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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2003.13
Title
Dagger Blade with Four Rivets
Classification
Weapons and Ammunition
Work Type
dagger
Date
26th-23rd century BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Cyclades
Period
Cycladic period, Early
Culture
Cycladic
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/95681

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Arsenical bronze
Technique
Cast
Dimensions
4.7 x 0.8 x 10.8 x 0.2 cm (1 7/8 x 5/16 x 4 1/4 x 1/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: XRF data from Artax 1
Alloy: Arsenical Bronze
Alloying Elements: copper, tin, arsenic
Other Elements: iron, nickel
K. Eremin, January 2014

Technical Observations: The patina is dark green with areas of lighter green. Metallic copper alloy shows through in some areas. Small chip losses on the edges are due to the brittle, mineralized layers of the surface. The tip is bent slightly to one side.

Under magnification, many areas of the blade show dendrites that indicate it was formed by casting. Parallel striations in several areas are the result of abrasive finishing of the surface. It is not clear if a lost-wax technique was used or if the molten metal was poured into a stone or clay mold. The decorative grooves are deep, narrow, very regular, and controlled. It is unlikely they were made by cold work after casting. They could have been made either in a wax model or in the surface of a stone or clay mold. The rivets are 8 mm long. The flattened rivet heads are the same on both sides and were hammered to tighten them to the handle from both sides.


Henry Lie (submitted 2012)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Purchased in 2003 from Michael G. Petropoulos, Galerie Rhéa, Zürich, Switzerland. Previously Auktionshaus Stucker AG, Berne, Switzerland, 11 Dec. 1993, lot. 8453.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Shelby White and Leon Levy and Roy W. Lennox
Accession Year
2003
Object Number
2003.13
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Four rivets are present in the convex butt of this thin, leaf-shaped dagger blade. All of the rivets, which have flattened heads on both sides, move freely in the holes. On both faces of the blade, linear incisions radiate away from the rivets toward the point, merging at approximately the midpoint (1). There may be a very slight midrib on the blade, with a difference in thickness of less than 2 mm. The rivets would have attached the blade to a hilt made of another material that is now lost.

NOTES:

1. The general form of the Harvard dagger resembles two Middle Helladic III to Late Helladic I daggers from the Greek mainland; see Th. J. Papadopoulos, The Late Bronze Age Daggers of the Aegean 1: The Greek Mainland, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 6.11 (Stuttgart, 1998) 4-5, nos. 1-2. For the various forms of Cycladic daggers, see C. Renfrew, “Cycladic Metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age,” American Journal of Archaeology 71.1 (1967): 1-20, esp. 9-12. Compare also K. Branigan, Aegean Metalwork of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Oxford, 1974) pl. 3.146.

Lisa M. Anderson

Publication History

  • Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums Annual Report 2002-2003 (Cambridge, MA, 2004), p. 13.
  • Séan Hemingway, "The Age of Bronze in Greece, Cyprus, and the Near East", Ancient Bronzes through a Modern Lens: Introductory Essays on the Study of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes, ed. Susanne Ebbinghaus, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2014), 20-37, p. 28, fig. 1.5.
  • Susanne Ebbinghaus, ed., Ancient Bronzes through a Modern Lens: Introductory Essays on the Study of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes, Harvard Art Museum and Yale University Press (Cambridge, MA, 2014), p. 28, fig. 1.5

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu