Axe of Bronze and Iron
Unknown · Iron Age, 1st millennium BC (undated in museum record)
Made of bronze with iron, this axe head from Luristan measures nineteen centimetres in height and is one of the plainer weapons in the case. The combination of the two metals is the point of interest: iron was the newer, harder material, and smiths of the Iranian Iron Age experimented with joining it to the familiar bronze, sometimes casting a bronze socket around an iron blade.
The Louvre records the axe under two inventory numbers and holds it as a gift; no date of creation or detailed description is given in the museum's record. Its material places it in the first millennium BC, when iron gradually replaced bronze for cutting edges across the Near East while bronze remained preferred for decorative parts. Bimetallic weapons of this kind are well attested in the Luristan cemeteries, where they lay beside purely bronze axes like those displayed around it. Corrosion attacks the iron faster than the bronze, which is why such pieces often look uneven today.
Did You Know? Bronze and iron sit side by side in this one object, and the iron always rusts first.
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