Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This leaf-shaped, two-finned arrowhead was cast in a bivalve mold. It has a conical socket leading to a raised spine that transverses the point to its tip (1).
NOTES:
1. Compare H. Baitinger, Die Angriffswaffen aus Olympia, Olympische Forschungen 29 (Berlin, 2001) 16-17, nos. 148-57, pl. 6 (Type II A 3), dated between c. 650 and 500 BCE and possibly Lydian or Persian. See also R. Boehmer, Die Kleinfunde von Boğazköy, Boğazköy-Hattusa 7 (Berlin, 1972) 109-10, nos. 895A and 896, pl. 30; J. C. Waldbaum, Metalwork from Sardis: The Finds Through 1974, Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Monograph 8 (Cambridge, MA, 1983) 34, no. 38, pl. 3 (a virtual duplicate from the same site as this one), there dated “fourth century BCE to Roman.” For a general discussion of copper alloy arrowheads in Anatolian contexts of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, see Z. Derin and O. W. Muscarella, “Iron and Bronze Arrows,” in Ayanis 1: Ten Years’ Excavations at Rusahinili Eiduru-Kai, 1989-1998, eds. A. Çilingiroğlu and M. Salvini. (Rome, 2001) 189-217, esp. fig. 7. Compare also M. Garsson, ed., Une histoire d’alliage: Les bronzes antiques des réserves du Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne, exh. cat. (Marseille, 2004) 30, no. 11 (Greek, dated to the fifth century BCE).
David G. Mitten
