Ancient and Medieval Artifacts

[Kaleun96]

Here's a middle bronze age spearhead I picked up from DNW last year. It was sold under the typical "Luristan bronze" attribution but after a lot of research into spearheads I can confidently place it in Northern Iran circa 2300-1800 B.C., possibly from Tepe Hissar. A few things helped identify it, primarily the tang and "shoulder". The angled tang with a "button" end is common from across the Near East at this time (and later) but combined with this blade profile and the round "shoulder" above the tang, you only find a couple of examples that come close to looking the same from two or three settlements in the North Iran.

I cleaned off a bit of the sediment myself and coated in Paraloid B72 and then more recently designed and 3D printed the stand it now sits in.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Kaleun96

[DonnaML]

6 hours ago, JeandAcre said:

Who said anything, Ever, about laziness being gender specific?  Getting No traction with that, At All.

Not what I was implying!

[Al Kowsky]

There are many impressive artifacts posted on this thread 🤩! I don't actively collect artifacts but will post a few that are left in my collection.

Roman bronze oil lamp, 1st-2nd century AD. Ex Harlan J. Berk.

Chinese heavy bronze support figure of a Northern barbarian, Ming Dynast, 16th century.

Clovis style spear point, c. 11th-10th century BC, purported to be found in Colorado, 4 1/8 in. long. Possibly genuine. There are many clever fakes of these spear points being made by skilled craftsmen.

Byzantine bronze encolpian, 9th-11th century AD, 110 mm long.

 

 

[Kamnaskires]

1 hour ago, Kaleun96 said:

I cleaned off a bit of the sediment myself and coated in Paraloid B72 and then more recently designed and 3D printed the stand it now sits in.

Well done, Cam! Looks great.

 

Bob

[Numisnewbie]

2 hours ago, Kaleun96 said:

Here's a middle bronze age spearhead I picked up from DNW last year. It was sold under the typical "Luristan bronze" attribution but after a lot of research into spearheads I can confidently place it in Northern Iran circa 2300-1800 B.C., possibly from Tepe Hissar. A few things helped identify it, primarily the tang and "shoulder". The angled tang with a "button" end is common from across the Near East at this time (and later) but combined with this blade profile and the round "shoulder" above the tang, you only find a couple of examples that come close to looking the same from two or three settlements in the North Iran.

I cleaned off a bit of the sediment myself and coated in Paraloid B72 and then more recently designed and 3D printed the stand it now sits in.

 

Wow, I really like how you mounted this spearhead...that's an impressive display! I see "Luristan" used for soooooo many artifacts...when I see that now, I think it means "seller has no idea where or when".

[Etcherdude]

2 hours ago, Kaleun96 said:

Here's a middle bronze age spearhead I picked up from DNW last year. It was sold under the typical "Luristan bronze" attribution but after a lot of research into spearheads I can confidently place it in Northern Iran circa 2300-1800 B.C., possibly from Tepe Hissar. A few things helped identify it, primarily the tang and "shoulder". The angled tang with a "button" end is common from across the Near East at this time (and later) but combined with this blade profile and the round "shoulder" above the tang, you only find a couple of examples that come close to looking the same from two or three settlements in the North Iran.

I cleaned off a bit of the sediment myself and coated in Paraloid B72 and then more recently designed and 3D printed the stand it now sits in.

 

Impressive craftsmanship in the presentation @Kaleun96 !

 

[Alegandron]

Egypt Neolithic Arrowhead 8000 BCE

[Numisnewbie]

This one has nothing to do with ancient Rome (or Greece, or Persia, or Egypt, or...), but it's my favorite artifact: a Neanderthal hand tool from around 75,000-100,000 years ago. This came from the estate of archaeologist Philip Schupp, and was found in the Ebro River Basin in northeastern Spain. It's around 5-3/4 inches long.

[Spaniard]

Some lovely examples have been shown, really interesting areas too!

Here's a metal detector find that I think could be around the medieval era but I've yet to find anything with a similar design...A bronze earring with some sort of red cut stone in the bottom section and alas the top sections stone is missing....I still find it a cool piece...

Any ideas appreciated...Thanks Paul.

 

[Ryro]

Bronze age golden shield boss:

[Spaniard]

@Restitutor..I don't know what others think but looking at the participation on this thread alone I do believe a sub forum for artifacts would really benefit...

"NVMIS FORVMS"....Not many ancient coin forums have an outlet for artifact collectors of whom a great deal are existing coin collectors as we can see on this thread  ..Just an idea..Paul

[DANTE]

4 minutes ago, Spaniard said:

.I don't know what others think but looking at the participation on this thread alone I do believe a sub forum for artifacts would really benefit...

You're not the first to mention it. And I wholeheartedly support the idea. Some have also suggested exonumia as a category

Go @Restitutor!😊

[DANTE]

It's here! 😊

 

[Kamnaskires]

1 hour ago, DANTE said:

It's here!

Fantastic. Nice to see a forum devoted to antiquities. Thanks, admin!

[Alegandron]

 some of the Celts shaved...


Ancient Celtic Shaving Razor 8th-6th c BCE Rare Bronze Age Hallstatt Type 48mm x 40mm

[Kazuma78]

11 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

Clovis style spear point, c. 11th-10th century BC, purported to be found in Colorado, 4 1/8 in. long. Possibly genuine. There are many clever fakes of these spear points being made by skilled craftsman.

If that is an authentic Clovis, its a fantastic specimen. Here are 3 paleo fluted points I found all on the same site over a period of 5 years or so. It must have been a hunt site, as a woolly mammoth tooth was found in that creek only 40 yards or so from where these points were found. I wish the black and pink one were whole, I bet they were stunning. 

[Orange Julius]

Here’s a late Paleoindian / early archaic (8-10k BC) atlatl dart point that looks very much like @Al Kowsky’s above. I found this in Iowa in 2016 hiking around a river valley. It had eroded out of a hillside and had washed down onto a sandy area near the water. I was very excited to find it. I can’t find Roman coins where I live, but arrowheads, spearpoints and hand axes are occasionally still found if you keep your eyes open.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Orange Julius

[JeandAcre]

(If anyone was actually anticipating some medieval artifacts, sorry for the delay of this post. –Issues with Google Docs, not this platform. As  in, life is what happens when you were attempting to maintain a train of thought.  --John Lennon, paraphrased.) 

Despite the profusion of French feudal issues, and similar series in  Lotharingia /greater Lorraine, and Spain (<--Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison notwithstanding), feudal coins from Norman and Angevin England are decidedly rare, and correspondingly stratospheric.

Enter heraldic harness pendants and studs.  The commonest of these are c. mid-13th into the third quarter of the 14th century, in the shape of  triangular shields of the period.  (The later reference cited here puts the ‘peak period’ at ‘around 1280 to 1350.’)  They’re decorated with the coat of arms of whichever aristocratic or knightly family they were made for.  The medium is ‘latten,’ a medieval (and famously Shakespearean) bronze alloy, with enamel and gilt used for the ‘tinctures’ of the coat of arms.

Most of the ones on the market are recent detector finds, in less than pristine condition.  But sometimes they have both operant tinctures, allowing the identification of a specific family and, in an absolute best case, an individual.  

In effect, over this relatively brief interval, you’re looking at the primary available Anglo-Norman equivalent of feudal coins.  Down to their being variously ‘anonymous’ (in this case, with only the arms of the family; inviting no more than guesswork about the individual, based on the triangulation of findspot, when known, and apparent chronology) and sometimes, only better, in the issuer’s own name (in rare instances when a coat of arms can unambiguously be identified with a specific individual).

This is an illustration of what they looked like in real time, from the Trinity Apocalypse, c. mid-13th century.  Picture from Claire Barnes, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaireFromClare/status/1432696668667977732/photo/2

…Funly demonstrating a very early phase of partial ‘plate armor’ in the process.

Here’s a link to the Trinity College website, with lots more detail on the ms.: https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=186%2C1374%2C3549%2C1832

Here are a couple of examples, with enough of both tinctures to establish the precise coat of arms.  

Or a lion rampant azure (blue).  (In heraldry, the ‘field,’ or background, always precedes the ‘chief,’ or motif.  …Sorry for the sheer pedantry.)  This is the coat of the Percys, lords of Alnwick and eventual earls of Northumberland.  

In 1309, the Percy family bought Alnwick Castle from the bishop of Durham, who had fallen into it after the extinction of the original, lay lords.  In spite of vast amounts of internal rebuilding during the 18th and 19th centuries, a surprising amount of the external stonework, from the 12th to the 14th centuries, remains more or less intact.  Here’s a view of the ‘barbican,’ actually the gateway to the keep, usually attributed to Henry (d. 1352), grandfather of the first Percy earl of Northumberland. 

 

…This is still the best picture I can find online.  If you squint, you can see the shields, just below the battlements, with the coats of arms of numerous related families as of the mid-14th century.  …This is why some of us still need stuff that’s in the print medium.

…Now, we get somewhere.  This is the latest one I bought; another UK detector find.

 

Gules (red), a saltire (“X”) and chief (band across the top) or.

From my principal reference for Anglo-Norman heraldry (that is, of the predominantly Anglo-Norman aristocracy of the Angevin period), along with an ancillary one, this corresponds to exactly one person.  This is Richard de Brus (Bruce), an uncle of Robert I, King of Scotland.  Richard predeceased his own father, leaving no heirs.

https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#RobertBrusdied1295

…And his coat of arms never appeared in a later generation.  It shows up in several English rolls of arms of the later 13th century, including one a few years after his demise, but always in his own name.

It was sold unattributed by a dealer on UK ebay who sells lots of detector finds.  Here I think I’ve struck gold.  Sad as the story is (...and, really, the pendant isn’t much prettier in hand than the picture shows), there’s exactly one person to associate with this blazon.

 

References.  

Ashley, Steven.  Medieval Armorial Horse Furniture in Norfolk. East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 101, 2002.

Baker, John.  ‘The Earliest Armorial Harness Pendants.’  The Coat of Arms 3rd ser. 11 (2015), no. 229, pp. 1-24.

Humpherey-Smith, Cecil.  Anglo-Norman Armory Two: An Ordinary of Thirteenth-Century Armorials.  Canterbury: The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 1984.

Edited June 2, 2022 by JeandAcre

[rrdenarius]

I am a fan of scale weights. The Athena weight with a Gorgon crest is lead filled and weighs about 14 pounds. The hollow Byzantine Empress weight is 4 lbs.

[Al Kowsky]

22 hours ago, Orange Julius said:

Here’s a late Paleoindian / early archaic (8-10k BC) atlatl dart point that looks very much like @Al Kowsky’s above. I found this in Iowa in 2016 hiking around a river valley. It had eroded out of a hillside and had washed down onto a sandy area near the water. I was very excited to find it. I can’t find Roman coins where I live, but arrowheads, spearpoints and hand axes are occasionally still found if you keep your eyes open.

O.J., I feel better about my spear point after seeing yours. I bought my spear point from a Native American who had traveled the country digging up artifacts. I had no reason to doubt his word, I'm just naturally suspicious when it comes to flint knapped artifacts. The similarity of our spear points is more than casual 😉.

[Topcat7]

Like most people here I have  a 'modest' collection of artefacts from Egyptian Ushabtis to children's toys from the Indus civilization. However, staying on topic for the Roman period, amongst my many items I have a 'crucifixion nail'. (Same nail, two views.)

 

 

[Al Kowsky]

Pictured on this post are some carved jades in my collection, the axe-god pendant I sold at auction several years ago ☺️.

Costa Rican axe-god pendant, c. AD 300-700 , 6.75 in. long. Ex Al Kowsky Collection.

Costa Rican figural pendant, c. AD 300-700, 2.06 in. long. Carved from rare translucent emerald green jade. Ex Sotheby's, NYC, Nov. 25, 1994.

Chinese jade cicada pendant, Ming Dynasty, AD 1368-1644, 2.67 in. long.

 

Chinese white jade demon mask pendant, Qing Dynasty, AD 1636-1912, 1.67 in. long.

[ancientcoinguru]

i recognize many names on this thread — hello old friends!

Byzantine Bread Stamp

38x26x29 mm

 

[Alegandron]

7 hours ago, ancientcoinguru said:

i recognize many names on this thread — hello old friends!

Byzantine Bread Stamp

38x26x29 mm

 

Welcome! We have missed you!

[antwerpen2306]

I like this post, albert