Elegant Akkadian axehead
Price: on request
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Object number
AR2674
| Object: |
Mesopotamian Naram-Sin type axe head in the shape of an animal's head
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| Material: |
Bronze.
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| Period: |
24th to 22nd century BC, Akkadian period. |
| Description: |
Elegant and exceedingly rare bronze axehead from Mesopotamia. It has a faceted blade, crescent shaped tip and rounded, elongated butt. The whole axehead has the shape of a highly stylized animal. The tip issues from the mouth of the creature. The head is also defined by two raised pellet eyes. The creature blends without transition into the round socket with concave flanges at the top and bottom. This is a highly interesting variety. It combines a common shape known from Akkad during the reign of king Naram-Sin with a rare zoomorphic design typically associated with ancient Iran. A good discussion of an almost identical axehead is offered by Muscarella in Bronze and Iron (1988), pages 387-388. Only a handful of axes of this rare type are known from museums and the art market. |
| Dimensions: |
121mm long.
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| Condition: |
Worthy of being exhibited in a museum. Slightly cleaned surface with wonderful green to brown patina. Mounted on a wood stand.
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| Provenance: |
Acquired by us in 2019 from R. Deutsch, Israel. Exported to Germany in 2019 with permission of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Previously in the US-american private collection of Donald Simon. The collection is well-known from several pieces donated to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Donald Simon acquired this axehead in the mid 1970ies from the antiquities gallery of Haj Omer, Israel. This object has been searched for in the database of ArtLoss, comprising more than 500.000 objects claimed stolen or lost. It also integrates the databases of Interpol and FBI. An ArtLoss certificate comes with this artefact. |
| References: |
For a very close parallel, probably from the same workshop, cf. O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron - Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1988), no. 512. This axehead is a variety of the type depicted on the famous Victory Stele of the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (around 2300 BC, now in the Louvre museum with accession no. Sb 4). |
| Authenticity: |
We unconditionally guarantee the authenticity of every artefact, all items are subject to our lifetime return policy on authenticity.
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