EARLY STABBING WEAPONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF ELITES IN SOUTHEAST- AND CENTRAL EUROPE

Lecture held on October 2nd, 2001)

The aim of the lecture was to discuss the role of stabbing weapons from rare and exotic objects to a broadly accepted sign of power and rank. Examples can illustrate its function not only as an all-round tool, but as an instrument to stab and hurt.

The highly elaborated flint and obsidian daggers known from Çatal Höyük in Turkey represent the earliest clearly definable dagger types in the Old World. The history of standardized dagger production, namely its earliest double-edged metal versions, starts in the late fifth/ early fourth millennium BC in the –at this time innovative- Copper Age Balkans/ South-eastern Europe. The Naqada culture of Predynastic Egypt represents a second independent early dagger industry. From the third millennium onwards the dagger makes its career as a sign of power, the fascination associated with such an instrument illustrated in the rock art and sculptured steles e.g. of Upper Italy. Its growing presence goes along with increasingly specialised and diversified metallurgy. Special attention is finally drawn to the phenomenon of the so-called “Beaker Culture”, better understood as a fashion in ceramic styles burial customs, that spread all over Europe and its eastern and southern fringes in the late third millennium BC, and permeated the different local cultures. Tin trade may have played a key role in the emergence and spreading of the “Beaker” artefacts throughout Europe and parts of Northern Africa. From this time on the stabbing weapon, made of metal, bone or flint stone is a widespread grave good that appears in richer equipped burials.

Burial of Nett Down, Shrewton in Wiltshire, UK

(photo: B. Claasz Coockson 1988)

Its regular appearance from the Beaker Period onwards into the fully developed European Early Bronze Age shows the dagger as a well-known and commonly accepted sign of power and social status.

The conclusion is drawn that in the Oriental as well as the Occidental world the dagger therefore represents one of the first clearly identifiable status symbols, and more than this it might serve as an indictor for one of the most important innovations of mankind, metallurgy.

My stay at
Bilkent University

My first stay at Bilkent as a special student (thanks to a DAAD fellowship) in the academic year 1998/99 truly enriched my studies in Old World Archaeology, for it provided a manifold program in different topics covering a wide range of theoretical and practical archaeology. The open-minded and friendly atmosphere at the institute guaranteed a successful study year abroad. After finishing my Master of Arts in Ratisbone University, Germany (spring 2000) and starting a Ph.D. project in a research institute for prehistory in Mainz, the Department of Archaeology and History of Art invited me to give a lecture on my present research topic. It turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to share a first insight into my ongoing studies with my former colleagues and friends.

Thomas Zimmermann

Newsletter No. 1 - 2002, Pg. 17

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