Inscribed Phoenician Bronze Arrowhead 11th Century BCE

Description

Inscribed Phoenician Bronze Arrowhead
Bronze
11th Century BCE
4" x 3/4" / 10 cm x 2 cm
A
rare bronze arrowhead
with
inscribed ancient lettering
on one side of the blade.
The lettering is not Elamite as the UK dealer who sold it to me 16 years suggested and neither is it Greek. It is similar to proto-Cannanite but seems to be much more like early Phoenician. Both of those languages pre-date Greek which experts generally agree on had origins from the Phoenician alphabet.
"The Phoenician writing system is, by virtue of being an alphabet, simple and easy to learn, and also very adaptable to other languages, quite unlike cuneiform or hieroglyphics. In the 9th century BCE the Aramaeans had adopted the Phoenician alphabet, added symbols for the initial "aleph" and for long vowels. This Aramaic alphabet eventually turned into modern Arabic. By the 8th century BCE, texts written in the Phoenician alphabet whose authors were probably not Phoenician appeared in
Cilicia
in southern
Asia Minor
and in northern
Syria
. Eventually the Greeks, who were in close trading contact with the
Levant
, adopted the Phoenician alphabet, added vowel sounds, and thus created the
Greek alphabet
(upon which our modern Latin alphabet is based)."
"
The eleventh century is around the earliest point where we can recognise something in Lebanon that can properly be called the Phoenician alphabet; it’s the very cusp of the emergence of a relatively standardised script that would be adopted for official use. About a century later we get the first Phoenician inscriptions in stone, with a set of royal inscriptions from the harbour city of Byblos.
It’s curious that one of our first surviving uses of the Phoenician alphabet is to write names on arrowheads."
"
We can’t rule out one Phoenician thinking along the same lines as Baldrick, but there are actually rather a lot of these inscribed arrowheads. The chances of a whole bunch of Phoenicians all having the same cunning plan are, as Baldrick might say, very small indeed. Ultimately, the purpose of these arrowheads is a bit of a mystery. Given that they’re metal to begin with (expensive), and that people have gone to the trouble adding an inscription to them carefully, it’s probably unlikely that they were for actual combat use. One idea is that they may be for belomancy – divination based on the flight of arrows."
"
It’s unlikely that in the eleventh century people in Phoenicia were
only
using writing to put their names on arrowheads, even for magical or ritual purposes. Instead we should probably imagine that there was also a certain amount of writing on perishable materials like wax or papyrus – which, after all, are better suited for a linear writing system like the Phoenician alphabet than metal or stone.
This object is a glimpse, then, of a very important but enigmatic period in the development of alphabetic writing. The inscription itself doesn’t say very much, but there’s a lot going on in the background that informs how we understand this artefact and others like it."
This fascinating arrowhead is in
Excellent condition
with
nice overall patina
.
Note: The last two pics (#8 and #9) show a similar style of bronze inscribed arrowhead that is discussed above. This is not the arrowhead that I have listed but just a very similar type/style being shown as an example!
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. If you see something there that catches your eye, let me know and I will list it here on ebay. The site is currently being upgraded but lots of cool stuff to peruse there.
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