EARLY BRONZE AGE DAGGERS IN CENTRAL ... - Bilkent University

egional variance in the production of a dagger is the example with triple rivet holes
on its tang (Cat. No: 20). The shoulders are narrow and straight, and the tang is wide
and ends in a round fashion with three rivets, which are arranged in a triangular
scheme. As it was mentioned earlier, triangular rivet use was proposed to have spread
from Cilicia and North Syria. The Horoztepe dagger handle attachment with the three
rivets is different than the other blades in Cilicia and Central Anatolia. Cilician
examples have two rivets on the shoulders and one near the end of the tang, forming a
triangle. The Horoztepe dagger has all three rivets grouped at the far end of the tang,
away from the shoulders of the blade. There are no other contemporary examples
available from the region where this type of blade utilizes rivets in this fashion. The
shoulders of the dagger are very straight and have a sharp angle where they meet the
blade.
These two blades presented above were clearly regional variations, likely to
have been produced at Horoztepe. Two daggers (Cat.No:18, 22) published by Özgüç-
Akok in 1957 (Özgüç-Akok, 1957:216) are older types of daggers, providing
examples of earlier dagger types in Horoztepe. The dagger with round shoulders and a
wide tang (Cat. No: 18) has its parallels İkiztepe (Fig. 21), Tekeköy (Fig. 22), and in
Ovabayındır (Fig. 23). The shoulders of the Horoztepe one slightly stick out, forming
bulges. This is not seen in the İkiztepe and Ovabayındır examples. The peculiar
morphology of the Horoztepe dagger is most likely the result of the repeated re-
sharpening of the dagger blade. The areas closer to the handle, and underneath the
handle, were protected, resulting in the bulbous shape below the shoulders. Another
evidence of this sharpening process is the concave sides of the blade. The possible
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