Object Description
A bronze whetstone socket, one end of which is cast as the forepart of an ibex with long horns. The other end is socketed to accomodate the stone. Mounted on a purpose-made stand.
The whetstone was used in order to sharpen edged weapons and tools. In Luristan, bronze whetstone sockets provided the opportunity for elaborate cast decoration, unlike anywhere else in the ancient Near East. Usually, whetstones were tools of the utmost simplicity, but the emergence of decorated sockets for ceremonial whetstones is documented from the late second millennium onwards.
Given the connection of whetstones with weapons used for battle and hunting, it can be assumed that zoomorphic handles bore, in addition to their decorative value, an apotropaic or magical value. This would have been considered to rub off, literally, onto the honed weapon.