colettion of spears

LJ · 22nd October 2014, 10:27 PM

No spear expert has jumped in, so here are my thoughts. I could be wrong, and I would be happy if somebody can offer better identifications.

First question: which continent ? Most of them look African (except numbers 8 and 9). As a rough guess, East Africa ... maybe from Kenya to the Horn of Africa. The hollows in the middle of the blade of Number 4 suggest it is Somali, and I think number 1 could be from the Horn of Africa also. I'm not so sure about the others.

The only other examples I've seen similar to number 8 had me puzzled for a while. At first I thought they were the "wrong way round", since some spears have a heavy iron point at the bottom end. Then I realised these spikes were really on the top end. The examples I saw all had ARAKAN written on the shaft, suggesting they were from Burma. So Southeast Asia could be the origin of Number 8.

This leaves number 9. I've never seen anything like it. My first thought would be Southeast Asia, possibly India.

As for date. If I had to guess I would say late 1800s to early 1900s, possibly a bit earlier for some of the spears.

One way of finding the origin could be to look at the wooden shafts. You often find that old collectors wrote a locality, but you might have to examine the shaft for several minutes before you start to see faint letters. Then you might see, for instance B E A [meaning 'British East Africa']

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22nd October 2014, 10:27 PM	#2
LJ Member Join Date: Mar 2014 Posts: 93	No spear expert has jumped in, so here are my thoughts. I could be wrong, and I would be happy if somebody can offer better identifications. First question: which continent ? Most of them look African (except numbers 8 and 9). As a rough guess, East Africa ... maybe from Kenya to the Horn of Africa. The hollows in the middle of the blade of Number 4 suggest it is Somali, and I think number 1 could be from the Horn of Africa also. I'm not so sure about the others. The only other examples I've seen similar to number 8 had me puzzled for a while. At first I thought they were the "wrong way round", since some spears have a heavy iron point at the bottom end. Then I realised these spikes were really on the top end. The examples I saw all had ARAKAN written on the shaft, suggesting they were from Burma. So Southeast Asia could be the origin of Number 8. This leaves number 9. I've never seen anything like it. My first thought would be Southeast Asia, possibly India. As for date. If I had to guess I would say late 1800s to early 1900s, possibly a bit earlier for some of the spears. One way of finding the origin could be to look at the wooden shafts. You often find that old collectors wrote a locality, but you might have to examine the shaft for several minutes before you start to see faint letters. Then you might see, for instance B E A [meaning 'British East Africa']