identifying some broadheads

Murat, Greetings; Here are some ideas.

2.8 and 3.5, Persian. From my own source. Also, McLeod, JSAA 1961, "Homer's three pointed arrows" agrees.
Could be also used by all others of the Levant, ie Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian. Phylistine. Early Iron age and later.

1.8 and 1.5 upper. Roman army. Have seen from site on Black Sea and identical point from Roman Lybia. At the edge of the modern era.

3.0 Ancient Greek, similar to one from Ephesys with good provenience.

1.5 lower. 1.4, 2.1 and 2.0 Eighter Greek or Scythian. Are undistinguishable from eachother in this style. Late centuries BC.

All of these points would predate your battle. The first one I am not yet ready to guess. Can you post a drawing of the inscription? -j-

Murat; A footnote to the McLeod report states, "Mycenaean types include...heavier barbed points with sturdy tang...In Classical and Hellenistic times, one recurrent type is tanged with two barbs and a stop- ridge; it has been identified with the famed Cydonium spiculum of the Cretan mercenary"

By this quote I meant to indicate the large point. Still would be interested to see a drawing of the inscription, if that were possible. -j-

Murat,
I generally agree with Jack. These are all arrowheads of types popular in the Mediterranean and the Near East in the Iron Age and Late Bronze Age.

Three-bladed arrowheads seem to be a Scythian innovation and the variations you have illustrated show how they were modyfied by different cultures.

Malatya was controlled for several hundred years by the Achaemanid Persians. Before them, the Assyrians had expanded into the area. The light weights are usually an indication of shorter arrows associated with the Western Scythian short-draw. The Achaemanids, from their art, used a longer draw, thaough they had heterogeneous armies include Skudra (Western Scythians) and Saka (Eastern Scythians).

The barbed head is harder to identify.

Thank you in advance gents.

To help you identifying the barbed one, I'll get a clerar pick after removing the dye on it.

Murat; Would still enjoy seeing a close-up of that inscription or a good drawing. This might warrant asking of experts. Don't be in a hurry to clean the point, good info is sometimes destroyed in the process. -j-

I got this bronze arrowhead. I liked the shape and I know there is only a slim chance of its being genuinely 1500 years old as the seller claimed.
Were arrowheads like that really used? When and where? Could it be modeled after some real type of arrowhead?
It has four blades and is 11.8cm long.

Jack and other guys,

Sorry for delay.

Here is a close-up to the point and a re-drawing of the inscription. I hope it helps to get a more detailed identity.

close-up and hand-drawn inscription

close-up and hand-drawn inscription

Murat; I think without much debate this will be accepted as a "tamga" which as you know is a symbol of family or clan association among Turkic peoples and their neighbors. To those who have not seen tamgas, these were ownership marks of anyone with property who wanted identity. Because Turkic peoples of Central Asian origin did not in general learn to read until Islamic times, these marks could be used on anything from a grave to cattle.

My feeling is that the arrowhead was meant to be stood on on its point and seen in that manner, because of Turkish arrow terminology reduntantly names the arrow part up to the nock, called the head.

This tamga looks like hundreds of others published so it will prove impossible to identify if the owner is not already known.

Tamgas were used from 600 bc to the present, from the Arctic to the Persian gulf and from Europe to the heart of India and into China.

But bronze points became more uncommon into the last centuries BC so at least that can be narrowed down. This makes the Mycenean provinence seem quite unlikely. Bede will have more. -j-

Jack is right about the orientation. Even in English, the foot of an arrow is next to the point (that's why they are called footed shafts). I think in Turkish the nock is sometimes called a "head piece".

However, Greek inscribed arrowheads sometimes had the writing running along the axis of the head.

If the arrowhead originated in bronze age Anatolia, it was most likely the product of a state armoury. Early Hittite and Hurrian states used cuneiform characters to write their languages. Cuneiform is very good for incricptions on hard materials like stone and metal despite originaly being used for clay tablets. Later after the collapse of the Hittite state, smaller successor states in Carchemish and other areas developed a pictographic script to write the Hittite language. The sign on the arrowhead looks like neither of these.

It might be a clan sign, as Jack suggests, but equally it might be the sign of some god or goddess. It might be an Akkadian deity like Sin, the moon god, or one of the Hittite gods like their storm god. The Egyptians named their regiments after gods like Ra and Ptath.

I highly appreciate both your interest and your deep knowledge.

Tamga, or damga, as it's written and pronounced in today's language was a sign for a Turkic tribe and many of them are available. Many of the turkic tamgas are stylised bow & arrow figures, still used as motifs in carpets and rugs. Especially the tamga of Kayı -the ancestoral tribe of Ottomans- is like "IYI", symbolising two arrows and a bow with a nocked arrow. This tamga was used on the coins of the Sultan Murad II era. Additionally there are so many architectural structures in Anataolia on which such tamgas were used for decoration.

I've a few books listing many of these tamgas but I could not find this one among them. But I admit that further and more detaled research is a must.

This tamga seems to be a 3-head spear, like Poseidon's and was drawn more precisely and detailed compared to many Central Asian tamgas. May it be associated to a sea-related civilisation? Some Helenistic or Ionic one?

By the way, the antropomorphological naming of bow-and arrow parts continued in Ottomans too. The arrow shaft had 24 sections. A certain number of sections make a part of the arrow shaft, so the parts are named after head (bash), neck, chest, belly, leg and foot (ayak). The "foot" is the very front part of the shaft like the western cousins. The arrow always falls onto its front part, that's why this part's named after "foot". The arrowhead (point) is also named "bash" (ok bashi) although it's located at the "opposite end" of the arrow. The "bash" of the shaft is the rear part where the fletching and nock were attached. Bede's comment about the nock "head piece" is another thing that must be explained. The original term is "bashpare" and means "one-piece" rather than "head piece" (although literally, bash means "head" and pare means "piece"). Bashpare means "a one-piece (nock) that is attached to the bash (of the arrow)". The other two nock types are two-piece bakkam nocks and the well-known selfnocks. Bashpare used for the one-piece horn device of some musical blow instruments too. Probably their upper front part is named "bash" too. Just to clarify a terminological confusion...

Thanks Murat for the explanation of bashpare. I was unaware of the idiomatic origin of the term. I have understood it as a single piece, but never knew that the term originally meant that precisely.

Thanks Murat, somehow I had assumed that bashpare had something to do with a thumb! (these nocks do look something like a thumb) Ha!

Your're welcome.

I can understand why bashpare seems to be related to thumb since thumb means "bashparmak". Bash refers to the "first" finger of the hand again.

"bashpare" does not mean "one-piece".
"head piece" is still the only possible translation. (Though literally you may try as "the premier/important piece" or "the piece for head"). As an archery term I tend to understand it as "a rounded (by lathe) one-piece nock made of bone or ivory for an arrow?. The same term is also used to mean the hollow piece made of ivory or hardwood to be attached to the "nay" (musical instrument) of the Rumi's dervishes.
e

Hi İstanbuli,

Nice to hear s'thin' from u again.

Is that an objection or confirmation? Please note my previous reply.

quote

Bashpare means "a one-piece (nock) that is attached to the bash (of the arrow)". The other two nock types are two-piece bakkam nocks and the well-known selfnocks. Bashpare used for the one-piece horn device of some musical blow instruments too. Probably their upper front part is named "bash" too

unquote

Yes, literally it's "head piece" but as an archery term it's obviously differentiated from the two piece bakkam gez.

quoted:

The original term is "bashpare" and means "one-piece" rather than "head piece" (although literally, bash means "head" and pare means "piece")

explained as:

"bashpare" does not mean "one-piece"


So far I had the privilege of having met all the archery related people of this lovely planet. Thank you all very much indeed. I had great time being with you in atarn. I think I have to focus on more doing calligraphy as before. I will be favored too if the moderators could direct me to unsubscribe istanbuli from the atarn member list. Thank you.
e

I think that the discussion is getting confusing for non-Turkish speakers. I think that Murat is approaching this word from the idiomatic point of view of practising archers and Istanbuli is promoting the literary view. Since these are both valid and useful ways of looking at the term, I think we are benefiting from discussion.

I hope Istanbuli will reconsider. Calligraphy is a beautiful art, but archery needs supporters too. The literary expressions related to archery are enriching for us all and there is certainly room enough for different viewpoints in this forum.

Istanbuli: please stick around.We need your knowledge & your expertise regarding calligraphy as well as bow decoration, verses......etc.

selamler

Murat and all; This information is from Anthony M Snodgrass, Early Greek Armor and Weapons from the End of the Bronze Age etc..., Edinburg University Press, 1964, pp145-147.

"((This type)) tends to develop a blade of rhombic section, while the boss shrinks to a neat, roughly conical projection at the base of the blade. Type b, which has double curved edges to its blade, is notable for its huge chronoligical range, beginning from the late Bronze Age. (Bittle says that it first appears in the 18th century BC at Bogazkoy, ((north central Turkey)),but he includes under his head the leaf-shaped type without barbs. A number of later examples, from a wide variety of find-spots-Egypt, Knossos, Cyrene, and Byblos- are interesting for the sign which is incised on them. ((See illustration)) Hays is certainly right in seeing this as a ligature of 'B' and 'E', and thus an abbreviation for 'Berenice'; the double curved shape was thus current in the eastern Mediterranean for over a thousand years."

Couldn't help but notice the similarity between your point and this one from Hama, Syria, c. 1200-1075 BC., but dont know if the inscription is from this point or others. Jack

Jack,
That would mean the inscription would not predate the invention of the Greek alphabet. Incidentally, the most likely Berenice would be one of the queens of Alexander the Great's successors.

Or Berenice, Egypt, on the Red Sea coast, trading center of the third century BC.

Here is a similar arrowhead from my collection. It is made of forged, folded bronze. I had assumed that it was Greek Byzantine and the inscription stood for 'basileus' (i.e. beta/sigma: 'royal')

An expert might be able to identify the time or location of the inscription by the form of the letters. There is a chance that BS or BE might be documented elsewhere in a specific context. However,
the chance of that might be small.

Stephen; Snodgrass dates points of this type from the Bronze Age (after 2000 BC) to the late Archaic (800-500 BC). So your point would fall into that approximate span according to him. To avoid any confusion, would you draw the symbol for us? -j-