Late Bronze Age spearhead from the Carpathian Basin

[Kaleun96]

Here's a bronze spearhead I picked up recently. I managed to find a great book that categorises Late Bronze Age spearheads from South Eastern Europe and mine falls into that region and period quite nicely.

The shape of the blade is known as "flame-shaped" as it bulges to its widest width in the first third of the blade, narrows on a curve for the second third, and then has a more even taper for the last third where it narrows to a point. These are most often found in the Balkans and Carpathian Basin but can also be found in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, and Bohemia.

My blade also has a decorative element on the end of the shaft: two horizontal lines around the circumference with oblique lines in a herringbone pattern above and below them. This is another trait commonly found in bronze age spearheads from the Carpathian Basin but it is found in the aforementioned regions as well.

I messaged the author of the book to see if I attributed it correctly and he confirmed it falls under his "Shape K" series as part of the typological order 15. These spearheads date between 1600-900 BC, with mine likely falling between 1300-900 BC and probably from somewhere in the Carpathian Basin.

I can really recommend the book even though the majority is in Bulgarian. There's an English summary that is useful but you can also use Google Translate to translate the text parts of the book (use Chrome to "print" the book as a PDF and add in a custom page range to exclude the figures at the end of the book). There's a great section on the manufacture of spearheards that I found quite interesting. It sounds more difficult than I first thought to try and balance a "core" inside the mould so as to make a hollow shaft and midrib. The core extends very nearly to the tip of the spear so they'd have to be extra careful that it was aligned with the mould or the core would break through the surface of the spearhead.

 

Distribution of spearheads with the horizontal line and oblique herringbone pattern decoration:

 

Distribution of spearheads of Shape K typological order 15 (K.VI):

 

Temporal distribution of the Shape K spearheads (mine is likely Type V-VI):

 

[CPK]

Fantastic artifact, and in good shape, too!

[Kaleun96]

3D printed a little mount for it. The design of the base actually comes from my Parthenon 3D model, it's the base of one of the ionic columns in the Opisthodomos.

[CPK]

Nice presentation! Looks very much like wood.

[Kaleun96]

1 hour ago, CPK said:

Nice presentation! Looks very much like wood.

Thanks! It's a 30% wood-filled plastic so with a bit of sanding and staining it can look quite convincing. It even smells a bit like burnt wood as it is heated to ~220°C and printed.