(ANSAmed) - VENICE, FEBRUARY 28 - A 5,000 year-old sword,
among the oldest Anatolian weapons in the world, was discovered
by a PhD student at the University Ca' Foscari in Venice,
Vittoria Dall'Armellina, in a monastery on the island of San
Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Lagoon City.
The weapon is at the museum of San Lazzaro. It is a small
sword, located in a window together with Medieval objects. The
sword however is very similar to 5,000-year-old weapons
discovered inside the Royal palace in Arslantepe, eastern
Anatolia, believed to be the most ancient in the world.
The museum of Tokat (Turkey) had a similar sword from the
region of Sivas, which is extremely similar to the one in San
Lazzaro.
Once it was established that the sword was not present in the
catalogue of ancient Middle Eastern objects at the museum, in
agreement with Elena Rova, a professor of archaeology at the
Department of humanistic studies and her supervisor,
Dall'Armellina continued her research. Scientific tests
confirmed that the sword is similar to the most ancient in the
world, dating back to 3,000 BC, not only in shape but in the
composition of the metal. Then research focused on how it came
to the monastery and its connection to the community of the
Armenian fathers. The research was carried out by consulting
Father Serafino Jamourlian, of the mekhitarist monastery of San
Lazzaro, who was able to partly solve the question by consulting
the archives of the museum. The sword arrived from Trabzon to
Venice, donated by an art merchant and collector, Yervant
Khorasandjian, in the mid-1800s, according to an envelope. It
was found with other objects in an area called Kavak. Ghevond
Alishan, a famous poet and writer who was friends with John
Ruskin, a monk with the congregation and a researcher, died in
Venice in 1901. It is thougth therefore that this episode dates
back to the last decades of the 19th century. The analysis on
the metal's composition has been carried out in collaboration
with Professor Ivana Angelini and (Centro Interdipartimentale di
Ricerca Studio e Conservazione dei Beni Archeologici,
Architettonici e Storico-Artistici) Ciba at the University of
Padua.
The sword is made of a type of copper and tin frequently used
before the Bronze age. This data and the marked similarity with
twin swords in Arslantepe, allowed to date it between the end of
the 6th and start of the 3rd millennium BC and to confirm that
it was a very rare type. (ANSAmed)
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