Phoenician Sword, Iron/Bronze, 6th-4th century B.C. -- myArmoury.com

A. Gallo

This sword is really fascinating to me;

http://www.artemisgallery.com/phoenician-bron...sword.html

The blade is iron and the silhouette would have been at home in the high medieval period but the edge layout is very exotic

The bronze hilt with perpendicular 'crests' is just straight out of a fantasy novel

I'm really interested in seeing more Phoenician & Carthaginian swords if anyone knows of any examples

Henrik Zoltan Toth · Posted: Wed 16 Mar, 2011 3:10 pm Post subject:

Cool, I have never seen a phoenician sword before...
The armguard is interesting, it remembers me a little bit on early sabres.

Zoltán

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Thu 17 Mar, 2011 4:34 am Post subject:

It's not unusual if compared to Assyrian and Persian/Iranian sword. Doesn't mean it's not interesting, though. On the other hand, didn't Carthage end up using equipment that had more similarities to contemporary Greek and Roman examples than to the artifacts from their Phoenician homelands? (Although even Phoenicia might have become rather Hellenized by the time Carthage became a big player in Mediterranean politics).

Johan Gemvik · Posted: Thu 17 Mar, 2011 4:46 am Post subject:

"It belongs in a museum!"

Really...

Dan Howard · Posted: Thu 17 Mar, 2011 5:04 am Post subject:

Apparently the only provinence for this is "ex-private Bir collection" Where was it found? What else was found with it? How did they date the sword?

Kurt Scholz · Posted: Thu 17 Mar, 2011 5:18 am Post subject:

Buying this item supports treasure hunters, usually part of a criminal network that doesn't earn much less then drug and human trafficking. Because it's of unknown origin you can neither be sure it's not forged.
Paying anything for this item is a crime. One place of origin can be Tunisia where there's been lots of looting recently.