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An Illustration to a Mari Inventory?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

K. R. Maxwell-Hyslop
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Extract

iṣkakku kap-ta-ru-ú mu-ḫa-šu ù it i-ši-is-sú-ú ḫurâṣa(m) uḫ-ḫu-uZ mu-uḫ-ḫa-šu ta-am-liabanuknê(m)

‘A weapon of Caphtor with pommel and base overlaid with gold and pommel inlaid with lapis lazuli.’

A Fragmentary fresco from the Palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari of a flange-hilted dagger or dirk with pointed shoulders (or ‘horns’) provides a possible illustration of a type of weapon described in the inventory and merits attention when Levantine-Cretan-Mycenean connections are discussed. In 1961, N. K. Sandars drew attention to this text, convincingly traced the ancestry of the Mycenean flanged daggers and swords (her type B, with rudimentary ‘horns’) to the Asiatic mainland, and suggested that the wealth of weapons in Graves IV and V at Mycenae could be explained as ‘loot from foreign arsenals’. The Mari fresco (which must have been painted before Hammurabi destroyed the palace in his 33rd year in 1759 B.C.) together with the contents of tomb 22 at Jericho reinforces this conclusion and therefore precludes identifying the weapon on the fresco as an import from Crete, although the inventory phrase kap-ta-ru-ú can be interpreted from a technical point of view (see below).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1970 , pp. 165 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1970

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References

1 Dossin, G., Syria 20 (1949), 111–12.Google Scholar

2 Sandars, N. K., ‘The first Aegean swords and their ancestry’ in AJA 65 (1961), 17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and pl. 18. I am glad of the opportunity to correct my statement in Iraq 8 (1946), 34 Google Scholar, that the origin of the distinctive feature of ‘rudimentary horns’ on Asiatic flanged hilted daggers should be sought in the Aegean. See also Branigan, K., ‘A transitional phase in Minoan Metallurgy’ in Annual of the British School at Athens 63 (1968), 192f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I owe this reference to Miss Sandars.

3 Kenyon, K., Jericho II, Fig. III, 3, p. 237.Google Scholar For a similar tanged blade and pommel see Tomb A, Tell el Fara‘h, associated with a bronze belt and socketed axe-head; Vaux, R. de in Revue Biblique 54 (1947), pl. XX.Google Scholar

4 N. K. Sandars, op. cit., 18, 1; Petrie, F., Ancient Gaza IV Google Scholar, pls. XXVIII 297, XVIII, 101–105; Petrie, F., Beth-Pelet (Tell Fara) I Google Scholar, pl. XI, 82.

5 G. Karo, Schachtgräber von Mykenai, pl. LXXXVII.

6 Bottero, J., RA 43 (1949), 22.Google Scholar