-
War (?) sickle from destruction level inside the fortification (No. 213). (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Iron sickle
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 213
- Date
- Ca. 570-540s BC, Lydian
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- M94.013
- Material
- Iron
- Object Type
- Metalwork
- Metalwork Type
- Tool
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- MMS/S
- Trench
- MMS/S 94.1
- Locus
- MMS/S 94.1 Locus 58
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E115 / S156.4 *105.9
- Description
- Iron. Adhering to the blade is part of an iron sieve or filter. Blade and “wrap-around” handle socket were made together. Preserved length 0.27 m, maximum width 0.035 m (blade length 0.22 m; handle socket length 0.05 m).
- Comments
- The sickle was recovered near the iron sword, No. 212, and also resting on an occupation surface covered by destruction debris of the mid-sixth century BC. It may belong to a traditional Anatolian curved-blade weapon, either a short-handled one (drepanon in Greek) or the spear-sickle (dorudrepanon), which are attested in ancient literature and art (Sekunda 1983, Sekunda 1996; also depicted in paintings of a tomb of ca. 480 BC at Tatarlı: Cahill, “The Persian Sack of Sardis”). Other curved blades, rather small for weapons, together with skewers of iron that were recovered under the same destruction debris in the same location, however, suggest to N. D. Cahill that agricultural and household utensils might have been used as weapons in the conflict that resulted in destruction.
- See Also
- Cahill, “Persian Sack”.
- Bibliography
- Greenewalt 1997, 10-12, 17-18.
- Author
- CHG