A MESOPOTAMIAN INSCRIBED BRONZE ARROWHEAD
A MESOPOTAMIAN INSCRIBED BRONZE ARROWHEAD
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PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN COLLECTION
A MESOPOTAMIAN INSCRIBED BRONZE ARROWHEAD

REIGN OF SIMBAR-SIHU, CIRCA 1024-1007 B.C.

Details
A MESOPOTAMIAN INSCRIBED BRONZE ARROWHEAD
REIGN OF SIMBAR-SIHU, CIRCA 1024-1007 B.C.
2 5⁄8 in. (6.6 cm.) long
Provenance
Peter Adam, U.K., acquired by 1971.
Ancient Iranian Bronzes and Silver Formerly in the Peter Adam Collection, Sotheby’s, London, 10 November 1975, lot 43.
The British Rail Pension Fund.
The Property of the British Rail Pension Fund; Antiquities, Sotheby's, London, 8 July 1991, lot 132.
Private Collection, U.S., acquired from the above.
Property of a New England Private Collector; Antiquities, Christie’s, New York, 7 December 2011, lot 13.
Literature
P.R.S. Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1971, p. 33, no. 1.
P.R.S. Moorey, Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Adam Collection, London, 1974, pp. 51-52, no. 20.
B. Sass, "Inscribed Babylonian Arrowheads of the Turn of the Second Millennium and Their Phoenician Counterparts," Ugarit-Forschungen: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Altertumskunde Syrien-Palästinas, vol. 21, 1989, pp. 349-350, no. 1.
G. Frame, Rulers of Babylonia From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination, Toronto, 1995, p. 74, no. B.3.1.2.
Cuneiform Digital Library Database no. P468730.

Brought to you by

Hannah Solomon
Hannah Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

Lot Essay

This arrowhead has an elongated leaf-shape blade, narrowing to a sharp tip. The inscription in Akkadian on both sides of the midrib reads, “(Property) of Simbar-Sihu, son of Eriba-Sin.”

This is an important document supporting the existence of Simbar-Sihu, the founding king of Dynasty V of Babylonia, also known as the Second Sealand Dynasty. According to E. Sollberger (p. 52 in P.R.S. Moorey, op. cit., 1974), “Only two contemporary written documents from Simbar-Sihu's reign were hitherto known, but one is only a late copy of a royal inscription and the other a legal deed drawn up in the king's twelfth year. The arrowhead published here is therefore of special interest not only because it is, strictly speaking, the only truly contemporary inscription, but because it gives us the name of the king's father which had so far appeared only in two late chronicles. The new arrowhead, while not adding to our knowledge, at least confirms the authenticity of the chroniclers' sources.”

For a discussion on the reign of Simbar-Sihu, see pp. 150-155 in J.A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 B.C.

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