The weapons of Hasanlu (archaeological stuff)

[13_CBS]

I'm working as minion intern at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology this summer, and today I was given the great privilege taking a look at unearthed Middle Eastern weapons and other artifacts from the mysterious archaeological site of Hasanlu. But before I begin, a very quick bit of backstory about the site.

Disclaimer: I only heard about the Hasanlu site about a month and a half ago, and since I've completed only 1 year of undergraduate school with only 1 semester's worth of archaeology classes under my belt, I am by no means an expert on the matter. However, the Professor and Ph.D I'm working for is a physical anthropologist (meaning that she works a lot with bones, particularly human ones) who, among other projects, works on (or is at least quite familiar with) the Hasanlu site. Thus, I have something of an academic insider's point of view on the matter.


Hasanlu was a settlement (a "tepe") near Lake Urmia in what is today Iran (Lake Urmia is the tiny little lake on the northwest corner of the map). As far as I know, around the early iron age, ca. 1000 BC to, at the latest, 800 BC, there was a raid on the area by armed people. The results were pretty devastating: I wasn't able to get hold of the casualty numbers, but the area was not resettled for several generations--I was told that there was about a 100 to 500 year gap between the raid and the next resettling. The settlement was apparently burned to the ground during the raid, often with people in them (I'm not sure whether they were locked in by the raiders or barricaded themselves to ward off the raiders when the raiders set everything on fire).


Now, the great mystery of Hasanlu is twofold:

1) Who did the raiding? That is, which group of people (or kingdom or empire) destroyed Hasanlu?

2) Who was raided? That is, which group of people (or kingdom or empire) suffered this attack?

Wikipedia claims that the people involved are already known, but my Professor and her colleagues firmly disagree. At the moment, there are apparently lots of ideas flying about on the identities of the raiders and the raided, and despite having been academically excavated back in the 60's, the site's artifacts haven't given a definite answer as to who the people were.


The weapons and pieces of weapons found at Hasanlu also propose their own puzzle:

1) Which weapon belonged to whom? Did spear #19345 belong to a raider, or did it belong to some fellow living in the settlement?

2) Where did these weapons come from? Where did the people get their hands on them? Were they locally manufactured, or were they traded for from elsewhere? Which elsewhere?

3) There were plenty of bodies found at the site (I've personally handled, stored, and moved around hundreds of the skulls and bones of Hasanlu), each bearing various marks of trauma. Which of the weapons inflicted which wounds?


So, as I said, I was treated to being allowed to look at (and in some cases, even touch!) some of the scruffy looking, yet priceless, weapons found at the Hasanlu site.


Since this was the early Iron Age, some of the weapons were bronze, while others were iron (I wasn't able to get any further data on the metals in the weapons, sadly). Discounting found arrowheads (which were overwhelmingly iron--does this mean anything?), the ratio of iron weapons to bronze weapons was roughly 1:1. Also, even among weapons of the same type, there were lots of variations--for example, some of the spearheads were fairly small, while others were positively colossal. I was shown mostly spearheads, unsurprisingly, though there was at least one iron short sword in the collection, along with a lot of stone maceheads (and bronze ones, too).


I was going to simply post the pictures I was able to take of the weapons, but after speaking with the collection's keeper, it seems that I'm unable to do so. Apparently, academicians don't like it when you post pictures of stuff they want to publish themselves. Thus, the best I can do is try to describe to you, in great detail, the pictures of stuff that I took.



Set 1:

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The first set I took were various quivers for arrows. What surprised me quite a bit here was the fact that these quivers were at least partly made of metal. If there was a leather interior to these quivers, it is unknown (or, at least, I haven't been told such). It was difficult to distinguish which end was the opening since it was flattened and slightly melted (remember: the site was burned down by the raiders), but on one end of the quiver are round, button-like decorations made of metal. By the looks of it, the quivers were made of mostly iron with decorative copper or bronze "beads" attached to the button-like decorations. I wasn't able to get exact measurements, but the metal parts appeared to be from half a foot long to one and a half feet long (.3 to .45 meters). I originally mistook them for being sword sheathes.

Set 2:

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I managed to grab a picture of a bronze cheekpiece for a helmet. It was vaguely axehead-like in shape, with tiny holes all around the edges. The very kind assistant keeper who showed me around the collection said that the holes were there so that one could sew a cloth or leather padding to the inside of the cheekpiece. The cheekpiece didn't seem to have any hinges or anything that would show how it was attached to the helmet, however.

Set 3:

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The next set was a picture of small bronze or copper tubes, each no more than an inch/2.5 cm long. Their purpose is pretty much unknown: at the moment, researchers think that they might have served as bead-like ornamentation for horses. Before I forget, I wasn't really told whether or not horses were involved in the raid--there definitely were horses found at the site, but I'm not sure if the raiders necessarily came in on horseback, and how many of them were cavalry and how many were infantry.

As an aside, they also found bits for horses at the site, apparently made of iron.

Set 4:

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I took a picture of a large bronze piece of a what was probably a shield or part of a shield. I'd estimate the object to have been, oh, 1 to 1.5 feet (.3 to .45 meters) in diameter. It looked fairly thin to be a stand-alone shield, so I would guess that the bronze part was faced or backed with wood and/or leather. There was no mention of whether or not the shields were hand-gripped or secured to the arm.

The object resembled a sun in that there was a circular center and "rays" of metal seemed to come out of it, forming a shield.

Set 5:

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The assistant keeper said that this object was called a "sickle blade" in the archives, but that struck me as a bit odd. It was bronze and was indeed shaped like a sickle, but the curve was even deeper than a [url=http://www.fallingpixel.com/products/6948/mains/KhLR01.jpg]khopesh]/url] to the point where it almost looked like a boomerang, and, unlike a khopesh, there was nothing resembling a tang that would have been the core of a handgrip. I also noticed a series of tiny holes along the convex edge of the sickle, and that one of the sickle's ends was shaped into something like a socket, fit for a fairly thin stick or somesuch. As a result, I suspect that this sickle-shaped object wasn't a weapon at all, and the assistant keeper suspects that this might have instead been a standard holder of some sort.

On the bottom side of the sickle were three, obviously purposefully made circular indentations. It's unknown as to what they were for.

Set 6:

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This picture was of a large, crumbling pile of...bronze something. Some of them were about 2-3 inches in length and 1-2 inches in width (5-7.5 cm in length, 2.5-5 cm in width) and had a single hole near the edges. This made me toy with the idea that some of the metal pieces might have been part of a scale suit of armor. They certainly seemed thick enough. I couldn't really figure out what the larger pieces were.

Set 7:

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Now THIS was quite interesting. I was told that it was the metal part of a javelin, and I would estimate that it was about 2, 2.5 feet long (.61, .76 meters) and about as thick as your thumb. What's really cool is the way it corroded: either the object was simply all bronze and the bronze corroded in a funny way, or the javelin was actually made in at least two layers. I noticed this because, at about halfway down the length of the javelin tip, there was a spot about twice as long as your thumb that, instead of the typical light green that meant rusted bronze/copper, was a very dark brown/black with flecks of rusty red, which seems to indicate iron (the assistant keeper certainly thinks so). If that's the case, then it might have been that the javelin maker welded a layer of bronze onto an iron core, and the bronze somehow managed to corrode off while the iron was left curiously intact. I have no idea how that would work, but who knows? Strange things happen in archaeology.

If the two-metal weld theory is correct, it begs the question as to why it was made in such a way. Any ideas?

Set 8:

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This object was...kinda weird. Neither the assistant keeper nor I were able to figure out what it was. It was about 2 inches long (5 cm) and 1 inch thick (2.5 cm), and one end was Y shaped, not unlike the horns of a water buffalo. If this sounds funny to you, imagine how we felt when we looked at it. Our general reaction was, "wut". So we have no idea what it was or what it does. As a side note, it was made of bronze.

Set 9:

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This object was also kinda weird, and again neither of us could identify what it was. Judging from its coloration, it appeared to be made of iron, and might have been a little to finely crafted from iron to be contemporary with all the other iron objects (it certainly preserved better than the other iron stuff). Imagine if you took a beer bottle and managed to saw off the very top of the bottle, plus a few inches. That's what the object looked like.

Again, both of us were like, "wut" when we saw this.

Set 10:

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This object was circular and was about, oh, 4 or 5 inches in diameter (10 or 12.5 cm), and was made of bronze. They were apparently horse decorations (which, in the context of this collection, pretty much meant "we're not sure what it is"), though they kept calling it a "boss" As in, as I first thought, a shield boss. But it apparently was not.

Set 11:

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This was a short sword made of all iron, even the grip (it apparently had no tang). The shape of the sword may remind one of a cinquedea, in that the sides of the blade are not parallel but point inward to, well, a point (though the sword's actual point seems to have corroded/broken off). Perhaps this sword was designed more for stabbing than slashing? The length was quite similar to that of a Roman gladius, if slightly longer and narrower.

Set 12:

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This was an iron sickle, a fairly small one, no longer than, perhaps, 5 inches (12.5 cm). I main reason I took a picture of this was because I was having too much fun imagining the poor shmuck who took a tiny sickle to raiding skirmish. It was likely a weapon of desperation taken up by one of the residents, but what if it were wielded by one of the raiders?

Raider 1: I got a bow!

Raider 2: I got myself a nice mace.

Raider 3: Check out my sweet all iron sword!

Raider 4: ...I have a sickle. My **** is longer than this stupid thing.

*Awkward Silence*

Raider 1: ...so, uh...who else is pumped for some town raiding?

Set 13:

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Another mysterious sickle-shaped object, this one being made of iron. It was fairly wide and flat, and combined with its thick crescent-moon shape, it seems rather unlikely that it was used as a weapon.

Set 14:

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This one wasn't a weapon, but instead a bronze spring-loaded pin. That's right, back when it still functioned, this pin, made of cast bronze, was springy, much like the way modern safety pins are--a pretty good piece of metalworking, I think. This pin seemed to be more of a decorative thing, though. I think it was about 2 inches (5 cm) long.

Set 15:

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This was a fairly large collection of stone maceheads--I counted about 21 mace heads overall (there were metal maceheads, of course). Most of them were very finely carved and extremely smooth, and looked very much like doorknobs (in fact, they're classified as "doorknob shaped/typed maceheads"). They seem to have been made of a variety of stones, judging form the colors. One of them (which actually might not have been a macehead) was oddly shaped and had flower decorations on it, like an ancient Middle Eastern version of killing a man with a pink colored M16 with a unicorn painted on it. Reproduction handles were included in the shelves, and overall the maces seemed to have been no longer than 1.5 feet (.76 meters) long.

Set 16:

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I took a picture of a stone mold that was used for casting bronze. It initially appeared to be the mold for an axe head, but the assistant keeper argued that it might have been a mold for a furniture covering instead, like the arms of a couch or a chair. The rubber cast made from said mold does indeed look like an axe head, but could also have been the coverings for the arms of a chair.

Set 17:

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The last set of pictures that I took was of a bronze helmet that was rather squashed. It looked a lot like the famous Etruscan helmet, minus the big decorative fin and the spike at the top of the helmet. Not much else to say about this, sadly, aside from that there was a gaping hole in the helmet. Whether this was caused only by corrosion or was initially made by a weapon seems to be unknown.

That's it for the pictures. As for the rest of the weapons...

The spear heads looked very much like the Greek leaf-shaped spear heads in that most of them had the distinctive central ridge along the length of the blade. Some of them looked more like this, however, and didn't have that central ridge. As I said before, there was a fairly even mix of iron and bronze spear heads, and they seemed to be the most commonly found metal weapon on the site.

The mace heads (which were also plentiful) ranged from being doorknob shaped, and some were richly decorated, while others looked vicious with inch long (2.5 cm) spikes jutting out from all angles If I remember correctly, these seemed to be mostly bronze and stone, with the occasional iron one here and there.

There were lots of arrowheads as well, but these were almost entirely iron. I wonder why...

There didn't seem to be much in the way of body armor left at the site--I'm not sure whether this was because the raiders took with them all the body armor they could find as loot or because they raiders and the townspeople didn't wear much body armor. There might was the helmet, of course, and the assistant keeper did tell me that there were metal fragments that might have made up a greave (or a pair of greaves, or even a vambrace since she was indicating at her arm), and some of the metal fragments might have come from a suit of scale, but that was about it. There seemed to be little physical evidence of body armor.

As I said before, there were horses at the site at the time of the attack, and researchers seemed to have identified a structure that might have been a stable, but aside from that there seems to have been no evidence for the use of cavalry in the raid, either by or against the defenders. There was also no evidence of the use of chariots, either, although artistic depictions found at the site do feature chariots from time to time.


And...I think that's about it. I'll post more info when I get it.

[Swordguy]

Question: I understand you clearly can't post photos (if not for legal reasons, then because you don't want the PhDs mad at you ), but can you sketch out some of the esoteric stuff and post THOSE?

Some of them are very difficult to visualize, and so images would help immeasurably.

Real quick - the item in set 10 (the "boss") - is it curved like a bowl, or is it flat? Likewise, does it have rivet holes around the edges? A "boss" in horse armor armor is a round piece of metal that is centered the peytral, the piece of armor protecting the horse's chest. The roundness of it serves to deflect blows to the right or left of the horse.


In any event, this is fascinating stuff.

[13_CBS]

Question: I understand you clearly can't post photos (if not for legal reasons, then because you don't want the PhDs mad at you ), but can you sketch out some of the esoteric stuff and post THOSE?

Uh...I could try, but it'd have to be in paint, and very very crude

Real quick - the item in set 10 (the "boss") - is it curved like a bowl, or is it flat? Likewise, does it have rivet holes around the edges? A "boss" in horse armor armor is a round piece of metal that is centered the peytral, the piece of armor protecting the horse's chest. The roundness of it serves to deflect blows to the right or left of the horse.

I remember the object being very slightly curved, but mostly flat, much like
this here bowl, except upside down. I don't recall there being any holes in it, and it didn't seem large enough to be of any real protection for a horse (unless several were used in tandem). The assistant keeper seemed to indicate that they were mostly for decoration.

As a side note, did such horse barding exist in 10th century BC northern Iran?

In any event, this is fascinating stuff.[/QUOTE]

[Swordguy]

I remember the object being very slightly curved, but mostly flat, much like
this here bowl, except upside down. I don't recall there being any holes in it, and it didn't seem large enough to be of any real protection for a horse (unless several were used in tandem). The assistant keeper seemed to indicate that they were mostly for decoration.

As a side note, did such horse barding exist in 10th century BC northern Iran?

I'm not saying it was armor, necessarily - but the term "boss" is fairly specific when talking about horses. Remember, the front end of a horse's chest isn't all that wide - a 12" diameter bowl would cover a good chunk of it.

The reason I as asking about holes in the edges is find out if it was attached to something. Rivets or leather stitches would be your usual attachment method, or even metal rings. If there's no holes, the only way to attach it to something would be to use glue; but that's not a very strong bond, comparatively, for something that's there as a protective device.

And I not exactly sure that horse barding existed in that (or any) form on a regular basis in 900 BC Iran. You didn't start to see a lot of horse armor until well after the invention of the stirrup (IIRC, the Romans used chain on their horses on occasion, and Byzantine Cataphracti had interesting armor...). There just wasn't the need, as a lot of cavalry pre-stirrup was light cavalry in the classical sense - used for skirmishing, scouting, outflanking, or pursuing fleeing foes. I mean, heck - 10th century BC predates, by some estimations, the invention of the saddle; forget the stirrup. I just can't see what else it'd be used for. In the case of a village, the horse is a tool - you don't decorate a tool with precious metal. In the case of the riders, the horse is a military implement - you don't burden your mount with extra weight or stuff that'll make noise to let people know you're coming. it being decorative makes no sense in their case...and further, how did they attach it to the horse with no holes?

Honestly, given the image, I'd say it was a shield boss (or umbo), but you'd need holes in the rim on that too. Couldn't it just be a drinking bowl?

[Serpentine]

I was going to simply post the pictures I was able to take of the weapons, but after speaking with the collection's keeper, it seems that I'm unable to do so. Apparently, academicians don't like it when you post pictures of stuff they want to publish themselves. Thus, the best I can do is try to describe to you, in great detail, the pictures of stuff that I took.

Several of the books on historical evidence I've read recently have condemned this sort of thing as being against professional courtesy and honesty. Until they publish the evidence (not just the conclusions), they're denying the wider academic community the opportunity to examine it, come up with their own theories, and (depending on how long it takes for it to be published) critique the "official" history. If they genuinely intend to make it generally available asap, then they're fine, but if not...
Sorry, it's just that this exact same sort of situation was repeated over and over in these texts.
Sounds pretty awesome, regardless. Brilliant opportunity.

[TheThan]

Several of the books on historical evidence I've read recently have condemned this sort of thing as being against professional courtesy and honesty. Until they publish the evidence (not just the conclusions), they're denying the wider academic community the opportunity to examine it, come up with their own theories, and (depending on how long it takes for it to be published) critique the "official" history. If they genuinely intend to make it generally available asap, then they're fine, but if not...
Sorry, it's just that this exact same sort of situation was repeated over and over in these texts.
Sounds pretty awesome, regardless. Brilliant opportunity.

Unfortunately that’s because a lot of scientists wish to only get their name on the work, no one else’s. It’s selfish and not conductive to good science. But that’s what they do.

However this sounds interesting, if I knew anything about history and the area, I’d be of more help. and yeah, it does sound like a great opportunity.

[Icewalker]

I dunno, that kind of secret keeping science seems like more of a result of the system, rather than an issue with the scientists themselves. It's too easy for someone else to get all the credit for something which you were mostly responsible for if the info is open.

Anyways, this is all hugely fascinating stuff. I'm going to link this to a friend of mine, who, while no expert, is massively interested in history and archaeology, and may have some useful comments.

[Serpentine]

Well, archaeology (and also oral history) was specifically targeted as a field particularly prone to this sort of dishonest practice - few people can get direct access to the site itself, archaeology is in its nature destructive (once something's been dug up, you can no longer see it in situ), and ultimately the wider academic community only sees what the excavators of a particular site choose to make available - making it extra difficult to pinpoint any methological or interpretive errors or weaknesses. Add to that a chronic jealousy of the material and site and an unwillingness to allow anyone else to examine it lest they "steal all the credit", and you have a potentially very dodgy field...

[RandomNPC]

i know what happened.

kinda...

some people who found the secrets to working better metals decided "hey, our stuf is better than the stuf over there, lets kill them and take their stuff."

as to who these people are... i have no idea.

that's what it seems like to me. the Bronze weapons were the defenders, they hadn't found iron yet. They were invaded by Iron weapon carrying invaders.

ready for the joke: Thats what always happens when i play age of empires.

[CDR_Doom]

i know what happened.

kinda...

some people who found the secrets to working better metals decided "hey, our stuf is better than the stuf over there, lets kill them and take their stuff."

as to who these people are... i have no idea.

that's what it seems like to me. the Bronze weapons were the defenders, they hadn't found iron yet. They were invaded by Iron weapon carrying invaders.

Not necessarily, the OP references some iron sickles that do not appear to be weapons. Not the sort of thing a raider would be likely to carry with him, or take as loot if they don't posses the technology to melt it down and forge it themselves. It's possible that it could have been a more settled, agrarian people that had just entered the first stages of ironwork, leading to a mixed assortment of bronze and iron weaponry. Then, plausibly, a more militant but less advanced group may have had reason to attack in order to carry off better technology. If the raiders were the advanced group I would not expect to see any iron tools, that isn't something you bring along when you go to war, but it is something you grab when you don't have a weapon and someone is attacking your settlement.

On the other hand, if we have no way to determine if one side had iron and the other did not, we can't assume it was like that. Both groups may have been in possession of some iron and the attack may have been completely unrelated to technology.

Please note that I am neither an archaeologist or an anthropologist, and have no training in either, so everything I have said is completely wild speculation; but it seems as if we don't quite have enough information to draw real concrete conclusions about the nature of either group.

[Swordguy]

Eh, CBS? Anything new on this front?

[13_CBS]

Oops! I got caught up on some other stuff, sorry. I'll try to post the sketches sometime today.

But other than that...I haven't been able to find out much else about Hasanlu. I'm gonna try to get in touch with some of the key people, though.

[Telonius]

My suspicion on the whole thing? Assyrians or Scythians raiding Urartu.

For Set 8 ... any indication that it might have been a religious artifact or good luck charm? If it's supposed to be some kind of an abstract bulls' head, that might tell you a little bit about the religion of the person who owned it. Though I will say it's a little outside where I'd normally expect to find something like that - as far as I know, that sort of item was usually confined to the Mediterranean, seriously ancient Europe (3000 bc or so) and western Mesopotamia. I don't know much about the Scythians, though, so it might have been theirs.

[13_CBS]

My suspicion on the whole thing? Assyrians or Scythians raiding Urartu.

Actually, I think the "strongest" theory ("strong" being pretty relative here) so far states that it was actually the Urartians who were doing the raiding.

For Set 8 ... any indication that it might have been a religious artifact or good luck charm

I didn't see any engravings or other kinds of decorations on the object. Maybe it was a good luck charm, but it seems a bit unusual that such an object would be completely unadorned (although it's easily possible that it was engraved, and time and decay simply erased them).

[13_CBS]

Sorry for the double post, but...



Here's a (very!) crude sketch made for one of the Hasanlu quivers. The stuff that looks like it was drawn in Paint is, of course, the sketch. I also added copypasta'ed slivers from the actual picture that I took to show you what the rust texture and the oxidized bronze textures were like, for great justice (however, the image quality ended up being fairly low, so it's a bit fuzzy...but at least you have an idea as to what it might look like now!).

For clarification, anything that is brown in the sketch is rusted iron, while anything greenish is oxidized bronze.

I'll try to do a few more sketches tonight.

[Delwugor]

Awesome! Hope you are enjoying your minnionhood errrrr internship.
I worked for an archaeologist as a grad student (15 years ago) writing software to track and categorize findings from postal digs. Even got published as the 3rd person on a paper for it. I still try to read anything dealing with archaeology and ancient civilizations when I get a break from real life.

The question that I would ask is why did this occur?

I'm not familiar with Hasanlu but according to the wiki site you referenced and this site it looks to have been a good size a prosperous city. You have described this as a raid but everything written indicates more of a razzing of the city.
This strikes me as a deliberate destruction of a city (not a small task) probably due to politics or to eliminate a prosperous competition.

The variety of bronze and iron weapons isn't really a big surprise to me for that time period. War fare during that time was being completely "rewritten" because of the advancements brought about by iron weaponry, advanced armor and tactics, but it didn't happen quickly because of the expense at making the new weapons. I would guess that the bronze (and stone) weapons where used by the levies as there would not be a big need to expensively update the weapons of their "cannon fodder".
The arrow heads being predominantly iron makes 100% sense to me.
1. Iron weapons where expensive to make but arrow heads used less iron so the expense per weapon would not be as high.
2. Iron arrow heads have greater penetration against the innovations that where going into armor at the same time.
So they provided alot of bang for their buck.

Well that is my "expert" response that you and your professors can rely on.

Question have you gone through the "sand box" training digs?

Have fun I wish I could get back to archaeology myself but that will never happen now.