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Product Description
This is an extremely large and heavy war shaft axe from the Ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age. It features a raised linear trident decoration on one side of the body with a single ridge on the other. The broad blade is massive - the largest type of any known functional ancient bronze axes of this region and era. Where many ancient weapons were intended for ceremonial or votive purposes not made for or used in actual warfare, some were functional like this specimen. A striking weapon of this proportion and weight was most certainly used and intended for actual combat in ancient times. An axe like this would have been used to strike hard an armored enemy. Armored elephants were used in this period and it is even possible that the need for such a massive war axe was not just for destroying a man with a single blow but more importantly, intended to go up against war elephants or horses carrying a heavily armored mounted foe. From the Bronze Age, this axe size and type is one of the largest kind we have encountered across any and all Bronze Age period cultures.
This incredibly impressive specimen displays beautiful malachite ancient mineral bronze patina. Axes like these would have been employed by heavy infantry on front lines and designed to penetrate armor and smash bone as well as intimidating enemies and being effective weapons against mounted enemies. The broad cutting blade would have been especially intimidating and effecting in making deep, slashing cuts. The butt end has a hammer projection which would have been perfect for killing blows to the enemy's head. This amazing ancient war axe shows superb bronze preservation with no disease or corrosion.
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. There is no active bronze disease. Bronze disease can be a problem in bronze artifacts and if left untreated, can literally destroy a piece over time.
HISTORY
With origins dating back to prehistory, 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.
The term LURISTAN references artifacts made by a society of semi-nomadic people that once lived in the mountainous region of Northwest Iran. Little is known of this ancient culture but the most impressive traces are that of the bronze artifacts they left behind that can be found in parts of present-day Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. These include highly decorative equipment for their horses, ceremonial containers and numerous weapons ranging from simple utilitarian pieces on up to elaborate masterpieces of warfare.
It is theorized that the Luristan bronzes were crafted by the earliest existence of the Median empire but this has never been proven as written records of the Medes have not survived. The Medes were Indo-Iranian people originally from central Asia who settled in Northwest Iran in the 9th century BC and later defeated the Assyrian empire in 614 BC. Their success is short-lived and their empire which once stretched from central Iran to the Persian Gulf and Anatolia was overrun in 550 BC by the Persians.
