Persian or Ottoman Lance ?
 

Greetings fellow collectors,
I was wondering if anyone may be able to shed some light on this 20 inch gold damascened lancehead.

Based on its form, does it seem more prone to have been Persian, Syrian, Ottoman, or even Mughal?

The closest example I could find was an old pre Qajar Persian one.

It is very solid, not flexible or delicate, like some of the thinner Wootz Qajar lances. This is pointy and made for serious battle play.

Any thoughts would be most truly appreciated.

Thanks.

It is Indian, more likely Mughal, 18-19 century. A nice one.
Did it come together with the katar?

Thanks for the info. Very interesting. Are there examples of similar spear heads that have "Indian (Mughal)" undoubted provenance?

Thanks Ariel,
No, the Katar I purchased several years ago from Italy. A little worn out, but a large strong specimen.

May I ask what characteristics point to Mughal for the lance head? I’ve never seen a lance of quite this form before.

Cheers,

David

If you google “ indian spear images ” or mughal spear images” ( or something in that mode) you will find a lot of similar ones. Old site of Oriental_Arms had many. Unfortunately, the new one shortened their archives significantly.

As customary for all handmade weapons, there were some differences between items, but generally, the narrow spearhead and koftgari decoration tell the story.Metropolitan museum has several. Here is just one example.

Qajar
 

Hi, thanks Ariel.

The lance in the picture looks very similar in form to a Persian Qajar lance I used to own. Thinner blade and less diamondesque in cross section profile than this current one I have. The Qajar ones I find have the thin blades, reinforced edge, and smaller ball section between collar and blade.

My one has a solid ball that could act as a small mace it’s so hefty, even though small.

It could well be Mughal, but the one in the picture you show, I am convinced is a Qajar lance, possibly used by Sufi’s, or at least I saw an old photo of a Sufi carrying a similar styled one in your picture.

If I’m wrong, I’m definitely open to correction. Thanks.

Cheers,

David

Well, “The Met” attributed it to North India, and it came from the famous collection of Giovanni Morosini who obviously knew where it came from.
As I mentioned before, virtually all Indo-Persian lances have rather similar constructions due to their very well-defined function: cavalry use , lancing the opponent. We have to rely on their decorative techniques and first and foremost on their provenance and attribution by superspecialists. Not having the documents of the former and not being the latter, I have to rely on their collective conclusion. This is in part why I said “ more likely”.

Hello David.

I fully agree with your opinion. I think this is a Persian spear both in form and decor. The website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art often comes across errors ...

Dmitry

Like many (not to say all ) others ?

Undoubtedly :)

It is inevitable for all massive collections: pure statistics tells us that the
" 100% true hit" in virtually any population is confined to 95% of the data/items ( 2SD from the mean). Only collections dealing with 100% attributable, dated and marked items may look "better". Small museums and poor/uneducated staff are the two main " kisses of death".

Metropolitan Museum is meticulous, with specialist staff, widely published and thoroughly edited books is likely to be in the upper 1% of all museums. Morosini's collection was assembled in the very late 19- very early 20 centuries. At that time there were no internet auctions, and all acqusitions were conducted through a small number of highly reputable dealers just like the Stone's one. Thus, the number of mistakes was brought to a minimum. There were mistakes, most of which were corrected by subsequent research and claiming that the attribution of Met's items is " often" wrong is mistaken.

David,
By the 17-18 centuries Mughal armourers produced items identical in quality to the Persian ones. Moreover, there was a strong Sufi minority among the Mughal court and intellectuals. Thus the quality of the execution and religious bents cannot help very much.
I found the old Artzi's site and here are several examples of N. Indian lances from his archives + the Met example. As you see, there are major differences between all of them due to different workshops/masters.
You now have 3 opinions: Mahratt's ( Persia" and Artzi's/Met's ( N. India).
You can choose either. That's the frequent name of the game in our hobby:-)

Sorry... Am I the only one who sees the obvious differences between David's spear head and the spear heads from the Artzi website and the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Is it fair to compare them?

I'll be honest David, I don't know, but in the spirit of looking at it objectively, I would say India when purely considering the manufacture aspects rather than its shape and decoration.

Then a think to myself are the design elements Turkic, similar to this axe I once thought was Turkic, loosely drawn from Henry Landsell materials... but the years have shown me more than one clearly Indian example of this Tabar's head shape, that then points me to the Sindh and Gujarat based on the decorative embellishments found those examples... so that bought me back to India...but as a offshoot, there are Turkish War hammers with these decorative motifs on them too, not an Indian weapon... they were decorated like the image presented and of the same assembly features... perhaps Indian produced and sold those as a regional export to be decorated elsewhere... pondering the ponderous there... so back to the spearhead...

Given the comparative examples, albeit some in a league of their own, and aspects I see, I'd be confident in suggesting India as a point of origin with all aspects considered.

Gavin, thanks for a very interesting analysis! I, too, like you, remembered similar decor Turkish War hammers. But the overall design of the spear head is really more like the Indo-Persian region

Thead closed until further notice.

Thread re-opened -- two antogonists gone for good
 

This thread is now open again. You will note that some posts have been deleted for off topic comments and argumentative/sarcastic/abusive behavior. The two protagonists, long term contributors here, have exhausted the patience of all moderators and staff. Despite our attempts to moderate their interactions, they could not refrain from attacking each other. They will no longer be posting here.

I agree with the Indo-Persian origins.

Thanks
 

Thanks, I’d never seen one like that before from Indian provenance. I’ve seen many from Qajar Persia. It would be very interesting to me if the design crossed over to India. That particular blade type was flexible and sharp, very similar in overall shape to a kindjal I used to own, but even thinner in profile.

Was gone for a week or so
 

Sorry, I missed the conflicting posts. I had no intention of initiating a post that would create any contention.

Another MET example
 

Thanks everyone for all of your input, thoughts and advice. This piece really has me stumped.

I saw this one in the attached pic listed in the MET collection. Attributed to Persia. Albeit the MET example has far superior gold damascene work. I felt that the lines were similar along the center, rib, as well as the profiles.