Ref #:  9

Type:  Mace

Material:  Iron

Period:  Byzantine (Eastern Roman)  6th - 14th Cent. A.D.

Provenance:  Balkan Region

Measurements:  8.9 cm x 5 cm

Comments:  Specimen retains silver geometric overlay decoration intact on spikes in some regions beneath the encrustation as seen in last image.

This mace head of hexagonal shape, finds its correspondence with a very similar item in iron found in Pliska (Bulgaria), dated among 9th and 11th century A.D..  The construction of such a mace was also designed to be used as a throwing weapon.  The handle was balanced with the proper type and weight of wood and reinforced with iron in the striking end.  Moreover, the head was spiked to produce further and serious wounds beyond the crushing blow. 

Theodore, Metropolite of Nikea, in his letter to the Emperor Constantine VII written in the 10th century, speaks about such an iron war mace as he described the ambush by the men of Vasilios Koitonites in Constantinople.  One of the drunken men, armed with iron covered maces, inflicted a severe injury between the eyelashes and temple.  From the depth of the wound puncturing the skull, he observed the hexagonal shape of the iron mace head, or at least he supposes that it was covered by iron interlaced chains.

Our specimen here presents the singularity of traces of silver geometric decoration still visible in some regions beneath the incrustations.  Gilded or silvered specimen are mentioned in the sources as prerogative of high military commanders and even the Emperor : the folio 33r of Oppianus Cynegetica Ms. Gr. Z 479 (= 881) shows us an Imperial Emilochita using a silvered mace against a courtier.