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Arrowheads of bronze and iron from destruction debris in MMS/N. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Drawing of arrowheads from just inside the Lydian gate. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Seven arrowheads of bronze and iron
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 214
- Date
- Ca. 570-540s BC, Lydian
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- M95.008
- Material
- Iron, Bronze/Copper Alloy
- Object Type
- Metalwork
- Metalwork Type
- Weapon or Armor
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- MMS/N
- Trench
- MMS/N 95.1
- Locus
- MMS/N 95.1 Locus 154
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E160.5 - E161.5 / S13 - S15 *98.2 - 96.04
- Description
- Bronze arrowheads have sockets and are leaf-shaped (some with high, others with tapering “shoulders”) and trilobate; iron arrowheads have tangs and are triangular and four-sided. Lengths vary between 0.034 m and 0.052 m.
- Comments
- These examples belong to an assemblage of 136 arrowheads (107 of iron, 27 of bronze) recovered in and under destruction debris near a gate in the west side of the Lydian city wall (at excavation sector MMS/N). Bronze arrowheads probably would have been cast in molds, iron ones forged. For all arrowheads in the assemblage (and for others recovered elsewhere in association with the same destruction) each of the four shape types occurs either in bronze or iron. All shape types are widespread in western Anatolia and the Near East; for the objectives of different types and their problematic cultural identity, see Greenewalt 1997, 6-8.
- See Also
- Cahill, “Persian Sack”.
- Bibliography
- Greenewalt and Rautman 1998, 490-492; Greenewalt 1997, 2-8, 15-17.
- Author
- CHG