Notes on a Scythian Sword and an Iron Pitchfork Found in the Akçadağ-Nurhak Mountains

Year 2025, Issue: 28, 1 - 21, 26.12.2025

Sevgi Dönmez

https://doi.org/10.47589/adalya.1848345

Abstract

The district of Akçadağ is located to the west and southwest of the Malatya Plain and covers the northeast extension of the Nurhak Mountains. During the 2021 survey of Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements in Malatya Province, an iron sword and an iron pitchfork were handed over to the research team in Akçadağ. They were allegedly recovered by a villager from a pit dug for the construction of a sewer in the village of Bekiruşağı. The iron sword represents a very unique example in Anatolia in terms of blade, hilt, and pommel form. It bears significant similarities with the Scythian-type swords found in the Caucasus and Eurasian steppes dated to the late Early Scythian period and early Middle Scythian period. The XRF analysis of the Nurhak sword and the iron pitchfork contain high levels of palladium and point to a mineral resource outside Anatolia, most likely in the Ural Mountains. The Scythian-type iron sword and iron pitchfork are of importance for highlighting military, political, and cultural relations between the Scythians and the Near Eastern world, and for a reevaluation of Scythian expansion areas and transit routes in Anatolia.

Keywords

Scythian swords , Akçadağ , Nurhak sword , pitchfork , Iron Age

References

• Abbaszadeh, M., O.S. Abi, M. Mastalizadeh, and S. Parvin. 2022. “A Comparative Study of Urartian Jewelries of Urmia Museum, Iran.” Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta Iskusstvovedeniye 12.3:500-24.
• Adalı, S.F. 2017. “Cimmerians and the Scythians: the Impact of Nomadic Powers on the Assyrian Empire and the Ancient Near East.” In Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Contact and Exchange between the Graeco-Roman World, Inner Asia and China, edited by H.J. Kim, F.J. Vervaet, and S.F. Adalı, 60-82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Alekseev, A.Y., N.A. Bokovenko, Y. Boltrik, K.A. Chugunov, G.Cook, V.A. Dergachev, N. Kovalyukh, G. Possnert, J. van der Plicht, E.M. Scott, A. Sementsov, V. Skripkin, S. Vasiliev, and G. Zaitseva. 2001. “A Chronology of the Scythian Antiquities of Eurasia Based on New Archaeological and 14C Data.” Radiocarbon 43.2B:1085-107.
• Alexeyev, A.Y., E.F. Korolkova, T.V. Rjabkova, and E.V. Stepanova. 2017. “The Scythians and their Cultural Contacts.” In The BP Exhibition Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia, edited by S.J. Simpson and S. Pankova, 276-321. London: British Museum / Thames & Hudson.