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LOT 1150
Very Large Amlash Bronze Spearhead
12TH-11TH CENTURY B.C.
9 1/2 in. (396 grams, 24.2 cm).
Leaf-shaped blade with raised midrib extending to a square-section shank, flared below with a square-section tang.
ProvenanceAcquired in the 1990s.
Ex Abelita family collection.
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.
See Khorasani, M.M., Arms and Armour from Iran. The Bronze Age to the End of the Qajar Period, Tübingen, 2006, s. cat 280, for type.
FootnotesThe weapon belongs to the type 1 of the Khorasani spearhead classification, mainly from Marlik or Amlash areas. Similar pieces have been dated by Stutzinger to 1200-1100 B.C.
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AUCTIONS:
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This bowl is possibly part of a set of nearly identical vessels, probably used at the table of royal Satrapes. Persian governors used banquets to display their wealth and power by imitating the royal banquets. It was a greater honour for them to receive a drinking vessel such as this as a gift from the King of the Kings – establishing one’s status as a royal dinner guest. No doubt it took practice to drink adeptly from a vessel like this: however the omphalos in the base would have made it easier to hold with one hand, with the middle finger hooked inside the indentation and the thumb stretched out to grip the vessel at or near the rim.