Dagger Blade with Four Rivets

Four rivets are present in the convex butt of this thin, leaf-shaped dagger blade. All of the rivets, which have flattened heads on both sides, move freely in the holes. On both faces of the blade, linear incisions radiate away from the rivets toward the point, merging at approximately the midpoint (1). There may be a very slight midrib on the blade, with a difference in thickness of less than 2 mm. The rivets would have attached the blade to a hilt made of another material that is now lost. NOTES: 1. The general form of the Harvard dagger resembles two Middle Helladic III to Late Helladic I daggers from the Greek mainland; see Th. J. Papadopoulos, The Late Bronze Age Daggers of the Aegean 1: The Greek Mainland, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 6.11 (Stuttgart, 1998) 4-5, nos. 1-2. For the various forms of Cycladic daggers, see C. Renfrew, “Cycladic Metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age,” American Journal of Archaeology 71.1 (1967): 1-20, esp. 9-12. Compare also K. Branigan, Aegean Metalwork of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Oxford, 1974) pl. 3.146. Lisa M. Anderson