836 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



killed iu that battle, B. C. 490. It was excavated by Fiaurois Lenor- 

 mant, aud bis report was published.' A great number of bronze arrow- 

 heads were found, short, barbed, socketed, and with three facets. 



Flakes of black flint were also found, which were thought by some 

 to have served as arrowheads, but this has been combated aud is doubt- 

 ful. They were all the same type and did not resemble any known 

 standard of arrowhead. They were but fragments of an irregular tri- 

 angular form, 1^ to li inches in size, and curved at the x)oiut. M. Leuor- 

 mant is clearly of the opinion that these were not of Greek origin. 

 The black flint is almost unknown in Greece, aud he suggests that 

 they might have been used by some of the Persian archers. But even 

 this is doubtful, for we know that bronze and iron arrowheads were 

 used at that period by the Persians as well as by the Greeks. The 

 latter had used them in the days of Homer (figs. Ii4, 25). 



The knowledge of bronze is believed to have come from the East, and 

 if so, would have been known in Persia even before it became known 

 in Greece. It is doubtful if they were arrowheads at all, but if they 

 really were it is much more likely they belonged to the Persian allies 

 than to the Persiaus themselves. The Scythians and Parthiaus, coming 

 from the direction of Persia, were the most celebrated archers of the 

 known world, and had bronze, if not iron, arrowheads. History helps 

 us iu the view that these stone arrowheads, if they were such, did not 

 come from Persia, nor from the East, but from Ethiopia — the far South. 



Herodotus ^ described the arms of the various peoples forming the 

 army of Xerxes. Most of them had the bow and arrow, but stone 

 points were used only by one people. 



The Persians * * * iiail short spears, long bows and arrows made of cane 

 * * * and under them their quiver hung. * » * 'i^ji© Indians » '' * imd 

 bows of cane and arrows of cane tipped with iron. * ^ * The Bactrians had bows 

 of cane, peculiar to their country. * * » The Parthians, Chorasmians, .Sogdians, 

 Gaudarians, and Dadicfc had the same as the Bactrians. The Caspians, .Savangif, 

 and Pactyes had bows of cane. * * * The Arabians carried at their right sides 

 long bows which bent backward. The Ethiopians carried long bows, not less than 

 four cubits, made from branches of the palm tree, and on them they placed short 

 arrows made of cane; instead of iron, tipped with stone, which was made sharp and 

 of that sort on which they engrave seals. * * * They had javelins tipped with 

 antelope's horn made sharp like a lance. 



The Scythians and the rude tribe of MassagetiB used bronze arrow- 

 heads in the time of Herodotus, who records^ how that one Ariantas, a 

 king of the Scythians, took the census of his people by requiring each 

 one to contribute an arrowhead, the whole of which he put in the melt- 

 ing pot and cast into an enormous bronze vessel.^ 



Our modern discoveries point toward bronze and iron having come 

 from the Orient, and getting into Egypt and Ethiopia later than into 

 Assjrria or Asia Minor. 



Armenia and Caucasus, that vast mountainous and comparatively 



Revue Archaeologique, Paris, February, 1867. * Book VII, 61-80. 



3 Book IV, 81. * Sir John Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, p. 329. 



