Huge iron spear and others
 

Hi all.I have been following this forum for a while and just today I had the time to register. Nice forum. I am from Istanbul-Turkey.I wish all of you to a succesful collection life,buying all pieces which you especially dream to have,with ultra cheap prices :D .

I collect mostly Near Eastern arms focusing on Ottoman period and geoghraphy. But what I will share with you are a bit different. I attach pictures of some iron weapons. The seller says these are from South Eastern Turkey,and says there were no coins found around where these were digged out,which is a good clue to date these artifacts to pre-coin period (before 500 bc). The biggest spear head is 72 cm tall! and 11 cms wide. The other is 56 cms tall, and the shortest one has an enormous width of 16 cms! .They are really heavy, and the two tall ones have a back bone and very interesting sharp edge lines, while the widest one is flat.

There are several more,shorter (20-30 cms) spear heads, some of which have even the ruins of wooden sticks and nails inside,as you can see in the picture.

And there are several arrow heads (around 15 cms)

They are in completely excavated and unrestored or cleared condition. Can you please give more information,especially of which culture and from which date?

best regards

Welcome to the forum. Your interest about the Ottoman period is double welcome, because we are a minority here, squeezed between “dha-mafia” and “keris addicts”. :D
About the pieces now. The place you mention used to be Persian Empire at 500BC and more specific somewhere between Media and Armenia of the time. (see this map ). It is the time of Cyrus the Great.
It is very difficult to say anything about plain metal objects if you take them apart from the places they found. They could easily be fakes, for example. Or great artifacts. This is why excavations from amateurs are forbidden in our countries and trading of ancient artifacts without the right papers is also forbidden.

Welcome to the forum Atilla. Nice to see an Ottoman arms collector,especially from Istanbul as I live here too.I am sure you will have very nice time and improve your knowledgement significantly in this forum. I recommend you at least to login and read topics periodically even if you don't have time or something to discuss or ask for that moment.

The arms in the pictures you show look real antiq. And 72 cms long spear head?? What would be its overall length including the proper wooden stick to hold and use it? 2,5 mts?? :eek: Against what did they use it? Elephants??
If the information given by the seller is correct, it must be between the invention of iron working (1200-1300 b.c.)and invention of coin (550 b.c.).But as far as I know iron began to be used in weaponry densely taking place of bronze in 1000s b.c. So perhaps Assyrian or late Hittite feodalism?? Pals with more knowledge to share their opinions,and post pictures of similar items if there is any available.

And I recommend you not to buy them if you are considering to do so (if you don't have a document issued by an official museum for your name-koleksiyoner belgesi).Could cause you much bigger problem than their moneteral values.