Axe with Digitations
Unknown · c. 1000-800 BC
Four short conical spikes project from the back of this bronze axe, the so-called digitations that give the type its name, and four ribs run across the socket. The narrow blade is set slightly off the line of the socket, and its upper and lower edges are raised into a rim while the cutting edge is left plain. The axe is just over twenty one centimetres long.
The Louvre attributes the piece to Luristan on the basis of its style and dates it to the early first millennium BC, around one thousand to eight hundred BC, the Iron Age of western Iran. Spiked axes like this were cast in large numbers in the Zagros highlands, and their thin blades and decorative spikes suggest they were made for display and burial as much as for fighting. The museum received it as a gift in nineteen thirty six. Archaeologists classify Luristan axes by the arrangement of their spikes and ribs, and this example represents one of the standard varieties.
Did You Know? The four spikes on the back were probably never meant to hit anything; they were a signature of the Luristan smiths.
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