Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This axe-head has a cylindrical shaft hole. Three partial ribs strengthen the upper edge of the blade, which slants slightly downward from the shaft. The blade is narrow near the socket but has a broad, convex edge. Shaft-hole axe-heads of similar form are characteristic of mid- to late-third millennium BCE Mesopotamian and western Iranian archaeological contexts, and a range of examples have been excavated from burials in Luristan (1).
NOTES:
1. See J. Deshayes, Les outils de bronze, de l’Indus au Danube (Paris, 1960) 158, pl. 18 ; A. Godard, Les Bronzes du Luristan, Ars Asiatica 17 (Paris, 1931) nos. 43-46, pls. 34-35; E. Haerinck and B. Overlaet, Bani Surmah: An Early Bronze Age Graveyard in Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan, Luristan Excavation Documents 6, Acta Iranica 43 (Leuven, 2006) 35-37, fig. 16, pls. 13-14 and 30; iid., “The Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan (West-Iran): Chronology and Mesopotamian Contacts,” Akkadica 123 (2002): 163-81, esp. 177-79, figs. 8.1 and 9.5; E. Mackay, A Sumerian Palace and the “A” Cemetery at Kish, Mesopotamia, Anthropology Memoirs 1.2 (Chicago, 1929) 158-59, pl. 62.4; R. Maxwell-Hyslop, “Western Asiatic Shaft-Hole Axes,” Iraq 11 (1949): 90-129, esp. 126 and 128, nos. 13 and 15, pls. 34 and 36; P. R. S. Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1971) 39-41, nos. 4-5, fig. 3; F. Tallon, Métallurgie susienne 1: De la fondation de Suse au XVIIIe siècle avant J.-C. (Paris, 1987) 73-75, nos. 21-35, pls. 139-42; L. Vanden Berghe, “Prospections archéologiques dans la region de Badr,” Archéologia 36 (1970): 10-21, esp. 16, fig. 12; id., “Recherches archéologiques dans le Luristan: Cinquième campagne 1969. Prospections dans le Pusht-i Kuh Central,” Iranica Antiqua 9 (1972): 1-48, esp. 28-29, fig. 6.1, pl. 11.1; and C. L. Woolley, Ur Excavations 2: The Royal Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1934) 305-306, pl. 223.
Amy Gansell
