An Inscribed Dagger at the National Museum of Iran: Forgery Or Genuine?1

Iranica Antiqua, vol. XLII, 2007 doi: 10.2143/IA.42.0.2017877

AN INSCRIBED DAGGER AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRAN: FORGERY OR GENUINE?1

BY Ali A.VAHDATI (Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organisation of North Khorassan Province, Iran)

Abstract: In the past seventy years inscribed bronze objects were reported in considerable numbers from unknown sites said to be in Luristan. A major group of these inscribed bronzes are weapons, predominantly daggers. This paper dis- cusses an inscribed bronze dagger, allegedly from Luristan, which is now housed in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran. Taking a closer look at the dagger and its inscription, I propose that it can not typologically be attributed to the Achaemenid period and its inscription is a fake. Although the dagger has early first millennium parallels in western Iran, I suggest before it is accepted as genuine, that it must be submitted to technical analysis to see if the inscription has been engraved on a genuine blade.

Keywords: Iran, Luristan, Inscription, Cuneiform, Old Persian, Bronze dagger

Introduction Since the late twenties-early thirties of the last century, the time of the inception of mass plundering activities in western Iran a variety of unexcavated bronze artefacts with Mesopotamian, Elamite or rarely Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions have been reported from western Iran, allegedly form Luristan, but their exact proveniences so far remains unknown. In fact, after several decades of archaeological investigations in western Iran the asser- tion that “not a single typical, canonical Luristan bronze known bears an inscription” (Muscarella 1988a: 120, n. 6; 1988b: 39) is still well correct. A major group of these inscribed bronzes are weapons, predominantly dagger/ swords. These weapons usually bear monarch names that can provide us

1 The object called my attention six years ago; when I was a third-year B.A student in Tehran University. Then I published it (in Persian) in a student quarterly under the present title (Vahdati 2001). Since then, I’ve learned more about the issue and developed more ideas about the object that will be presented below. 222 A.A. VAHDATI with chronological indications to date uninscribed weapons of the same types. However, the fact that not a single example of these inscribed weapons has ever been excavated in Luristan or elsewhere in Iran make it impossible to extract from them authenticated historical/cultural interpretations. Such unexcavated, stray objects, as Muscarella (1988b: 39) has stated can not instruct us about cultural contacts of ancient Luristan inhabitants, movement of peoples, or about mercenaries and languages spoken or read in that territory. Yet, a close examination of such strays is truly needed, especially in those instances that are demonstrable forgeries to divulge the destructive role of forgers and antiquities dealers in historical-cultural reconstructions. In this article I will discuss a bronze tanged dagger (?) blade with an Old Persian inscription which is now housed in the National Museum of Iran (Musée Iran Bastan) — on view at the Luristan Bronzes Hall — labelled as a “Luristan Bronze Dagger” under registration no. 2694/15633. According to the museum registration information the dagger has been confiscated in 1960 and like most objects from plundering excavations at that time was reported to have come from a graveyard in Luristan.

Description The weapon is an exceptionally well preserved2 bronze tanged blade, pos- sibly a dagger cast in one piece (Pl. 1). However, since the grip is missing it can hardly be established for certain that the blade has originally been used as a dagger or spearpoint. The blade is double-edged with a broad, flat mid-rib and has a sharply angled shoulder and straight sides, which gradually tapers towards a point. The long tang of the blade is plain with rectangular section. The overall length of the weapon is 41.7 cm (length of tang 6.5; length of blade 35.2) which inclines me to identify it as a “dagger” or “dirk”, rather than a spearpoint. Contrary to most bronze artefacts of the ancient Near East that are coated with a green patina, the blade has evenly been covered with a thin dark-brown corrosion product that needs to be closely studied by microscopic examination. An Old Persian cuneiform inscription can be seen down the length of the blade which I read as ahuramazd. Below, I will return to the inscription to discuss it in details.

2 So well preserved that one may think it has never been laid in the earth! AN INSCRIBED DAGGER 223

Typology

A set of inscribed bronze daggers attributed to western Iran has already been published in several essays (e.g. Nagel 1959-60; Dossin 1962; Calmeyer 1969: 161 ff; Moorey 1971: 28-32; Langdon 1977: 283-84). These are mainly flange-hilted daggers with their inscription always written across the base of the blade, under the ricasso, sometimes in two continuous lines across the two faces. Based on the inscribed flange hilted examples which bear the names of monarchs of the Kassite and 2nd Isin dynasty (some instances bear the name of the scribe/owner), this type of dagger has been dated to the 12th-11th centuries B.C., but continued to be used in western Iran until the 9th century B.C. (Dyson 1964: 41-42; Moorey 1971: 71; Medvedskaya 1982: 70-71). A typical bronze flange-hilted dagger of the 12th-11th centuries B.C. published by Borger and Ühlemann (1963: 3, Pl. 1) bears in Old Persian script the name of Darius on one side and non-sense signs on the other. However, the authenticity of this inscription is highly dubious (Moorey 1971: 34, 71; Medvedskaya 1982: 70; Muscarella 1988a: note 4, 284). However, it is interesting that the inscribed dagger under examination is not a flange hilted dagger with an inscription across the blade, rather it is a simple tanged dagger with an inscription unusually written down the length of the blade. In general, this type of tanged daggers, sometimes with rivet hole(s), was known in Iran as early as the 4th-3rd millennium B.C. in sites such as Hissar Ic and Sialk III-IV (Medvedskaya 1982: 80, fig. 12: 1-7). The type continued to be produced throughout the second and the beginning of the first millennium B.C. Similar tanged blades have been found in the southwest Caspian region (Haerinck 1988, Pl. 61: 1-11; Khalatbari 2004/ 1383: Pl. 52), Gheytaryeh (Kambaxsh-Fard 1991/1370: 103), Sialk B (Ghirshman 1939: Pl. XCII; 28), and commonly in Bronze and Iron Age sites of Luristan, both in Pish-i Kuh (Khatunban A, Tepe Guran and Giyan) and Posht-i Kuh regions (Overlaet 2003: 162-63; Pl. 129, 131). However, the simplicity of the form and the widespread use of this type of daggers through a large span of time and over a vast territory make it impossible to date unexcavated examples like the blade under examination, but it can be firmly stated that the type went out of use much before the Achaemenid period. Here, a question may be rised whether the inscription was added in the Achaemenid period to an older blade acquired in some manner or whether the inscription is a modern addition (if the blade 224 A.A. VAHDATI itself is not an aftercast from genuine examples!). I believe that the latter option is well correct; i.e. the inscription (if not the entire blade) is a modern forgery.

The Inscription An Old Persian cuneiform inscription engraved below the tang, on the broad midrib and down the length of the blade representing the name of the ancient Iranian god, Ahuramazda in a nominative case and without any title/adjective (ll.1, bottom):

auramazada ahuramazd

A close inspection on the blade and its inscription reveals serious problems: firstly, the poor manufacturing quality of the weapon cannot readily be com- pared with the fine and elegant Achaemenid works; a circumstance which obviously indicates that the blade had never been produced in a royal work- shop and by court craftsmen. Secondly, the inscription, although very short, has been written with orthographic mistakes: a) the name of Ahuramazda, in its nominative case should be terminated to the long vowel of a ( ), as it is in all Old Persian inscriptions3. Only later on, in Middle Persian languages the long vowel of a disappeared from the end of the name, when it turned into Ohrmazd. b) The third sign of the inscription, ra, has been written mistakenly. The scribe has considered the three horizontal wedges of the sign as equal ( ), whereas in its correct form, ra has the middle horizontal wedge shorter than the side ones ( ). If the middle wedge is to be equal to the side ones with a small recession ( ) it has to be read as la. There is, however, no more alternative which means that the third sign of the inscription of the blade does not exist in the Old Persian alphabet! c) The same goes for the fourth sign, ma, which shows all three vertical wedges as equal ( ). However, in its correct form, ma has the middle wedge shorter than the side ones ( ).

3 The correct form of the name in the nominative case is: (ahuramazdah) AN INSCRIBED DAGGER 225

Needless to say that contrary to the clumsily engraved inscription of the blade, in all genuine Achaemenid inscriptions, whether on monuments or on objects, an exceptional care has been taken to produce a very fine work, while syntactic and spelling errors are not unusual (for a list of such errors in Old Persian inscriptions see Kent 1953: 23ff). Third, it is worth men- tioning that contrary to many known Achaemenid inscribed objects, which almost always bear the name of the “Great King”, sometimes trilingually (e.g. see Saremi 1994/1373), the blade under examination bears the name of a deity with an unusual form. Indeed, these inaccuracies are not consis- tent with the character of ancient art. All of these data, I suggest, indicate that the inscription has been engraved in modern times by someone, who did not have a good knowl- edge of the Achaemenid traditions at all and of the Old Persian language/ script in particular.

Conclusions

In spite of the fact that the inscription is obviously spurious, until further laboratory analysis being accomplished the blade itself will remain dubious. In this regard two possibilities should be considered: First, it is highly probable that the forger had acquired a genuine, uninscribed blade and added the inscription to increase the monetary value of the object on the market. Second, although the blade has early first millennium parallels, especially in Luristan region, the possibility of being an aftercast from genuine examples, however remote, should not be completely overlooked. In such cases, the counterfeited product can not be stylistically distinguished from the original example, except by laboratory analysis (Muscarella 1977: 171). Indeed, before the blade itself is accepted as genuine, it must be submitted to technical analysis to see if the inscription has been engraved on a genuine blade.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Dr. Muscarella, who generously read this paper, offered helpful comments and corrected my writing where necessary. Of course, the author bears full responsibility of interpretations presented in this paper. 226 A.A. VAHDATI

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Pl. 1.