinakes was a characteristic Scythian type of weaponry, which was used throughout their history (7th-3rd centuries B.C.). With the departure of the Scythians from the steppe in the 3rd century B.C., and the appearance of the Sarmatian tribes in the Northern Black Sea region in the 2nd-1st centuries B.C., Sarmatian types of bladed weapons spread in the region. This particular shape of akinakes belongs to the nomadic cultures of Central Asia.