New, Modest Gallery of European Iron

[Kamnaskires]

I recently decided to form a new, minor, and modest collecting subset of ancient and medieval European iron weaponry. This subset will be slowly developed, with pieces added only during lulls in my main collecting areas.

While I’ve done a fair amount of research into the Early Iron Age weaponry of Western Asia, and am reasonably good at attributing that material, I am nearly clueless where ID’ing European weapons is concerned. In addition, I hesitate to put much trust in some sellers’ attributions, for whom the fallback is often “Roman” or “Viking”. In some cases, I’ve been able to confirm seller’s listings by finding some online references. In other cases, not so much.

But that’s fine. I’m not inclined to do much research with this low-tier collecting area. I’m just picking up occasional pieces that seem mildly interesting and affordable. In most cases I am content to broadly designate a pickup as “ancient to medieval Europe” and leave it at that. When I can get more specific, great. But I’m not losing sleep over pieces I cannot pin down tighter.

Although I have another piece enroute, here’s the humble start of this new collecting avenue:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=7802

[Virgil H]

These are super interesting and, while I wouldn't want to be stabbed with any of them, that last one with the long barbs would be horrible. I also wonder if one like that could have been used for fishing with an attached line or on a long pole. Reminds me of some harpoon points I have seen and even more modern fishing arrows. I assume that arrows from bows and crossbows were retrieved when possible, one with a head like that would have been really hard to get out if it was fully embedded.  Maybe that is the purpose, though, to cause maximum damage going in and coming out.

Virgil

[Kamnaskires]

Thanks, Virgil. Yes, those barbs are nasty. Must have done a lot of damage - both on the way in, and upon being pulled out.