3rd millennium BC. A long armour-piercing bronze spearhead with lozenge-section head, seven-sided shank and square-section tang tapering to a triangular point; accompanied by a custom-made display stand. See Gernez, G., L’armament en métal au Proche et Moyen-Orient: des origines a 1750 av. J.C., Paris, 2007, fig.2.89, for the type. 2.8 kg total, 58cm including stand (23"). Property of a Surrey, UK, gentleman; formerly in a private New York, USA, collection; ex V.L. collection, Rhineland, Germany, acquired 1925-1979. The spear belongs to the sub-type L 2.C. variant a of the Gernez classification. It is a long three-part spear with a narrow triangular pointed blade. This variant could legitimately have belonged to the category of pikes, given the accentuated sharpening of the blade, although conceptually and morphologically it is related to the three-parted spears. The blades of this typology are on average ten times longer compared to their width. Their section is rhomboidal, and that of the shank is octagonal, hexagonal or circular. The L 2.C.a spears are known throughout Mesopotamia from the early 3rd millennium and seem to be adopted during the second half of the 3rd millennium in Syria and Levant.

Fine condition.