Scythian style arrowheads?

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:25 pm

I would like to have some of those three-bladed arrowheads. Does anyone know someone who casts suchs arrowheads? I could also live with drop forged ones (or whatever technique can be used to make such heads), it does not necessarily have to be cast bronze.

Daniel

daryush · Post by **daryush** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 7:54 pm

I think this guy might do something like them:
http://www.bronze-age-craft.com/.

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:09 am

Thank you for the link, I will see!

Daniel

WarBow · Post by **WarBow** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:53 pm

Daniel, have you tried Mezo Sandor? http://arrowhead.atw.hu/ Look for G1.

Translated: http://translate.google.ca/translate?js ... .atw.hu%2F

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:16 am

No, I got the arrowheads via the link provided above.

http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/aegean_swords.htm

Look at the bottom of the page. They are rather small. The diameter of the socket is only 5mm.

Daniel

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:53 pm

Daniel; These are nice. I have a reference which describes this type as the most common arrowhead ever made. I have seen these in collections from the Levant to China.

Sockets are notoriously small on some Scythian points. Considering that we have seen that their arrows are of a common size, the answer is that they were harpoons with the point made to break off in the adversary. Some are known to have been poisoned.

Comox Tom · Post by **Comox Tom** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:18 pm

Those modern reproductions are 2.5 grams ? That is only about 39 grains .

Is that an accurate weight for authentic Scythian arrowheads ?

WarBow · Post by **WarBow** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:11 pm

Did you make arrows out of them? Any closeup photos? Thanks!

Daniel T. wrote:No, I got the arrowheads via the link provided above.

http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/aegean_swords.htm

Look at the bottom of the page. They are rather small. The diameter of the socket is only 5mm.

Daniel

JJ · Post by JJ » Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:16 am

I have some antique points that come close to these replicas.

The sockets are very small in diameter indeed. But I don?t think they were made to break on impact as that would it make difficult to get through any sort of armor. My opinion is that the shafts were simply barrelled to the extreme.

JJ

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:21 am

In the west, many Scythian arrows were for bows that only drew 55 cm. The shafts may not have been larger than 7 mm. Most of the arrow heads I have measured had sockets about 4 mm in diameter.

I think JJ is right. For heavy bows, all you need to assume is barrelled arrows. Up to 60 pounds at 55 cm would probably work with 7 mm shafts.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:27 pm

Yes, the arrows were barreled but sharpened on the end like a pencil. As long as the arrow is traveling perfectly straight, it will drive in. When it deflects a little, say by striking a bone, it breaks off.

Many Scythians, especially the elite, had various armors which could perfectly deflect a bronze point. The solution was to aim at the face, or other unprotected place. A Siberian Scythian was excavated with an arrow wound to the face. In the Kurgan-tepe war plaque one armored knight is wounded in the face and two other archers are aiming at other's faces.

JJ, we both published pictures of Scythian arrows from the SRMS. If you put the above arrow point on that arrow, the weakest part of that arrow is the place just above the junction of the point socket. This is a harpoon.

Coincidentally, the NA plains arrow has the identical construction and weakness just above the point.

I have many Scythian points in the 40 grain range, many in the 25, some less and one from a Roman fort in Moesia is 11 grains. These are harpooms. They were made to penetrate and break off.

Bede, SRMS arrows were more like 8mm and we now know their bows were in the #100 plus range.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:58 am

I want to remind about Scythian points with a single barb which would be very difficult to remove. If a point were poisoned, there would be a great advantage for that point to break off. More so with a small size which would be difficult to fish out of a warrior's entrails considering the surgical practices of the time.

I also read how effective a bone point could be. If any part of the bone point remained in the wounded person, death could be expected within several days. Somewhere I read that these arrow points would be wrapped against a rock or such to start some damage to the poisoned bone point.

Their poison is sometimes called Scythicon. I have a lot of texts on the subject but has been some time since I have read them. There is an entire book on just this topic.

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:15 pm

I have not yet made the arrows. I thought it would take strongly barreled shafts, so I have sawed up ash which I hope will make strong arrows that survive the occasional shooting.

Neil said he cast them using a find that he owns.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:58 pm

I do recall seeing These arrows made from shoots. I do not remember seeing them of lumber. There are the mixed group of Hunnic arrows at the SRMS of both shoots and lumber. I suppose at some point lumber arrows were made by Scythians (?).

According to JJ and others (The Bow Builder's Book) lumber arrows were used in the Neolithic and /or before.