Spearheads of boar-spear and peaks from the collection of the Nizhniy Novgorod State historical and architectural museum-park

Abstract

In this article we introduced into scientific turnover four spearheads of long-barreled weapons from the collection of the Nizhny Novgorod state Historical and Architectural Museum-park. The first three tips were among the old receipts of the museum, their origin is unknown. The fourth exemplar was transferred to the museum in 1923 or 1925 by the son of famous photographer and collector of antiquities A. O. Karelin (Nizhny Novgorod). The place of acquisition of the tip by the photographer is unknown. We analyzed the design features of the spearheads, clarified the chronological framework, the area and extent of distribution of such products. In the analysis and interpretation of materials, a comparative historical method was used to determine the analogies of the tips. The first three exemplars can be characterized as hollow tips with a wide elongated-triangular and elongated-rhombic feather and an unconnected seam on the sleeve. A wide, massive feather allows them to be attributed to boar-spears (rоgatina) – a popular type of long-shaft weapons in Russia of the XV–XVII centuries. The analysis and the search for analogies made it possible to date them with a wide chronological interval of the XVI–XVII centuries. Such weapons were used by Russian warriors, primarily «infantry» – convoy servants, militia, city Cossacks, etc., since at the specified time long-shaft weapons were rarely found in the arms of nobles and boyar children, and if they were, then more often in the form of spades and spears. Similar aspearheads date back to local samples of pre-Mongol time. The fourth copy is defined as the tip of the Cossack «statutory» pike of the sample of 1839.