Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The three-finned, socketed arrowhead has deep concave channels between the fins. The fins taper toward the socket from point of the maximum width, about two-fifths of the length between the socket and the tip. This cast trilobate arrowhead, which has a socket for the shaft, is typical of a type widely used in Greece, the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Near East during the sixth and fifth centuries BCE (1). These were mass produced in bivalve molds in a series of standard forms and weights. They could also be used as a form of currency. Arrowhead-shaped objects served as a medium of exchange in the western and northern Black Sea areas during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. A date during the first half of the fifth century seems reasonable.
NOTES:
1. For close parallels, see H. Baitinger, Die Angriffswaffen aus Olympia, Olympische Forschungen 29 (Berlin, 2001) 124-26, nos. 308-49, pl. 10; and J. C. Waldbaum, Metalwork from Sardis: The Finds Through 1974, Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Monograph 8 (Cambridge, MA, 1983) 35, no. 41, pl. 3. Compare also M. Garsson, ed., Une histoire d’alliage: Les bronzes antiques des réserves du Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne, exh. cat. (Marseille, 2004) 30, no. 10 (Greek, dated to the fifth century BCE). Also see M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 416, no. 595.
David G. Mitten
