I know we have some archers on here.
Anyone fancy some of these?
http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/aegean_swords.htm

Gorgeous, actually. Maybe a little more precision made than the originals?

very cool. wouldn't know the currency rates from japanese yen on there though. i know dollars. lol.  

One thing must be wrong on the info.It says 30mm long which is ok but the weight of 2.5  grams is ridiculously light for a bronze arrowhead of that dimensions.They must be around 10-15 grams.

I already knew that site, they make very accurate replicas.
They study a lot on archaeological foundings, just like every experimental archaeologist should do.
Still, their replicas are expensive.
I make iron arrowheads about 4-5 centimeters long and they weight 6 or 7 grams.
Since bronze does not deteriorate like iron does, it's easy to compare theire replicas with original arrowheads, just google the web for some and read their charateristics  ;)

Greetings,
Mauro.

I am thinking of getting one and making it into a pendant. What do you think?

That would be an original necklace!
Go for it!  :)
Mauro.

HurlinThom wrote on Feb 17^th, 2011 at 9:18pm:

Gorgeous, actually. Maybe a little more precision made than the originals?

actually, no. i've seen originals first hand. dug up by an archeaologist aquaintence of mine that are every bit as fine if not more so.

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz119/paleoarts/archery/100_3821640x480.jpg http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz119/paleoarts/archery/100_3822640x480.jpg

The one in the left seem Chinese?
The other has a shape I've never seen, what was the archaeological context?
Mauro.

Chris, I meant that they looked like they had been dropped from a precision-machined mould. The point part closely resembles a rifle bullet, a perfect ogive. The ancients were capable of fine work, no question of that.

That's for sure! Plus, those dealing with metals were almost considered Gods - they probably had nothing to think about but to work metals - others probably hunted for them, build their houses, and so on. So they had a lot of spare time to practice with metals, thus gaining a vaste knowledge and technique.
And don't forget that, from childhood to the grave, they did that job. After some decades of practice, everyone would be able to make such arrowheads.

By the way, during the Rennaissance, there was an ironsmith in Florence called "Il caparra" (caparra is the Italian word for deposit, it was his nickname, because he wanted to be paid before beginning a work). This ironsmith was so good that Lawrence the Magnificent often asked for his works, and a well famed painter such as Il Pollaiolo (http://www.storiadellarte.com/en/biografie/pollaiolo/vitapollaiolo.htm) used to prepare him some paintings, which Il caparra used as preparatory drawings for his iron creations!

Greetings,
Mauro.

my friend is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Greece and he said they dig these up by the thousands every year. wherever a battle has been fought, they find arrow heads enmass. the cool thing was that they can tell which army was where by the type of head they used and the orientation they find them in.

Yes, this is true!
About the orientation: it may be a useful method in diggings, but it is a non-sense if applied in recoinnances (and that's obvious).
In Central and Southern Italy (the ancient Magna Grecia), we actually found many bronze arrowheads, along with lots of Greek and Roman stuff, especially along the shores and underwater.
So these are Greek arrowheads? How interesting!
And why did he hafted them?
Greetings,
Mauro.

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Mar 1^st, 2011 at 6:26am:

Yes, this is true! About the orientation: it may be a useful method in diggings, but it is a non-sense if applied in recoinnances (and that's obvious). In Central and Southern Italy (the ancient Magna Grecia), we actually found many bronze arrowheads, along with lots of Greek and Roman stuff, especially along the shores and underwater. So these are Greek arrowheads? How interesting! And why did he hafted them? Greetings, Mauro.

A few years ago my wife and I were in Italy, on a package tour. The director said that if one wanted to see Greek remains you had to visit southern Italy because everything in Greece had been stolen. Unfortunately we never got south of Rome. The side-trip to Pompeii got cancelled.

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Mar 1^st, 2011 at 6:26am:

And why did he hafted them?

Only the last ones are arrowheads, the rest are swords.  That's why he hafted them.

No, not everything has been stolen in Greece. There's lots of good sites and museums, well known and off the beaten track.

I would second Mauro's question: why did Paleoarts' friend haft these ? It a rather unusual way of treating objects found in an archaeological dig. (for instance, it doesn't help with studying them). The only reason I can think for doing this is for exhibition in a museum-- but you'd do that with a replica.

And to second Mauro's other question: where were these found ?

The objects really don't look Greek (though I suppose they could be Mycenaean, i.e. early). I'd like to know where they were found-- that would answer the question.

To be blunt: your friend isn't simply very interested in the archaeology of ancient Greece-- to the point of buying unprovenanced antiquities ? The illegal extraction of these causes untold damage to the archaeological record, and precisely deprives us of knowlege such as "where does this come from ?" and "how was this used ?"

Thearos, my acquaintance is one of the leading experts here in the U.S. on ancient Greece and a fully tenured professor at a major university and he didn't buy any 'unprovenanced antiques'. these were either dug by his own hand or given to him by the university (i'm not sure which), but either way you can be sure that they were obtained legitimately. the hafting is simply the spine of the heads inserted in a hole and in no way damaged the points. like i said, there are literally tens of thousands of these arrow heads in his schools collection alone, so it isn't as if he was destroying priceless artifacts. he hafted them to show us (the group of primitive archers) how the greeks did it, and frankly your assumptions about him and his motives are a bit insulting.

OK.

Let me get this right: to show some archers how ancient arrows were hafted, he got these things-- from a museum ? from his own collection ?— and hafted them ? On the grounds that "we've got lots more" (not thousands; even the dig at Olynthos did not yield thousands of arrows and sling bullets; nor are battlefields excavated on a regular basis; and they do not yield thousands of arrowheads; and they wouldn't quite look like those-- more usual would be trilobal small points, and big bronze hooked Cretan ones)

The question still remains: where were these found ? If a recent dig, I wonder why they're in the US and not in Greece (I thought that removing any artifacts, especially from digs, was forbidden by law). Could be one of the older American-run digs-- but which one ?

And a new question: who is your friend ? Just curious.

To put it differently: the arrowheads look a bit odd, the explanation ("Thousands of these things !") is so cavalier, the treatment of actual artifacts so blunt, that I thought this was an amateur archaeologist flaunting his illegally acquired antiquities, a subject about which I feel strongly because it depletes a finite resource, the material remains from the past; on this subject, see my favorite blog


http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/


--which is why I assumed what I did. There was no insult meant; but probing questions, yes.