Arrowhead

This is a bronze socketed trilobate (i.e., ‘three-bladed’) arrowhead, with a barb to prevent it from being removed from its target. It was excavated at Shahr-i Qumis in northern Iran, which has been identified as the ancient city of Hecatompylos, established by the Parthians as their capital by about 200 B.C. In Greek Hecatompylos means ‘a hundred gates,’ suggesting that the city was quite large. Indeed, the modern archaeological site includes several mounds, only a few of which have been excavated, and a vast area covered with potsherds. This arrowhead was found in a large building at Site V, which has been tentatively identified as an elite residence. This building was completely filled with dirt sometime in the late 1st century B.C. or early 1st century A.D., perhaps when the Parthian capital was moved elsewhere and the city’s elite residents left with it.

Trilobate arrowheads were once associated with the Scythians and Cimmerians, nomadic peoples from the Eurasian steppe who invaded the Near East in the 8th century B.C. However, this type of arrowhead appears far and wide in space and time, indicating it was widely used in the ancient Near East, doubtless on account of its efficacy at piercing armor. Since Shahr-i Qumis was the site of a Parthian city, this arrowhead is most likely of Parthian date. The Parthians were famed in antiquity as archers, and gave their name to the ‘Parthian shot,’ a tactic in which a mounted archer rides away from his enemy while firing arrows at him.

The excavations at Shahr-i Qumis by the British Institute of Persian Studies in 1967 were co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, this arrowhead was not discovered until 1971, and it was acquired from the British Institute as a result of the Met’s financial contributions to the Institute’s excavations at Tepe Nush-i Jan, another site in Iran. At the time the Iranian government allowed foreign excavators to keep a portion of the finds, and these excavators in turn would divide their share among the institutions that supported the work.