An Early Mycenaean Spearhead of the Sesklo Type in the Erlangen Collection of Antiquities

Abstract

Spearheads of the Sesklo type are among the characteristic products of Late Middle Helladic metalworking. As a transitional form between the early Bronze Age leaf-shaped points and the socketed spearheads of the late Bronze Age they are noteworthy on account of their being shoe-socketed, a means of mounting the spearhead that is limited to the Aegean. To the few known examples we can now add another, previously unrecognized specimen from the Erlangen Collection of Antiquities. It entered the collection in 1911 and allegedly originates from Epirus. Typologically this very well preserved specimen is very close to the items from Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae and from the tomb of Dramesi and with them it forms a discrete variant that is to be distinguished from the classical Sesklo type and may be regarded as a late development of that type.