Early Near Eastern Steel Swords Author(s): Herbert Maryon, R. M. Organ, O. W. Ellis, R. M. Brick, R. Sneyers, E. E. Herzfeld and F. K. Naumann Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 173-184 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/502669 . Accessed: 11/07/2013 03:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 134.245.242.153 on Thu, 11 Jul 2013 03:55:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Early Near Eastern Steel Swords HERBERT MARYON with technical reports by Mr. R. M. Organ, Dr. O. W. Ellis, Dr. R. M. Brick, Dr. R. Sneyers, Dr. E. E. Herzfeld and Dr. F. K. Naumann PLATES 65-72 Surveys of the early history of iron-working have was evidently one of his most cherished possessions. been made by many experts. Here it is necessary to When the coffin was opened the weapon was found refer only to some of the earliest known examples to be in perfect condition, uncorroded, and with but of worked iron. For it seems that in the fourth and a few small spots of tarnish. It is believed to have third millennia B.c. the craftsmen to whom the been made of meteoric iron (nickel steel) and in smelting of copper and the working of bronze was all probability was a present from the ruler of one a traditional craft, with many centuries of skillful of the iron-working districts of Asia Minor. How and artistic workmanship to their credit, sometimes keenly such presents were appreciatedmay be learnt became curious as to what use they might put some from the well known letter from a Hittite king, of the numerous masses of iron ore which came to Hattusilis III (ca. 1283-1260 B.c.) to another ruler, the surface of many hills on the southern side of the probably ShalmaneserI, King of Assyria. Black Sea, and in various districts of India and of "As to the good iron about which thou hast China. The craftsmen began to smelt the ore and written to me. Good iron is not available in my to forge the bloom into useful tools, though, as sealed store-house in Kizzuwadna. It is a bad time Homer tells us, their iron was "wrought with much for producing iron. I have written that they should toil." A few specimens of worked iron of the fifth produce some good iron. So far they have not and fourth millennia are known, such as the iron finished it. When they have finished I will send it beads found in prehistoric graves at Gerar in Egypt, to you. To-day however I have sent you a dagger- which are of meteoric iron. A millennium later is blade of iron." the iron blade from Tell Asmar (ca. 2800 B.c.), Kizzuwadna, it is now agreed, was situated in which Desch found to be made from man-smelted Cilicia. The letter proves that iron weapons were iron. Later again is a sword with a crescent-shaped still rare, and that even at this period, the thirteenth gold pommel and a long golden hand-grip of century before Christ, the king of the Hittites had rectangular section. Two half-tubes of gold, with no easy access to supplies of smelted iron.' crenellated edges, decorate the scabbard. This In the earliest Near Eastern examples of iron- weapon, dating from 2400-2100B.C., was found at working the smith's actual workmanship is of a Alaca Hfiyfik, near Ankara, by Dr. Hamil Kosay, fairly simple character;flattened strips of iron coiled and is now in the Archaeolgical Museum at Ankara to produce beads, and straightforward forge work (pl. 65, fig. I). Later, by perhaps a millennium, is for the blades. Many early tools and weapons were the sword of Tutankhamen (ca. 1360 B.c.), which unhardened. But until a method of hardening iron was found within his innermost, gold coffin and had been discovered this metal was a less useful 1 It is no uncommon thing for the fame of some rare product eleventh centuries,and the Sagas and Eddas contain many to spread far from the country of its origin. Throughout the storieswhich enshrinetheir fame. The Vandalsin theirpassage ages the search for an efficient weapon has been universal, from EasternGermany through Europe acquired some of these and fine weapons travelled far. The story of the "pattern weaponsand carriedthem throughSpain to their campaigns welded" swords is a case in point. These are swords with in North Africa,where they conqueredCarthage in A.D.439. twisted strips of steel and iron welded into the blade. Though Then they built a fleet,captured Rome (455), and made them- in all probability made only at a few places in the Rhine selvesmasters of the greaterMediterranean islands. A few years Valley, their efficiency and beauty were so great that their later their king sent to Theodoric,the Ostro-Goth,King of reputation spread throughout Europe, and warriors from many Rome (493-526), a presentof some patternwelded swords, lands sought to possess them. They became the favourite weapon thus repeatingthe gesturemade by the Hittite king, Hattusilis, of the Teutonic and Scandinavian warriors of the first to the seventeencenturies before. This content downloaded from 134.245.242.153 on Thu, 11 Jul 2013 03:55:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 174 HERBERT MARYON [AIA 65 materialthan bronze,which could be hardenedby the weapon he saw in the Khanenko Collection at hammering.We come now to work in iron and Kiev was the same weapon as that which had been steelof much higherquality than the smith'searlier acquired many years before at Samsun on the Black effortscould produce. Sea coast. He believed that it had been found in In recentyears a numberof finely designedsteel one of the many tumuli of that region of Pontus. daggers or short swords, all having their hilts But he gives no evidence that this was so, nor does decoratedwith humanheads and figuresof crouch- he state where the tumulus was situated. Also, he ing lions, datingfrom some unknownearly period, evidently believed that the weapon was of cast iron, have found their way from the Near East into for his words "from the same mould" imply that variouscollections. No closelycomparable material the technique employed in its manufacture was is known, and their place of origin has not been that of the foundry. But, as is shown in this paper, exactlyascertained, though a numberof the weap- these weapons prove to be of wrought steel. ons have been found in tombs in Luristan. At the present time swords of this type are to be The modernhistory of theseweapons begins with found in the following collections, and without Herzfeld's discoveryat Leningrad,in 1935, of a doubt further specimens will be recorded, as frag- catalogue of the Khanenko collection at Kiev, ments of many others are said by Godard to have Russia,in which referencewas made to a dagger, been discovered in tombs in the Zagros mountains. said to be of iron, which was in that collection. i. Khanenko Collection, Kiev. Herzfeld made a specialjourney to see the piece 2. Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, in question.Of it he wrote "It is the identicaldag- Toronto. ger, from the same mould, acquired at Samsun, 3. British Museum, London. east of Sinope, before 90oo-I believe about 890o. 4. University Museum, Philadelphia. No such dagger had come from Luristanbefore 5. Muse'esRoyaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels. 1930, and the Khanenko piece was certainlynot 6. Louvre, Paris. broughtfrom Luristanto Samsunbefore 900oo,but 7. University Museum, Hamburg. was found in one of the many tumuli of that region 8. Oriental Institute of the University of of Pontus. The iron daggersare indeed a foreign Chicago, Chicago. elementamong Luristanbronzes, and though only 9. Museum, Teheran. one of the specimensis known to have come from io. Deutsches Klingenmuseum, Solingen- Pontus, that must be the original provenanceof Grifriith. them all. In Pontus,iron, easily workable, lies above Ii. Dusseldorf. ground. This rare occurrenceaccounts partly for Although these works are generally recorded as the importantpolitical role this land played after coming from Luristan there is no evidence to show the middle of the secondmillennium, when Egyp- that they were made there. A characteristicfeature tians barteredtheir gold, Babylonianstheir lapis of so many of the early works found in Luristan lazuli, for iron."2 is that their makers were interested in the casting Now if Herzfeld is correct in attributingthe of bronze rather than the forging of iron. For the centreof manufactureof these weaponsto Pontus, development of that craft we should look further his opinionfits in well (a) with the extensiveiron north-to the lands known to the Greeks as those ore depositsalong the south coastof the Black Sea, of the Chalybes-to Pontus and the western slopes (b) with the locationin E. Pontus of the Moschi of the Caucasus. and Tibareni(= Meshechand Tubal of the Bible) Kermanshah in Luristan, in whose neighbour- the originalsmiths who worked iron, and (c) the hood many of these swords are said to have been location of the Chalybes who, in the western world, found, is but 400 miles from Lake Van, and 600 tradition says invented steel.