“The Dagger Itself is After Something Else” The Biography of Daggers with Crescent-Shaped Guards in the Near East

The crescent-shaped guard daggers are known in Iran from the middle of the 2nd millennium to the first centuries of the 1st millennium BCE. They first appeared in the mid-2nd millennium and have mostly been discovered from Elamite sites in the Khuzestan Plain. Their presence continued through the last quarter of the 2nd millennium and expanded over a wide geographical area, from north and northwest of the Iranian Plateau to the south of the Persian Gulf. By the first centuries of the 1st millennium, the geographical extent of the daggers was again limited, this time chiefly to northwest Iran.The guard on these daggers alternate between a functional and non-functional attribute through time. In the first phase, it had a functional role that changed to a decorative one in the second phase, and with the gradual development of iron blade in the third phase, the guard transformed back to its functional trait.By looking at the crescent-shaped guard as a technological style that reflects both technological changes and cultural traditions, this article attempts to understand the temporal and spatial distribution of the daggers, and to examine social aspects of the style such as imitation, communication and social boundaries.