Conversion reversal

More than two years ago, I undertook a project of modifying half a dozen Native Way CH257 tanged triangular Chinese arrowheads into socketed Scythian-style trilobals.  The result was acceptable in weight though a bit crude in appearance.  However, when I shot them at Marathon 2015, the heads had a tendency to lodge in the wooden target while the rest of the arrow popped loose, as the arrow glue by which they were attached failed.  Arrowheads with the tangs left intact did not come loose.

I was left with two options:  order more arrowheads and convert them into trilobals without removing the tangs (arrowheads of this type are known from Achaemenid Persia, though rarer than the socketed types), or try to attach new inserts with a stronger bonding material.  In this case I chose to create new tangs by soldering the socketed heads to metal inserts.

Since the sockets were created with a 1/8-inch drill bit, it was easy to create the tangs from 1/8-inch brass rod.  I sanded the ends of the rod segments up to past where they would enter the sockets to make sure they were clean and free of oxidation, smeared a little solder paste (top) onto the tangs and placed the arrowhead onto the tang.

I worried that the tangs would anneal and wind up bending if they struck a hard target.  To try and prevent this, I clamped each tang up to 1/4-inch from the point in a heavy vise before hitting it with the gas torch, and applied heat only just until the solder melted and flowed around the junction.

The soldering seems to have been successful, but whether it will be strong enough to withstand shooting into hard targets remains to be seen.  With a melting point of 430F, this is not a "hard" solder, and the contact area can't be very large.

I also took the opportunity to anneal and straighten the tang of a Native Way G202.  While I have not yet tested it, I think that crooked tangs may run the risk of bending further when striking a hard target.  On the other hand, tangs that have been softened too much through annealing may also wind up bending.  These questions will have to wait until spring for answers.

Deve Hüyük - the full catalogue

Following Friday's post, I found Roger Moorey's catalogue of finds.  It was embarrassingly easy and I don't know why my earlier searches didn't turn it up, but here goes anyway.  Although most of what's shown is in the form of line drawings, it's still a rich gallery of objects common to our time period.

An important note on time periods:  The site as a whole comprises several phases.  Deve Hüyük I seems to be Neo-Assyrian, while Deve Hüyük II is Achaemenid.  There's also a few Arsacid-period graves in phase II; these are termed Deve Hüyük III.  Therefore if you're interested in any particular object, you need to confirm which phase it belongs to.

Moorey states, on the basis of the long sword and hilt fragments from Persepolis (see OIP #69), that the flanged dagger was used throughout the Achaemenid period.  He also lends some credence to something I've long suspected, that this dagger is the same as the "Elamite" dagger worn by robe-clad Persians and Elamites in period art.

There's a lot of highly decorated pottery, including several "flasks" shaped like pointed amphorae but without handles.  A canteen broadly similar to the ones from Persepolis but slightly different in detail is here described as a "pilgrim flask," while another, highly decorated glazed one is considered to be of Egyptian influence.

Those looking to add more flare to high-class impressions may look to the variety of bronze bracelets, anklets, rings and earrings, many of which should be simple to fabricate from metal rod or strips with annealing and filing.  Beads of all sorts of materials appear, as well as small, ceramic human head and animal pendants.

Among toiletries are a pair of tweezers, several circular bronze mirrors, and tubes and applicator sticks for kohl, a kind of eyeliner.  The kohl tubes and sticks are not necessarily feminine accessories, as Xenophon claims that Astyages, like other Median men, wore "pencillings beneath his eyes."  (Some of the attached codes may clarify this but I'm only skimming for the time being.)

Achaemenid bronze bowls, rhytons, iron akinakai, sagarides, arrowheads, tanged javelin heads, a second gorytos cover decoration, snaffle bits, arm fibulae and cylinder seals mostly reinforce what we already know.  One socketed trilobate arrowhead is attached to a bronze chain for some reason, and most of the spearheads run to proportionally rather narrow, though they may have corroded at the edges.  There's also a bronze bell described as a horse fitting.

Converting the Native Way CH257

Alongside their G202, Native Way offers several models of Chinese bronze arrowheads that may be of interest to Classical reenactors.  The best prospect as far as I can discern is the CH257.

The smaller one above is the 257.  Wilkie Collins very kindly included a packet of  the larger CH259 with my order.  The 257, not counting the tang, is about 24mm (or a bit less than an inch), which would be on the small side for those used in the Graeco-Persian wars, but acceptable.  It weighs 12g as cast, more than half of which is in the tang.

The 259 is more attractive, with grooves giving the suggestion of triple flanges.  It's 49mm in the head and weighs 25g.  I think this is an acceptable length; definitely on the big side, but I've seen arrowheads at auction and antique dealer websites described as up to 50mm.  Still too heavy - but our techniques here should help that.

Mr. Collins describes them as armor-piercing.  I don't know anything about Chinese archery, but I can believe it.  They show a compact, sturdy cross section with little or no waste, and the tang would combine well with a bamboo shaft, resulting in a very tough, heavy arrow with plenty of momentum in a small area.

Occasional flawed castings may be found.

Chinese armor-piercer to Persian bantamweight

The first thing to do is grind in the flanges.  I've obtained a respirator for my foundry class, so grinding the leaded bronze with a Dremel shouldn't be a problem.  Here I'm using two different-shaped cutting bits to incise grooves and grind out the bulk of metal, and small files and rifflers to finish.  Finally they are sanded and then burnished with a steel brush.

The tangs are cut off with an angle grinder - wrap the heads in something like leather and hold them in a vise to accomplish this step safely.  Next the bases must be ground flat.

A post hole is drilled into a block of wood with a drill press.  The head is embedded in the hole to hold it steady.

The drill press is fitted with a 1/8-inch drill bit, brought down very slowly so as to let the cutting edges gradually shave at the bronze and not get jammed in it...

...  and the socketed arrowheads loosened with gentle hammer taps and extracted.  Weight is down to approximately 3g; a bit heavy for the size, but an excellent historical weight range for the type.  The heads can now be attached to reed or bamboo shafts using a wooden insert - I intend to use sections of bamboo skewer.

A lot of work?  Yes, admittedly, and attainable mainly because I have access to a drill press at the moment.  Also I still can't produce a finish as good as arrowheads that were cast as three-bladed.  But if you're in North America and have a drill press available, this is a very economical option.

Peoples of the empire: The Parthians

After the Lydians come a long string of peoples whose histories and cultures in Achaemenid times are too poorly-documented to put together a good article.  Skipping through more than a dozen such names finally brings us to the Parthians.

Geographical definition
Parthia (O.P. Parthava) lay on the southwest corner of the Caspian, west of Hyrcania, south of the Kopet Dag mountains that separate modern Iran and Turmenistan, and north of the deserts of central Iran.

History
Parthia may have been subject to the Medes and acknowledged Persian suzerainty after Cyrus conquered Media.  The country first appears in the Behistun inscription, where its satrap is Darius the Great's father, Hystaspes.  After Darius seized the throne, the Parthians joined Phraortes' revolt and besieged Hystaspes in the Parthian city of Vishpauzâtish, but he defeated them on March 8, 521 and again at Patigrabana on July 11.

With the Arians, Chorasmians and Sogdians, the Parthians made up the 16th tax district, paying 300 talents yearly.  At times Parthia formed a joint satrapy with Hyrcania.  At the Apadana, they are illustrated bringing bowls and a Bactrian camel.  Parthians took part in the 480 invasion of Greece as infantry, marching with the Chorasmians under Artabazus son of Pharnaces.  They are not mentioned at the major battles.

Parthia drops off the radar for a century and a half following Xerxes' invasion.  We next hear of them at Gaugamela in 331, where together with the Hyrcanians, they fought as cavalry under the joint satrap Phrataphernes in the Persian left wing (commanded overall by Mazaeus).  Phrataphernes remained with Darius on his final flight toward Parthia, but after the Persian king was murdered, Phrataphernes submitted peacefully to Alexander and thus retained his office.

Diodorus has Phratapernes still holding this office at the Partition of Babylon, but at Triparadiscus it was reassigned to Philip, formerly of Sogdiana.  Philip was deposed and killed in 318 by Peithon, who made his brother Eudamus governor, but the following year the other eastern satraps expelled them and in 316 Seleucus gave Parthia to a satrap of his choosing, Stasander.

The Seleucids maintained nominal control over Parthia until 247, when a political crisis in Antioch motivated the satrap Andragoras to declare Parthia an independent state.  Just nine years later, however, a tribe of Eastern Iranian nomads known as the Parni invaded from the north and conquered Parthia.  This was the beginning of the Arsacid dynasty, which in the second century BC came to rule most of Greater Iran.


The Arsacids were deposed early in the third century AD by a resurgent Persia under the Sassanids.  The Sassanids dissolved Parthia as an administrative unit and made it part of a larger province, Khorasan.  While the Parthian language continued to be used (judging from bilingual inscriptions) early in the Sassanid period, the region seems to have become Persianized at least by the time of Ferdowsi in the 10th century.  Today the area is divided among several Iranian provinces and is home mostly to native Persian-speakers with Kurds and Turkmens in the north.


By the Arsacid period, the name Parthava had been worn down into Pahlav or Pahlaw, which (as the adjective Pahlavi) survived as a designation of things originating in northeastern Iran.

Language
Parthian was a Western Iranian language and thus more closely related to Persian than Avestan or other Eastern languages, but belonged to the Northwestern sub-branch, whereas Persian belongs to the Southwestern.  Parthian is attested in Pahlavi (a script derived from Aramaic) from the Arsacid and early Sassanid dynasties, and was probably different in the Achaemenid period, perhaps resembling Old Persian a little more.

Religion
I can find nothing on Parthian religion under the Achaemenids, but a reasonable guess would be something similar to the Persians, in a transitional state between ancient Iranian polytheism and early Mazdaism.

Clothing
Parthians in royal art wear pullover tunics, loose-fitting trousers and mid-calf pull-on boots.  The Apadana delegation wear what look like tiaras that are very full and made of soft woven fabric, though they could instead be a complex kind of turban wrap.  The one at Naqs-e Rostam wears a more standard cut of tiara.

Weapons
Herodotus has the Parthians armed like Bactrians, who carry "reed bows" and spears.  I think you would be safe using trilobate bronze arrowheads, which were common in both western Iran and Scythia.  In Arsacid times the Parthians were known for their cavalry, but they probably took heavy influence from the Arsacids' nomadic ancestors.  The Parthian at Naqs-e Rostam wears a Medo-Persian akinakes.  It is probable that the Parthian akinakes was more like the Scythian in style.

Peoples of the empire: The Indians

Geographical definition
Ancient India (Greek "land of the Indos") was regarded as beginning at the Indus Valley, which lies mostly in modern Pakistan.  English Indus derives via Latin from Greek Indos, in turn from Old Persian Hinduš and ultimately Sanskrit Sindhu, meaning simply "river."  Presumably it was regarded as the greatest river in the region.  Most of the valley today forms Pakistan's Sindh and Punjab provinces.

History
While the Indus Valley had been home to an urban Bronze Age civilization, the India of Classical times began to take shape in the late Vedic period (c. 1000 BC) as Indo-Aryan culture expanded over the Gangetic Plain.

The Achaemenid dynasty corresponds loosely to the Mahājanapada period in Indian tradition, when the north of the country was divided among competing mahā ("major") janapada ("tribal footholds").  Historians consider these traditions to reflect the transformation from Vedic semi-nomadic tribal culture to a settled, farming culture.

The western regions, where the Achaemenids held sway, are not generally counted among the Mahājanapadas.  The Mahābhārata mentions several western kingdoms which are believed to have lain in the Indus Valley prior to Achaemenid times:  Madra in the northeast, Kekeya, Sivi, and Sauvira in the southwest.

Into this situation, Darius the Great invaded in the late 500s BC.  Because Gandhara is mentioned at Behistun, and Hinduš only in his later inscriptions, it is believed that he conquered southward into the subcontinent after 520 when the Behistun inscription was created.  Herodotus says that Darius hired the Carian navigator Scylax of Caryanda to explore the region as a preparation for his invasion.  The events that followed are unknown, but it appears that Darius was at least successful in establishing suzerainty.  Lendering holds this to have occurred in 515.

Herodotus says that India formed the 20th, most populous and wealthiest satrapy in the empire, paying 360 talents of gold dust annually, equivalent to 4,680 talents of silver or nearly a third of the revenues collected from all satrapies.  At the Persepolis apadana, Indians are shown bearing scales (perhaps containing gold dust), a horse and things that resemble double-headed wood axes.  Darius states in his Susa inscription that India was the source for some of the ivory used in the palace's construction.

Though his testimony might lead to a presumption that such a rich land would be an important holding, the literary and archaeological records shows very little evidence of the Achaemenids' presence.  Presumably imperial rule was remote, which implies a high degree of autonomy.

In describing events at the edge of the world known to the Greeks, Herodotus' narrative often becomes strange.  He describes Indians who wear woven bulrushes for clothing, who kill and eat their sick, or others who eat only wild grain.  In one famous passage (III.102) he speaks of ants the size of foxes, who gather gold dust which the Indians in the far north (possibly in modern Afghanistan) were wont to steal, entering the giant anthills furtively and riding away on camelback as soon as the ants smelled them and gave chase.

Hopefully he is more trustworthy on matters closer to home.  He says that Indians fought in the 480 invasion of Greece both as infantry and cavalry under Pharnazathres son of Artabates.  Mardonius selected the entire Indian contingent as part of his residual army.  At Plataea he stationed them to face the Greeks of Hermione, Eretria, Styra and Chalcis.

Much like other eastern parts of the empire, India fades from Western history in the later fifth and fourth centuries.  To what extent the Indus Valley remained in the empire's grasp is unclear.  In the late fifth century the eastern Mahājanapada Maghadha under King Mahapadma Nanda began to conquer and consolidate northern India into the Nanda empire, and by the time of Alexander the Great, had advanced nearly to the edges of the Persian empire.

Indians fought at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331, bringing 15 elephants and a number of chariots, as well as cavalry, who are said to have broken through the Macedonian line late in the battle.

After the Persian empire fell, India became the last frontier of the Alexandrian empire.  Conquering south through Gandhara in 326, he eventually came to the Hydaspes River (modern Jhelum), where Porus (Puru) of Paurava refused to acknowledge Alexander's overlordship.  The two fought a bloody battle in May at the river wherein Porus' army was practically destroyed.  Alexander wanted to keep marching and attack the Nanda empire, but the Macedonian army, now on the very edge of the world known to them, refused to go any farther.

Upon surrendering, Porus was appointed satrap of his former kingdom.  He still held that position at the first partition of Alexander's empire after the conqueror's death in 323.  However, in 317 the Macedonian commander in Taxila, Eudamus, murdered Porus and commandeered his war elephants against the great diadoch Antigonus.  Eudamus lost and was executed, but Antigonus aroused the enmity of the other diadochi, leading to the Third War of the Diadochi.  In the course of this conflict, the eastern part of the empire, including the Indus Valley, was taken by Seleucus.

In the meantime, an aspiring young kshatriya, Chandragupta Maurya, raised an army in the northwest and invaded the Nanda empire, seizing the throne of Magadha in 321.  His new country, the Maurya empire, then began to invade the eastern Alexandrian satrapies.  These attacks culminated in the Seleucid-Mauryan War of 305-303, at the end of which Seleucus ceded his easternmost territories to Chandragupta in exchange for peace so he could focus his attention on the ongoing diadochian conflict.

The ensuing history of the area is far too complex to cover here.  The valley remained culturally and linguistically Indian, although gradually Islamicized, beginning with the invasion of the Ummayad caliphate in the eighth century AD.  The area thereafter became the frontier of the South Asian and Middle Eastern-Islamic worlds under Iranian and Turco-Mongol dynasties like the Mughals, culminating in the partition of the subcontinent into and the formation of a new northwestern state, Pakistan, in 1947.

Language
In the northwest within the Persian sphere of influence the dominant Indian languages were various Middle Indo-Aryan languages, called the prakrits ("natural" or "usual," as contrasted with Sanskrit, "refined" or "composed").  These were not necessarily derived from Sanskrit, but sometimes from closely-related Old Indo-Aryan languages.

The prakrits differed from each other enough that Herodotus described the Indian nations as "none speaking the same language."

Religion
Indians in this period followed early Vedic religious traditions that were the precursors of modern Hinduism, though it must be understood that the relationship between ancient and modern Indian religion is very complicated.  The Mahābharata holds that Vedic practices were less strictly adhered to in Madra; rites were less widely held, beef was eaten and the caste system was less rigid.  I would speculate that the same was true in some other areas of the northwest.

Clothing
In Achaemenid royal art, Indian men are represented iconically in dhotis wrapped in a simple manner, closing in the front and slightly to one side, and belted, along with headbands and thong sandals like those of the Gandharans.  The use of cotton is well-attested.

Weapons
Herodotus has the Indians entirely as archers, both infantry and cavalry.  They carried "reed bows and iron-tipped reed arrows."  Arrian claims that Indian bows were as tall as the archer and the arrows nearly three cubits (54 inches/137cm) long, and powerful enough to pierce any shield or armor, but I know of no reason to suppose that such equipment was identical to that used centuries earlier.  The Indian at Naqš-e Rostam wears a long sword on a sling, with a mushroom-shaped pommel.

Peoples of the empire: The Ethiopians

Geographical definition 
In ancient Greek geography, Aithiopia (literally "land of Aithiops" but commonly interpreted "land of burned faces") refers broadly to all of Africa south of Egypt and "Libya" (all the desertified regions of North Africa).  However, the Greeks apparently weren't aware of just how vast an area this is.

The "Ethiopians" in the Persian empire were mainly from Kush (Kaš, or in Persian Kušâ-), which consisted of the Nile Valley south of Elephantine to some ways south of the confluence of the White and Blue Nile at modern Khartoum.  Thus this article would better be called "The Kushites," but in keeping with the lists presented by Herodotus, we'll stick with "Ethiopians" at least for the title.  Today histories often refer to the ancient land as Nubia, named after the Nuba people who settled there in late antiquity.

Herodotus also refers to "Ethiopians of Asia" or "of the East," who are armed like Indians, and have straight hair as distinguished from Ethiopians of Africa.  As they are presumably also dark-skinned, one is tempted to identify them with South Indians like the Tamils, but circumstantial geographic references seem to place them north of India.  I can find too little information to give them their own article.

History
While archaeology and Egyptian annals indicate the existence of kingdoms in the southern Nile Valley coeval with Egypt itself, Kush enters history as an Egyptian province early in the New Kingdom.  With the disintegration of the New Kingdom in the 11th century BC, a state emerged centered at Napata (modern Karima, North Sudan).  Heavily Egyptianate in character, it became a rival to Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period and conquered its northern neighbor in the mid-eighth century, comprising the 25th dynasty of Egypt.

The Kushites were driven out of Egypt by Assyrian invasions in the early seventh century.  When Egypt regained its independence under the 26th dynasty, it began launching raids into Kush.  King Aspelta (ruled c. 600-580) moved the capital of Kush to Meroë, although dead kings continued to be interred at Napata until about 300 BC.

After conquering Egypt in 525, Cambyses II set off to invade Kush, but was forced to turn back when logistical problems resulted in many of his army starving.

Ethiopia was both a part and not a part of the Persian empire:  It was never conquered and retained native rulers, but was still involved enough that Darius seems to have regarded them as among his peoples (for example, at the table of nations at Naqš-e Rostam), so it is possible that Kush at least nominally acknowledged Persian suzerainty; alternately, the Kushites regarded the Persians as allies or neighbors in good standing.  Kush was not taxed, but according to Herodotus, it did send gifts every two years, amongst them ivory, seen prominently at the Persepolis apadana and used by Darius in the construction of the palace at Susa.

Ethiopians participated in Xerxes' invasion of Greece together with the Arabians under the command of Arsames, Darius' son by Artystone and thus the great king's half-brother (Herodotus, VII.69).  I cannot find testimony of which battles they participated in.

The Kushite throne was inherited matrilineally and thus most kings (qore) are considered to only probably be the sons of their predecessors.  They constructed stelae recording their deeds and regnal names, which were based on the Egyptian regnal naming system, and thus the names are known of most rulers of the kingdom (of which the first phase of the Meroitic period temporally corresponds to the Achaemenid period).  The queens or queen-mothers known as kandakes or kentakes also seem to have had an unusual degree of authority in the ancient world, and made a strong impression on Greeks and Romans in fighting on the frontier in the following centuries.

Kushite monarchs were buried in pyramids imitating the ancient Egyptian ones, though smaller and of different shape.  The burial chambers at the bases of these pyramids included reliefs describing the monarchs, stelae and some portions of the Book of the Dead.

The third-century AD "Alexander romance" tells that when Alexander invaded Egypt, he pressed south and only retreated upon seeing the strength of the Kushite armies.  However, more contemporary accounts of Alexander's life have him content to travel no farther south than the Siwa Oasis, and retreating in the face of a strong enemy strikes one as pretty out-of-character for him.  Arrian and Diodorus say that an embassy from Ethiopia visited Alexander in Babylon on his return from India in 323 BC.

Being essentially independent of Persia, Kush continued on its own throughout the Hellenistic period.  After the capital was fully moved to Meroë, the kingdom is recorded by that name in Graeco-Roman sources.  The country went into economic decline in the early centuries AD, possibly partly due to deforestation as the flourishing iron industry demanded a constant supply of charcoal.  In the fourth century, Meroë was conquered by the rising empire of Axum.

Around this time, the Nuba settled and began to found the Nubian kingdoms.  This was followed in the late Middle Ages by gradual Islamicization and Arabization of northern Nubia.  It was under Arab influence that the region acquired the name Sudan, said to derive from Bilad al-Sudan, "land of blacks," which makes an interesting latter-day reiteration of Aithiopia.  In the meantime, the Classical denotation ceased to be applied to Nubia and parts west, and was retained only in Axum, modern Ethiopia.

Language
Kushites presumably spoke an earlier phase of Meroitic, recorded from the third century BC onward in the Meroitic alphabet (prior to this, Egyptian hieroglyphs were used).  Meroitic is poorly-understood and of uncertain classification.  It went extinct around the turn of the fifth century AD with the spread of Nubian languages.

Religion
Kushites were polytheistic and shared many of the pantheon and certain beliefs with the Egyptians, as indicated by the use of the Book of the Dead.  Known deities specific to Kush included Apedemak and Dedun, Mandulis (apparently equated with Horus), and Arensnuphis, attested from the third century BC.

Clothing
Ethiopian clothing is shown at Persepolis and Naqš-e Rostam as including a cloak semicircling the body from the left under the arm and secured (probably with pins) over the shoulders, being left open down the right side.  It had a plain hem but its vertical edges were fringed.  The Ethiopian at Naqš-e Rostam wears a knee-length garment under his cloak, but whether it's a tunic or kilt is impossible to tell.  At Persepolis the Ethiopian delegation wear sandals of very open construction, secured by thongs over the heel and upper instep and just above the toes.  One member appears to be barefoot.  No headwear is attested.  Herodotus writes that Ethiopians at war dressed in lion and leopard skins, and painted their bodies with gypsum on one half and vermilion on the other.

A famous group of alabastrons (Greek alabaster vases) shows two black men in Iranian dress wearing tube-and-yoke corslets.  It is possible that they represent Kushites in the Persian military.  Rather than footed Medo-Persian trousers, they wear open-ankled ones of a looser cut typical of eastern Iranian peoples.

Weapons
Ethiopians were particularly well-known archers, known in early Egyptian writings as Ta-Seti, "people of the bow."  Herodotos says that their bows were made of strips of palm wood and were four cubits long (more than 80 inches/200cm), at which size they were presumably longbows rather than recurved.  Their arrows were "short" (mikroús) and stone-tipped.  The Museum of Fine Arts Boston's Warfare, hunting, & fishing category has examples of both early Napatan and Meroitic arrowheads, but (assuming the dating is all right) none specific to our period.

As for what to buy, Crazy Crow offers Neolithic bird points from America that are often very close in shape (both teardrop and barbed).  They're a bit too small and unfortunately you don't get to pick what they send you, but I would consider them acceptable as a non-custom item because no current production arrowheads I've been able to find come even that close.

Other Ethiopian weapons mentioned in Herodotus include spears pointed with whole, sharpened gazelle horns, and "studded clubs" (tr. Godley).  Additionally you will note in the MFA collection a number of stone maceheads.

Possible arrowheads for your Neo-Assyrian impression

While I'm still investigating whether Assyrians served as archers in the Persian military, archaeological findings from the early Iron Age are sufficient to give us an idea of what their arrowheads should look like.  The Israel Antiquities Authority has a catalogue of findings, mostly from Lachish (they continue on page 11) that indicate Mesopotamian arrowheads from this period were iron, tanged, leaf-shaped (or occasionally kite) and considerably larger than the Persian-Scythian bronze types.

Some were elongated and proportionally narrow.  Others, such as this fairly well-preserved example, were shorter.  This one and ones like it find a surprisingly close match in Mediaeval arrowheads made, I think, by Deepeeka.  By the Sword, Inc. carries models AH-3522.14 and AH-3422.24.  I've e-mailed the distributor and learned that the blades are about two inches/51mm long, which is an acceptable size.  They're not cheap but, all things considered, they should work very well.

Peoples of the empire: The Assyrians

The Assyrians are one of the oldest surviving nations in the world.  If the traditional identification of Aššur with the Sumerian name Subartu is correct, the city is at least four and a half millennia old, even predating the Old Akkadian period.

For possible ancestors of Yossarian the Assyrian, please see a different entry.

History
The eponymous capital was settled on the banks of the Tigris in northern Iraq around the 26th century BC and went through many phases (which I'm not going to go into) of ascendancy and decline, native rule interspersed with rule by Akkadians, Sumerians, Babylonians and others before the creation of the Neo-Assyrian empire (912-608 BC).  It was in this last period that Assyria gained its warlike reputation and status as Babylon's greatest rival and eventual conqueror.  The Neo-Assyrian empire's power stretched from Egypt to Persia and Urartu, and for a while it was the largest empire that had yet existed on Earth.  Although Aššur remained the religious center of the empire, its administrative capital was later moved to Nineveh (704), where it would remain until the empire's final few years.

Aššurbanipal (r. 668-627) was the last strong king of the empire.  His conquest of the Elamite empire (657), then centered at Susa, weakened that country, possibly allowing for the Persians to seize power in the faraway highlands of Anshan.  After his death, a succession crisis and civil war broke out, then Babylon under the Chaldean dynasty rebelled and formed an alliance with the Scythians and Medes.  In 612, the alliance sacked Aššur and Nineveh.  The Assyrian king Aššur-uballit II retreated to Harran, which passed between the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance and the Babylonian-Median one for four years; its final fall in 608 marked the end of the Assyrian state.  Assyrian forces then moved to Carchemish, but were defeated again in 605 by the famous Nebuchadnezzar II (Akkadian Nabû-kudurri-usur)

The lands of Assyria passed partly to the Medes, but largely to the Neo-Babylonian empire, whose last king, Nabonidus, is believed to have been an Assyrian from Harran who overthrew the young Chaldean monarch Labashi-Marduk.  With Cyrus' conquest of the Medes and Babylonians, Assyria became an Achaemenid possession called Athura.

Achaemenid Assyria comprised northern Mesopotamia and modern Syria, whose name is probably a Greek abbreviation of Assyria.  It was a rebellious country during the late 6th century, but also furnished troops for the imperial armies.  The Assyrians during Xerxes' invasion of Greece were commanded by an "Otaspes son of Artachaees" (Herodotus VII.63).

Nineveh remained barely inhabited in the days of Xenophon, but the rural countryside was heavily populated with many villages, and the region was agriculturally very productive.  Xenophon mentioned that bread, cheese and wine were still produced at Aššur.

After the death of Alexander, Assyria wound up in the hands of the Seleucid empire, then the Parthians.  The Assyrians rebuilt Aššur during this period, and it became the administrative center of Arsacid (Parthian) rule.  Assyrians founded the kingdom of Adiabene in the area (AD 15-117) before being briefly conquered by the Romans and then the Parthians again.  The Sassanids, who succeeded the Arsacids, referred to Assyria as the province of Asōrestān.  After the Islamic conquest and the spread of the Arabic language, Assyria as a region ceased to be recognized, but the Assyrian ethnic group held on, albeit as a minority.  Today, the largest population of Assyrians still lives in Iraq, with significant populations in Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Europe and the Untied States.

Language
From the time they entered written history, Assyrians spoke a dialect of Akkadian, an East Semitic language that became the lingua franca of much of Mesopotamia during the Old Akkadian period.  The conquest of Aram (Syria) during the Neo-Assyrian empire led to Aramaic, a northwest Semitic language more closely related to Hebrew and Phoenician, gaining importance; the Assyrians are largely responsible for the spread of Aramaic throughout the Near East during Classical Antiquity.  By the Hellenistic period, Akkadian was mostly reduced to liturgical and scholarly use, and went extinct around the 3rd century AD (with Akkadian cuneiform falling out of use around the turn of the 1st century).  Modern eastern membrs of the so-called Neo-Aramaic languages, being used mainly by Assyrians, contains some Akkadian loanwords.

I am unsure of whether an Assyrian of the Achaemenid period should more likely be speaking Akkadian or Imperial Aramaic, although either would be acceptable.

Akkadian was usually written in Akkadian cuneiform, while Aramaic used the Aramaic (or Syriac) script, derived from the Phoenician.  The Aramaic script was ancestral and pretty similar to the Hebrew alphabet of today.  The Nabatean alphabet, Pahlavi (Parthian) scripts of the Parthian and Sassanid empires and modern Arabic script are also derived from the Aramaic.

Religion
Assyrians in the Persian empire continued the native religious traditions of Mesopotamia.  Aššur was named for its patron god, and indeed the proper name of Assyria was actually mât Aššur, "country of Aššur."  Upon the conquest of Babylon in the Neo-Assyrian period, his name was conflated with Anšar, the god of the sky, and a new version of the Enûma Eliš was promulgated in which Anšar replaces Marduk as slayer of Tiamat and creator of the human world.  The Cyrus Cylinder speaks of repatriating stolen idols to the eponymous city, and the city's temples of Aššur and Ishtar were in continuous use during the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods.  During the 1st century AD, Christianity, Judaism and Mandeanism began to spread, though the native religion held on for a few centuries more.  Assyrians today mostly belong to a variety of Eastern Christian denominations.

Clothing and arms
Clothing
On the tomb of Darius the Great, the Assyrian is dressed simply in a tunic falling to just above the knee, bare-legged, belted and with a headband rather than a hat of any kind.  The details are a little difficult to make out in the photos I've seen but I also have a line drawing showing the tunic with long fitted sleeves and a round neckline.  At Persepolis, Syrians (who, if not identical with the Assyrians, probably dressed similarly) wear mid-calf tunics with short sleeves, and headbands and belts divided into four distinct rows, perhaps pleats.  They also wear boots that rise to just above the ankle and are laced in a curious manner with the laces from all four eyelets gathered and tied up in the middle.  See bottom photo on the left at the Nirupars gallery.

Assyrian men and women of the Neo-Assyrian period wore more complex garments which appear to consist of an ankle-length undertunic with a wide embroidered hem, and a wraparound shawl with a long fringe.  Such fancy clothing is unlikely to be worn by soldiers on campaign, but may be considered for civilian impressions.  Fashion-Era has instructions on wrapping the shawls properly as well as making an Egyptian-style short-sleeved tunic which is apparently similar to the Assyrian undertunic.

Weapons
While the Neo-Assyrians are known to have used cavalry, Herodotus lists them among the infantry in Xerxes' army.  He says that the Assyrians in the army wore bronze helmets (which he helpfully explains were "made in an outlandish fashion not easy to describe") and linen corslets, and "carried shields and spears and daggers of Egyptian fashion, and also wooden clubs studded with iron."  With regards to Egyptian arms, he says their shields were "hollow" with "broad rims" and that their swords were long.

I have found very little archaeological evidence relating to the Achaemenid period or to Assyrian arms in general.  Equipment is well-represented in reliefs from the Neo-Assyrian period, but obviously things may have changed significantly by the early 5th century.

Neo-Assyrian helmets were generally onion-shaped with small rounded extensions that are a little too short to be called cheek guards, and sometimes small crests (when these are present the helmet itself is usually shorter or even rounded, with the crest held atop a short tube).  It's hard to say what Herodotus might find "outlandish" about these and perhaps he is talking about a different style that was used in his day.

Shields were either round and deeply domed or conical, or tall pavises with flat bottoms and round or pointed tops curving back.  These latter find a vaguely similar counterpart in ancient Egypt, but whether this is what Herodotus is referring to, I cannot say.  So far as I can tell, Assyrian shields normally had central grips.

Interestingly, his point about swords and daggers seems to be backed up by the reliefs on Darius' tomb.  The Assyrian wears a short dagger tucked into his belt, and the Egyptian wears a long sword on his left hip; both have a strange two-branched pommel that is very unlike the unobtrusive little pommels on swords in Neo-Assyrian art.

The nearest I have found to a depiction of Assyrian clubs is a relief of maces from the late 8th century.

Lastly, although not mentioned by Herodotus, no discussion of ancient Assyrian martial arts would be complete without archery.  Archers are well-represented in art, wielding bows that are D-shaped or triangular with small recurved tips and wearing shoulder quivers.  Assyrian-style bows are widely available, though most have longer and less curly tips than those shown in period art.  I have found only one useful depiction of arrowheads, which are here shown as rather large and kite-shaped with a strong mid-rib, probably two-bladed.  (Note also the dagger with its mushroom-shaped pommel, ribbed grip and odd scabbard, simultaneously attached to a shoulder belt and tucked behind the waist belt.)  In this relief, the shooter uses a pinch draw.  Archers fought both from chariots and on foot, standing or kneeling behind pavises.

Native Way G202

While the socketed trilobate arrowhead is the most common and preferred type for our period, Native Way's model G202 (their G200 looks very similar) belongs to a type attested from findings at Persepolis and is therefore an option for the Achaemenid reenactor.  I also happen to find it very cool-looking.

It's molded from an original and cast in a "lightly leaded" tin bronze which as you can see cleans up very nicely.  It is unfortunately cast rather thick and heavy at 12 grams, but filing and trimming the tang (above, I've cut the tang down by about a third) will help, and also let you define the mid-rib more clearly.  I've managed to get the one I've worked on down to around 9g and could go further.  Because the dust contains lead, I'm guessing your should avoid high-speed power sanding.

The best thing about these, along with being perfectly authentic, is they're very inexpensive as far as reproduction arrowheads go:  Rough-cast, they retail for $3 each, and for the U.S.-based reenactor, shipping costs are far lower than overseas options.  If you don't mind doing some of the work yourself, these are a great option for the reenactor on a budget.

Over the months it's become hard to deny that, although (as I've observed below) the variety of arrowheads acceptable for use is much wider than I initially thought, the acceptable options available on the market remain sadly limited and that the good replicas available are a bit pricey for new reenactors to buy by the dozen.

To rectify this situation, we might consider working with bronze casters to develop new products.  As a demo I've made a handful of wax prototypes based on illustrations from OIP 69.  It's easy.  The challenging part will be to make them accurate by finding and examining originals firsthand.  Since shipping and handling overseas increases costs, I'd further recommend that these ventures by carried out separately in whichever continents significant numbers of archers are interested.

L-R:  Socketed two-blade, tanged two-blade, socketed triangular and tanged three-blade.  Personally I like the tanged two-blade best, but that may be because it's by far the easiest to make in wax.  I imagine it would also be the easiest to cast.

As always, send feedback to xerxesmillion@yahoo.com.  Thanks for your interest.

OIP 69 - buckles, arrowheads and more!

Oriental Institute Publications 69 is a wonderful resource cataloguing a wide variety of archaeological findings from Persepolis, including axes, horse tack, dinner plates, jewelry, armor scales, a big iron sword with a flanged hilt strangely reminiscent of the Luristan bronzes, and, of course, lots of pottery.

I'd like to draw attention to several specific items.  On page 257 are two objects that appear to be the long-sought-after round belt buckle.  To my mind, they don't clear up the actual function very much.  They're basically shallow, hollow cones with a single thin bar on the inside.  To pass under or around these bars, the belt strap would have to be either much softer and more flexible than would seem practical on a weapon belt built to support a fully-loaded gorytos, or else much, much narrower than the buckle; in period art, it's usually the other way around.  There's also no hook, stud or other mechanism that would allow it to act as a belt the way I'm thinking.  I've previously been over the reasons I don't think the round disc itself was a button.

On page 303 is a collection of weapon heads.  The lancehead is apparently a stout, short kite shape made of iron.  Two javelin heads appear which are basically giant versions of the bronze three-bladed arrowhead.  And lastly there's a surprisingly wide variety of arrowheads.  The most common are the classic socketed bronze three-bladed ones, but also appearing are two-bladed ones, iron ones, tanged ones, and long, narrow ones with solid triangular or square cross-sections, looking like precursors of Medieval bodkins.  While I've yet to find anything like most of them on the market today, their existence does lend precedent to bringing greater variety to our kit by using points other than the standard socketed bronze trilobates.

Update 3: Arrows

Arminius at Hippeis last week pointed out the Scythian arrowheads from Hun Archery.  These are some of the lightest repro arrowheads I've seen.  They look like blued steel.  I can't vouch for the quality but at 69 euros for 20 pieces they may be a good inexpensive option for European reenactors.

Update 2: Arrows

John Conyard alerted me to bronze arrowhead repros from UK-based archery supplier A Piece of History. They're a distinctly Scythian type with separate sockets and a long barb behind the cutting blades.

The Delma MA-3's are here and uh

The Delma MA-3 Penetrator is the closest that any modern arrowhead I've ever seen comes to replicating the shape of Classical ones, while being much cheaper (if shipping in North America) than a bronze replica.  Unfortunately, it's also big (not to mention wicked sharp) - something I didn't appreciate until examining them in person.  In fact, being nearly the same shape and just over half again longer than the period-correct equivalent from Manning Imperial seems (to my eyes) to give it several times the surface area.  I won't bother doing the math on whether that's technically true, but it's a moot point.

I had planned on trimming down the backs of the blades with a pair of tin snips, but the folded sheet-metal construction is a lot sturdier than it looks.  If you're stronger than I am, you might manage it, but I imagine doing so would warp the blades, not to mention put the socket at risk of splitting into three parts.  And frankly, taking power tools to them sounds like more trouble than they're worth.

I won't write these off just yet, but I will do so if something better comes along.

Arrowed!!!

Classical arrowheads used by Greeks, Persians and Scythians alike were mostly cast bronze and of the broadhead type, but smaller and lighter than modern ones.  A good overview has been posted at the Hippeis forum (fifth post down).  Period-correct types are available from Neil Burridge in the UK and Manning Imperial, Australia. They are a bit pricey.  I would say that you won't be required to use these exclusively, but I'm still looking for leads on possible substitutes for target-shooting and filling up the quiver.

According to Herodotus (Hist. VII 32), Persian arrows were made of reed.  If you can obtain them, reeds need to be straightened and usually have separate wood nocks installed, although nocks may also be cut just below a node.  A guide may be found near the bottom of this page.

Reed arrows unfortunately have a reputation for breaking with repeated use, so some reenactors prefer just regular wood for target-shooting.  I suspect most commercial wood shafts are too thick, assuming that the arrowheads' outside socket diameter corresponds to shaft thickness (which it doesn't necessarily, as reed arrows often have a wooden insert between the shaft and the arrowhead).  If that's the case, we may face the added complication of selecting and spining hardware store dowels to produce lighter arrows.

Fletchings were of course natural feather.  Attach them with sinew or floss and arrow glue, wrapping down the quills so they won't stab your bow hand on release.

Stage combat
In reenacting fighting, as many steps as possible must be taken to ensure that 1)  impacts, whether from arrows, spears or swords, don't land too hard, 2)  the edge or point of any weapon is unlikely to pierce unprotected skin, and 3)  no part of the weapon is likely to break and produce metal chips or wood splinters.

Amphictyonia discussions seem to be leaning toward requiring bows under 30 pounds draw weight for combat.  Arrows need special materials.  Both tall, untrimmed feather fletchings and flu-flus (spiral-wrapped feathers) are under consideration; these will slow the arrow in flight.  Safety arrowheads are large, blunt and made of rubber.  I've only ever seen them on UK websites; most rubber arrowheads are made for killing small game.  However, I hope at some point to compile a list of manufacturers approved for our use.  Arrows are likely to be marched on or just break on impact, so for a long time some groups have required that combat arrows be wrapped in fiberglass tape, which prevents broken shafts forming splinters.  This is especially important in Classical reenacting, where many participants go barefoot.

Next up:  The other main weapon.