Spearhead: O.165-1879

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

• Spearhead
• Indian weapons

Categories

• Weapons

Description

Of steel, and of massive proportion, the blade is curved and double edged, with two deep and two shallow fullers at the centre, and a heavy reinforced point. It is joined to the socket by a massive langet, chiselled with dragons’ heads at either side of a lotus bud. The socket itself is faceted, with bands of chiselled foliage, and three mouldings, at the blade of roped, hatched and beaded ornament, in the centre of beaded ornament between ribs of roping, and at the end a seven-stage stepped ornamental band of beading, roping and bands of foliage. The whole is bright with little pitting.

Notes

History note: From Madura

Legal notes

Given by Robert Taylor, MA

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given by Taylor, Robert, MA

Dating

16th Century, Late
Circa 1580 CE - 1600 CE

Note

Compare Government Museum Chennai no. 2236, which has a band of Telugu round the socket and is of exactly the same form, as is O.166.1879 (Documentation, Elgood 2004). Taylor notes (see Documentation, Cambridge 1879) these ‘should be fixed on stout bamboos, 6 to 8 feet long. These weapons are the famous ‘Polygar spears’, used with such terrible effect by the retainers of the Polygars (‘barons’ of Southern India) in the wars of the beginning of the century.’

This fine and very effective example is from Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Robert Taylor, who collected it in India and gave it the museum, said that it would have been ‘fixed on stout bamboos, 6 to 8 feet long’ (1.8–2.4 metres). He also says that were the famous ‘polygar spears used with such effect by the retainers of the polygars (barons) of southern India in the wars at the beginning of the century’.’