Note: Since this thread started, I have changed the gallery title from "Bronze Weaponry of Western Asia" to a more inclusive "Weaponry of Western Asia." The rationale for that renaming is provided in the 10/9/2021 entry in this thread.
My new collecting
area is, I suppose, a natural evolution from earlier purchases of bronze Parthian-type arrowheads, which I
had started collecting to give my
Parthian and Elymaean coins some tangible context. I recently decided to reach even further back into Iranian
history, to the regional antecedents of
Parthia.
Some HistoryIn the second millennium BC, long before the
Parthians dominated the Iranian plateau and, with the Elymaeans, the plains of Khuzestan, the
area between the Caspian Sea and the
north end of the Persian Gulf was inhabited by diverse groups of people (Kassites, Hurrians, Lullubi, Kutians, Elamites, etc.), some whose ancestors
had been in the region since at least 10,000 BC. Other groups - including the Aryans whose descendants would go on to found the Median and
Achaemenid Empires in the first millennium BC - more recently migrated to the
area.
The people who occupied the region in
antiquity produced impressive
metal works. According to P. R. S. Moorey (in
Ancient Bronzes from Luristan) the metal industry in this
area was established “from at least the later fourth millennium B.C.” Starting with the plundering of some Iranian sites in the 1920s, and continuing with sanctioned excavations starting in the 1930s, many splendid
metal objects have been found at numerous sites within the region of ancient Luristan in the Zagros Mountains of western
Iran, as well as in the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran at the southern end of the Caspian Sea. Gilan, which is basically the
area corresponding to what would become Parthia-dominated Media Atropatene, includes the archaeological sites of Marlik, Deylaman (Dailaman), Kaluraz, Tomajan, among others. Excavated objects include zoomorphic figurines and finials, bowls, pins,
horse bits and other objects associated with horsemanship, and
jewelry.
In addition to utilitarian and ornamental sculptural objects produced in gold, bronze and
terracotta, many
weapons have been found in these areas of
Iran. Such arms consist of swords, daggers,
dirks (edged
weapons measuring between 36 cm and 50 cm - if smaller it's, technically, a dagger; if larger it's, technically, a sword), spear tips, axes, arrowheads, and maces. Three thousand years ago nomadic horsemen who served as mercenaries in regional conflicts would purchase such metal weaponry as they traveled through towns in the
area. When they died their
weapons were buried with them. As Moorey states, “…even the poorest male graves appear to have contained a few simple
weapons; the richest were amply stocked with them.” Accordingly, many of the ancient Iranian daggers, lance blades, and so forth that one spots in museums and on the market, are from graves.
The Generalized Usage of “Luristan,” “Marlik,” and “Amlash”The term “Luristan” is liberally
applied as the
attribution for artifacts from the whole region. That usage of “Luristan” may be expedient, but it is certainly not always accurate. Some dealers acknowledge this by placing the word in quotation marks in their listings: “Luristan.” Certainly a percentage of such specimens did not originate in Luristan-proper (which occupied a mountainous portion of western
Iran), but may have been products of other, relatively close, Western Asian (and perhaps Central Asian) regions. As Moorey writes, “…there are many
tools and
weapons reported from Luristan which might well have been made…in Elam,
Mesopotamia, or possibly even
North Syria.”
Similarly, “Marlik” and “Amlash” are sometimes used for
ancient weapons and other wares from across northern
Iran, despite the fact that Marlik was actually a single excavated mound in the vicinity and Amlash is a distinct geographical
area within Gilan. One also encounters the generalized “Marlik Culture” or “Amlash Culture” in descriptions of ancient objects from the region. Of the two phrases, the former may have more legitimacy.
Wikipedia’s entry for Amlash states that the word “Amlash…does not have any real archaeological meaning when used with the word culture.” The impreciseness of such attributions is implicit in a statement like this, from Houshang
Mahboubian’s
Art of Ancient Iran: “Amlash is a small village situated between the Caspian Sea coast and the heights of the Dailaman (Deylaman) region, but for the art world the name has come to describe all the villages in the
area.” Charles K.
Wilkinson echoes the sentiment in
his Art of the Marlik Culture: “The designation ‘Amlash’ has been used quite loosely as the place of origin for many
antiquities that have come from other, sometimes unknown, sites in the province of Gilan.” And again from Moorey: “Unfortunately neither the description ‘Luristan’
nor ‘Amlash’, as commonly used, has any exact geographical or chronological significance.”
Given the looseness with which some of these words and phrases are used, it would seem that a term like “Northwestern
Iran” and, occasionally, the even more general “Western
Asia” is both safer and more honest for cataloging purposes. Although it is likely that most or all of the
weapons in my
gallery are indeed from Western
Asia – with the majority being from ancient
Iran – it is possible that some may be contemporaneous Aegean or Central Asian products. I am bucking the “Luristan” trend – meaning I will not be rubberstamping all items as “Luristan.” Instead I am using “Western
Asia” for most pieces in my growing
collection. I have decided to only use more specific place names (e.g. “Northwestern
Iran,” “
Israel,” etc.) when I can, with some confidence, more narrowly pinpoint an artifact’s geographical origins. Furthermore I am using terms like “possibly Marlik” or “probably Luristan” only when my research strongly points in those directions.
Dating the WeaponsThe
types of
weapons in my
gallery are generally dated to c.1200-800 BC, although some organic material from a Marlik tomb did date, based on a radiocarbon test, to even earlier, to the mid-15th century BC. (source:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/marlik) Often this
type of bronze weaponry is listed with the descriptor “
Bronze Age.” However, in Western
Asia the
Bronze Age ended c.1200 BC. Technically, then, these
weapons – despite being bronze – are from the Early Iron Age of Western
Asia. Indeed, as clarified in numerous sources dealing with weaponry in the region, the division between the
Bronze Age and Iron Age in
Iran is based "not (on) the use of iron or the establishment of iron smelting, but rather (on) the changes in ceramics and the presence/absence of settlement continuity in
index sites." (
Bronze-Hilted Iron Swords from Western Asia at the Department of Archaeology, Hiroshima University by Nojima, Arimatsu, Fujii, Marata, Ichikawa, Fujii, and Morimoto)
More specifically, most of the
weapons in my
gallery are from the Iron Age I (c. 1200 - 1000 BC) and Iron Age II (c. 1000 - 800 BC). (I don't seek out material from Iron Age III, c. 800 to the formation of the
Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC) The oldest item in my
collection is the oddball that actually
is from the
Bronze Age in Western
Asia: the one Canaanite blade (AE Dagger #01), which dates to the early to mid 2nd millennium BC.
In my next post I will discuss the challenges of purchasing and cataloging these types of items. After that, I will start posting links to my initial gallery entries.