[shayde78]

I love bronze age cultures of the ancient Near East. I have wanted to pick up one of these specific forms of axe heads for a long time, but never could justify the price for something I lack the expertise to evaluate accurately. Fortunately, I found this available for a price low enough that I was happy to pay, if even for a reproduction. The fact that it came from a collection of other high-end items, and that the previous owner had a custom display stand made gives me hope that they, at least, considered it to be of value. For the price of 8 gallons of milk, it was worth the gamble. If nothing else, the stand may be worth that much alone.

I know these are notoriously difficult to authenticate. There are a massive amount of fakes on the market. The real ones also flooded the market, and originated from local folks who were digging simply to find objects to sell. Therefore, there is not much reliable information from academic and methodical excavations.

So, while I would be thrilled if someone could look at the following photos and provide some certainty as to the authenticity (or lack thereof) of the object in question, I am primary posting this to prompt a discussion and to provide ensure some images reside in these archives so that others may compare subsequent pieces.

Thank you all for any opinions you wish to offer