ANCIENT BRONZE HOPLITE BRONZE SWORD

800-600 BC, Greek Hoplite Period. A beautiful hoplite sword with a tapering, bevelled blade, a slightly raised midrib, a deep, decorative fuller or “blood groove”, and a short tang. This wonderful piece is only made more visually stunning by its fantastic green patina. Bronze weaponry production flourished in western Asia, the Aegean, and Mainland Greece from the 2nd millennium BC to about 700 BC, when it was gradually replaced by iron. Swords, spears, and arrows were important symbols of war in Greek Bronze Age societies and served as powerful reminders that authority rested in the hands of those who could earn it, especially the Hoplites. Hoplites were the citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greece, where each city state was fiercely independent and could only be sustained through the military power of its male inhabitants. Hoplites primarily fought using the closed phalanx formation to allow best use of their frequently small numbers. For more information on Greek hoplite warfare, see Donald Kagan and Gregory F. Viggiano (eds., 2013). Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, Princeton University Press. Superb condition. Size: L:510mm / W:73mm ; 465g. Provenance: Property of a North London gentleman; previously acquire on the UK/European art market in the 1980s;