The article presents the recent discovery, in the collections of the Museum of the Mechitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro degli armeni in Venice, of a rare Anatolian sword dating back to the end of the IV millennium BC. The study of the published parallels and the analysis of the metal alloy allow to attribute the artefact to one of the most ancient sword types (the so-called “Arslantepe type”) and to circumscribe its origin to the part of Eastern Turkey which lies between the Upper Euphrates (Malatya), the coast of the Black Sea (Trabzon) and the province of Sivas. Besides confirming the sword’s region of origin, research carried out in the monastery archives clarified the circumstances in which the artefact travelled from Trabzon to Venice in the second half of the XIX century A.D. and was incorporated in the monastery collections, thereby highlighting the role of the latter in the connections between Venice and the late Ottoman Empire.
The article presents the recent discovery, in the collections of the Museum of the Mechitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro degli armeni in Venice, of a rare Anatolian sword dating back to the end of the IV millennium BC. The study of the published parallels and the analysis of the metal alloy allow to attribute the artefact to one of the most ancient sword types (the so-called “Arslantepe type”) and to circumscribe its origin to the part of Eastern Turkey which lies between the Upper Euphrates (Malatya), the coast of the Black Sea (Trabzon) and the province of Sivas. Besides confirming the sword’s region of origin, research carried out in the monastery archives clarified the circumstances in which the artefact travelled from Trabzon to Venice in the second half of the XIX century A.D. and was incorporated in the monastery collections, thereby highlighting the role of the latter in the connections between Venice and the late Ottoman Empire.
La spada di San Lazzaro. Riscoperta una spada anatolica di cinquemila anni fa nella collezione del monastero mechitarista di Venezia
Vittoria Dall’Armellina
;Elena Rova
2021-01-01
Abstract
The article presents the recent discovery, in the collections of the Museum of the Mechitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro degli armeni in Venice, of a rare Anatolian sword dating back to the end of the IV millennium BC. The study of the published parallels and the analysis of the metal alloy allow to attribute the artefact to one of the most ancient sword types (the so-called “Arslantepe type”) and to circumscribe its origin to the part of Eastern Turkey which lies between the Upper Euphrates (Malatya), the coast of the Black Sea (Trabzon) and the province of Sivas. Besides confirming the sword’s region of origin, research carried out in the monastery archives clarified the circumstances in which the artefact travelled from Trabzon to Venice in the second half of the XIX century A.D. and was incorporated in the monastery collections, thereby highlighting the role of the latter in the connections between Venice and the late Ottoman Empire.
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