Any good _small_ production spearheads?

[Dan D'Silva]

So I was at the hardware store the other day and recalled of Matt Amt's suggestion of using a window brush handle as a spear shaft. The dimensions look great (1x72 inches) but it reminds me that most production spearheads are socketed for rather thicker handles (1-1/4 inches seems to be standard), which in turn reminds me that most spearheads are too big, period. I focus on Achaemenid Persian reenactment, and most artistic and archaeological evidence I've seen indicates that their spearheads were, by modern standards, very small, and Greek ones were rarely a whole lot bigger.

So who, in the industry, makes good-looking Classical spearheads to historical dimensions? I know of Manning Imperial and that's it. Kult of Athena sells a "small spearhead" which is... okay, but the socket would still need to be cut down, and it has no mid-rib and is kind of blah.

[Robert]

You could try contacting your friendly local blacksmith :woot: These are somewhat more complicated to make with the midrib, but then again are not very large. So could well be done through forging (using far side of the anvil and the peen side of the hammer to draw out the cutting edges both sides) and a bit of stock removal during the grinding to get rid of the forgeblackening and ironing out the bumps. This also helps to beter define the midrib. Best to not have these burnished shiny, hot sealed with vegetable oil prevents rusting.

Custom work does not need to be very expensive, I can certainly compete with Manning any day, and I am sure many other blacksmiths can, too. IMHO, €50 should certainly land you a head like the one you posted from the BM, one piece forged socket and all. Just made a print to scale, shaft diameter looks like 12-14 mm (bit gone, so extrapolated). They are indeed quite small, under 15 cm. For stock you can use 10 mm round mild steel.

[Vindex]

I can certainly vouch for Robert's work for spear heads mile:

[Robert]

Thanks, Moi :oops:

But yours were really big shiny things made for heavy use spearing bales and what have you from horseback. Those are meant to last you a lifetime and some. The one in the BM is tiny compared to those massive lancae.

[Sean Manning]

You could try contacting your friendly local blacksmith :woot: These are somewhat more complicated to make with the midrib, but then again are not very large. So could well be done through forging (using far side of the anvil and the peen side of the hammer to draw out the cutting edges both sides) and a bit of stock removal during the grinding to get rid of the forgeblackening and ironing out the bumps. This also helps to beter define the midrib. Best to not have these burnished shiny, hot sealed with vegetable oil prevents rusting.

Custom work does not need to be very expensive, I can certainly compete with Manning any day, and I am sure many other blacksmiths can, too. IMHO, €50 should certainly land you a head like the one you posted from the BM, one piece forged socket and all. Just made a print to scale, shaft diameter looks like 12-14 mm (bit gone, so extrapolated). They are indeed quite small, under 15 cm. For stock you can use 10 mm round mild steel.

That makes me wonder if the Deve Huyuk point is from a light javelin. Even allowing for a tapered shaft, I think that thrusting spears tended to have thicker shafts. Weren't many of those soldiers cavalry? Unfortunately, Moorey wasn't very interested in the points when he published his article on that site, because they were hard to link to a specific place or time.

The iron spearhead from Persepolis (OIP 69 plate 76 no. 1) was about 20 cm long and 50 mm wide with a socket with an internal diameter about 16 mm at the mouth. The two three-flanged dart points (plate 76 no. 2 and 3) had sockets 22 and 16 mm in diameter at the mouth. These figures are taken from my photocopy of the scaled diagram.

[Robert]

Hi Sean, any relation to the firm of the same name? I do believe you are right this more likely being a javelin, looking at the size and the weight. Most of all it is the cutting edge that is a giveaway, usualy. Very slight on this one posted. The spearhead you refer to has the better characteristics for a stabbing/fighting spearhead. But still small enough to be thrown if need be.

[Dan D'Silva]

I'll begin calling some blacksmiths on the morrow. There's quite a lot of them in Bucks County, but I wouldn't put any bets on any of them taking a job that's this far out of their usual; let's just say that this is a pretty stodgy place, whatever we may claim.

Still, though, is the production market really so thin? I mean, a custom piece is great but there must be reenactors out there who don't have any blacksmiths nearby that they can work with.

Sean, that's a good, er, point. I probably would have thought it was a javelin head if the museum didn't have another item labeled as one. For whatever reason, the possibility that they used several different types side-by-side didn't cross my mind.

The iron spearhead from Persepolis (OIP 69 plate 76 no. 1) was about 20 cm long and 50 mm wide with a socket with an internal diameter about 16 mm at the mouth. The two three-flanged dart points (plate 76 no. 2 and 3) had sockets 22 and 16 mm in diameter at the mouth. These figures are taken from my photocopy of the scaled diagram.

Thanks for that! I've got this plate on my computer but I could never find measurements for anything on it.

I once scaled the spearheads from the Susa friezes because they're very clear illustrations. Assuming everything is in proportion and the men are around 5' 6", the blades would be a little more than seven inches/18cm. But they're significantly bigger than the ones in the Persepolis reliefs (if the people are the same height). The actual one found at Persepolis is presumably a real-life example of those.

[Sean Manning]

Hi Sean, any relation to the firm of the same name? I do believe you are right this more likely being a javelin, looking at the size and the weight. Most of all it is the cutting edge that is a giveaway, usually. Very slight on this one posted. The spearhead you refer to has the better characteristics for a stabbing/fighting spearhead. But still small enough to be thrown if need be.

Probably about 200 years back (Manning is one way to spell the name of an Irish clan). When you say that the edge is slight, do you mean that it is not very wide from edge to edge, or that it is not very thick from flat to flat?

I'll begin calling some blacksmiths on the morrow. There's quite a lot of them in Bucks County, but I wouldn't put any bets on any of them taking a job that's this far out of their usual; let's just say that this is a pretty stodgy place, whatever we may claim.

Still, though, is the production market really so thin? I mean, a custom piece is great but there must be reenactors out there who don't have any blacksmiths nearby that they can work with.

Sean, that's a good, er, point. I probably would have thought it was a javelin head if the museum didn't have another item labeled as one. For whatever reason, the possibility that they used several different types side-by-side didn't cross my mind.

I think that many archaeologists try to use vague labels for weapon points today, because it can be hard to tell a big arrowhead from a small dart or javelin head. The excavators at Persepolis identified the large trilobate bronze heads as javelin points, but I think the Ruben Post is right and they are from catapult bolts. Unless a shaft survives, I think that telling the difference is a matter of educated guesses.

The spearhead from Persepolis could be as late as the 4th century, and I think you do the wars of Darius I and Xerxes, but it looks generic to me. I haven't looked into the market for replica spearheads, but I know that often a lot of companies make more or less the same things because they see demand. Staff weapons tend to be a bit neglected today, and reenactors often like to over-build things.

[Vindex]

Thanks, Moi :oops:

But yours were really big shiny things made for heavy use spearing bales and what have you from horseback. Those are meant to last you a lifetime and some. The one in the BM is tiny compared to those massive lancae.

LOL! No one has ever said I am very subtle!! :wink:

[Robert]

@Moi Hahahaha, with you packing that kind of hardware, not a peep out of me :woot:

Well, a fighting spearhead is basicly a dagger on a stick, so will have a wide blade with a lot of cutting edge. For a javelin, a much slimmer head is beter for penetration, as it is throw, not thrust.

As for the market, volume production lowers the price. Once a company knows how to make a certain type, they will keep churning that out as long as it sells. Also, one company will copy another. This also makes for a higher degree of standarisation in kit then would be the case if more custom stuff was made. Provide a good photograph with a scalebar or a single known dimension to a blacksmith used to making spearheads (or socketed garden tools :-) )and he or she should be able to replicate it, unless it has intricate inlays or the like. But several good pictures from different angles do help to figure out how it was made. Making different types is more interesting then doing series for them (well, for me at least). It is usually the high finish which costs as much time as it takes to make the object, as people seem to like shiny spearheads. IMHO this is not really a reflection of a run of the mill spearhead. Most would have been finished to a reasonably smooth overall surface, given a very sharp edge and would then have been treated to an oil bath to seal the iron.

What some people often fail to realise is that a small spearhead takes almost as long to make as a larger one, there is also less room for error. So they go for a large spearhead as being beter value for money, looking at the amount of iron they are getting, not the workmanship.

[jkaler48]

A few years ago DSC made two sizes for me Hasta and Javelin that were well received at Lafe.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I always wondered - why a leaf blade on a stabbing spear? An iron butt would do just as well for stabbing. Maybe if it broke you had a dagger you could fight with?

[richard robinson]

Leaf blades make wider holes in people so are very efficient at disbling your opponent.
Alex at Talerwin Forge pumped out many many leaf bladed javelin heads that could be used to suit your purpose. They are light and brilliant but are not polished. Good luck!
Regards
Richard

[Dan D'Silva]

I'll start calling some blacksmiths on the morrow. There are certainly a lot of them in Bucks County, but I don't necessarily assume any of them will accept a project that's too far out of their usual -- this is a pretty stodgy place, despite what the locals say.

That makes me wonder if the Deve Huyuk point is from a light javelin. Even allowing for a tapered shaft, I think that thrusting spears tended to have thicker shafts. Weren't many of those soldiers cavalry?

That's an interesting, er, point. I probably would have assumed that it was a javelin head, except the museum has another find which is claimed as a javelin head but looks very different. I guess the possibility that they could have used two radically different designs side-by-side for the same purpose didn't occur to me.

The iron spearhead from Persepolis (OIP 69 plate 76 no. 1) was about 20 cm long and 50 mm wide with a socket with an internal diameter about 16 mm at the mouth. The two three-flanged dart points (plate 76 no. 2 and 3) had sockets 22 and 16 mm in diameter at the mouth. These figures are taken from my photocopy of the scaled diagram.

Thanks for this! I have that plate on my hard drive but no dimensions, and I'd always wondered what they were.

I once estimated the size of the spearheads in the Susa reliefs. If the men are about 5' 6", the spears have blades a little over 7 inches/18cm. But compared to, say, the ones in the Persepolis reliefs, these seem unusually big.

[Dan D'Silva]

Ahaha, I get it. My "spam" post that I had to rewrite two days ago has finally gotten through. Good one.