Circa 600-400 BC. A finely decorated Iron Acinaces-type sword with pointed, elongated triangular blade, B-shaped guard, rectangular handle and openwork winged pommel. The acinaces is a type of dagger or short sword used mainly in the first millennium BC in the eastern Mediterranean, especially by the Medes, Scythians and Persians, before it was adopted by the Greeks. The Scythians were a warlike nomadic people who dominated the Pontic Steppe (the area North of the Black Sea and stretching as far as Central Asia) in the 7th-3rd centuries BC. This example is from Siberia, where the people were known as Scythians or Scytho-Siberians who left behind an imaginable number of tombs full of precious metalworks. Although horse warfare is what the Scythians are famous for, their weapons and saddles, lacking hard stirrups, seem better suited to dismounting and melee fighting; the acinaces would have been a primary weapon in that kind of situation. Size: L:464mm / W:58mm ; 415g. Provenance: Private UK collection; Formerly acquired on the European art market from pre-2000 collections.