AE Spearhead #26

Mesopotamia
Late third millennium BC
31.6 cm (12.4”)

Cf. Guillaume Gernez ("Histoire des lances tripartites à soie au Proche-Orient" from "HIMA, Revue internationale d'Histoire Militaire Ancienne"), 2016, Fig. 9, Type C. The form of the bottom left spearhead illustrated for Type C's (Fig. 9) is a very close match to "Spearhead #26," above. The illustration is cited in HIMA as being from Müller-Karpe 2004, pl. 102.1525 and 46.779.

According to Gernez, this type is “…known throughout Mesopotamia from the beginning of DA III to Ur (grave PG 580)…and seems to have been adopted during the second half the third millennium in northern Syria at Tell Brak, Tell Chuera, Til Barsip, Ebla and as far as Cilicia (Soli).” The entire text from pp. 159-160 in HIMA, in French, is presented below:

"Cette variante aurait pu appartenir à la catégorie des piques, étant donnée la forme très pointue de la lame, mais elles sont conceptuellement et morphologiquement apparentées aux lances tripartites. Les lames sont en moyenne 10 fois plus longues que larges. Leur section est rhomboïdale, et celle de la tige est octogonale, hexagonale ou circulaire. Certaines comportent de légers décors : une lance d’Ur a par exemple une tige parcourue de 8 fins reliefs longitudinaux.

"Ces lances sont connues à travers la Mésopotamie dès le début du DA III à Ur (tombe PG 580), Fara, Kirkuk et semblent adoptées au cours de la seconde moitié du IIIe mill. en Syrie du nord à Tell Brak, Tell Chuera, Til Barsip, Ebla et jusqu’en Cilicie (Soli)."

Gernez's reference in the first paragraph to the "légers décors" is intriguing. That sentence translates as "Some have light decorations: a spear of Ur, for example, has a stem traversed by 8 fine longitudinal reliefs." My example, above, has eight incised longitudinal lines on the stem, creating corresponding raised bars between them. Gernez's description seems to match.

Description:
Elongated blade with rhomboidal cross-section, circular cross-section through stem, square through tang, incised decoration on stem and shoulders.