Western Asiatic Stone Macehead

Comprising seven tanged arrowheads, one a swallowtail type. 86 grams total, 5.7-13 cm



Ex German art market, 2000s. Acquired from an EU collector living in London. From the collection of a Surrey, UK, gentleman.

With curved flaring cutting edge, characteristic curving shape and narrow socket, blade end squaring off, shaft hole pierced on both sides. 227 grams, 10.6 cm



Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s.

These collared axes have the specific feature of being equipped with variously shaped rear extensions. The provenance of this typology is clearer than others: these axes came from Margiana and southern Bactria. Gonur Depe and Susa yielded a rather atypical and probably imported example. P. Amiet suggests that they were an adoption of Elamite material, from conceptual and institutional models. They would have developed from the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C.

Comprising fifteen tanged arrowheads, four with elongated triangular blades and raised midrib, two of squared type with flat tang, three with barbed shoulders and short cylindrical stem with handle for the shaft; two with squared shoulders and rectangular stem with handle for the shaft, one with leafed elongated blade, one with wide triangular head and long handle for the shaft, and other two long and spiked with raised midrib. 240 grams total, 7.1-16.5 cm



London, UK, collection, 1990s.

Some of the arrowheads belong to type V of the Khorasani classification: subtype D (triangular arrowheads with rounded or angular midrib) and subtype C, arrowheads with elongated, triangular shape with barbed shoulders and convex sides, and a raised midrib with a sharp central line.