ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN HAMMERED DECORATIVE BRONZE BANGLE BRACELET *NE185

Product Description

This is a fantastic, decorative ancient Near Eastern hammered bronze bangle bracelet.  It is complete and intact - very rare for such delicate design.  The piece displays masterful work in decorative repousse and chasing metalsmithing techniques.  This genuine ancient jewelry bangle dates back to the Luristan culture of the Bronze Age empire of Ancient Iran.  The former Bronze Age empire of ancient Iran once spanned a large area from what is today eastern Iraq all the way into western Pakistan, including all of present-day Iran and Afghanistan.  From a former old private European collection formed in the 1960's.  The dark, rich ancient bronze metal surfaces display all original detail that is still crisp and plainly visible.  Just like women of today, these bracelets adorned the bodies of women of the Near East in ancient times from 3000 to 4000 years ago. NO REPAIR AND NO RESTORATION OR FABRICATION. 

This artifact has  been professionally cleaned and conserved in our lab, being treated with a special sealer developed and formulated by us specifically for ancient metal preservation.  The patina shows beautiful traits only found in authentic ancient weapons such as a layered mineralized patina with encrustations.  No active bronze disease.   Bronze disease can be a problem in bronze artifacts and untreated, it can literally eat away an artifact over a short time of a matter of years and turn the piece to powder.  

WARNING:  There is an increasing number of fake Near Eastern (Luristan) bronze weapons on the market.  As fine quality intact, original specimens become more scarce and techniques have become more sophisticated to fake these weapons.  We have personally handled numerous extremely well-done fakes with extremely convincing patinas.  The degree to which the fakers have been able to replicate patina to disguise their work requires an expert examination by highly experienced individuals.  It is common to find very reasonably priced weapons that are made up of part original and part modern components or wholly modern pieces displaying elaborate artificial patinas.  All purchases should include from the dealer a written guarantee of authenticity with unconditional and lifetime return policies regarding such guarantee. 

With origins dating back to pre-history, the empire of ancient Iran was one of the world's first superpower civilizations by the time it had taken form in the second millennium B.C..  The various cultures that can be included in the former ancient Iranian Empire stretched across an enormous geographical region extending beyond what is called the Iranian Plateau.  To gain insight as to just how large this area was, the Iranian Plateau alone, includes Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and comprises approximately nearly 4 million square kilometers (almost 1.5 million square miles).  The area of ancient Iran included not only the massive Iranian plateau made up of the tribes of the Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Parthians, but also included groups as far west as the Scythians (an eastern Scythian tribe existed in parallel in Central Asia), Sarmartians, Cimmerians and Alans populating the steppes north of the Black Sea.  To the eastern boundary of the empire, the Saka tribes dominated, spreading as far as Xinjiang, China.  From a very early period, the ancient Iranian peoples have been historically documented to exist in two separate continuums - a western civilization (Persia) and an eastern civilization (Scythia).

The beginnings of ancient Iran trace back to an influx into the Iranian cultural region of bands of horse-mounted steppe nomads from Central Asia, speaking Indo-European languages.  Some settled in eastern Iran but other groups migrated deeper to the west settling in the Zagros Mountains.  These first people descended from the proto-Iranians, originating from the Central Asian Bronze age culture of what is called the Bactria-Margiana Complex (aka Oxus Civilization), dated 2200-1700 B.C..

This historical achievements  and the breadth of diverse cultures included of this once great empire are too vast to adequately credit in this brief synopsis.  The Islamic conquest of Persia in the middle of the 7th century A.D. and the collapse of the Sassanid Empire marked the end of once geographically expansive and culturally diverse ancient superpower.