Nice African Spear For Comment?

[Lew]

Originally Posted by tom hyle

The blade almost exactly resembles some Ethiopian military spears I have that came out of the arsenal at Addis Ababa. There are only two differences that I see: first, and lesser, is that mine have a hard, smooth, black, deliberately made original patina of some sort remaining on most of their surfaces, while this one looks like bare metal(?); second is that my Ethiopian spears are socketted, not tanged.

Tom

I think this spear is socketed if you mean that the shaft goes into the head rather than a tang being pushed into the wood similar to Moro spears?


Lew

[Freddy]

I think Lew is right when he says Ethiopian or Somalian. In the book 'African Arms and Armour' by Christopher Spring p 103. A couple of similar spears are depicted.

Besides the drawing is the following text :

"Somali and Danakil spear heads. Such blades often have a double concavity on either side of a raised median ridge though in less sophisticated exemples an impression of this structure is created on a flat surface simply by polishing a stripe of bright metal between two blackened segments."

Perhaps your spear head was a bit overpolished by its former owner.

[Lew]

Originally Posted by Freddy

I think Lew is right when he says Ethiopian or Somalian. In the book 'African Arms and Armour' by Christopher Spring p 103. A couple of similar spears are depicted.



Perhaps your spear head was a bit overpolished by its former owner.

Freddy

The photo was taken with flash which tends to give the blade a silvery look but in regular light it has a greyish/blue gun metal look to it. The blade is not polished. I also purchased a very nice Tuereg spear but this time I was able to have the seller take apart the spear for easier and much cheaper shipping will post pics when it arrives.

Lew

[tom hyle]

Now I see; the brass is applied over the socket, rather than as a ferule on the shaft.