LEAF-SHAPED SWORDS.

Among ancient weapons of bronze, perhaps the most remarkable both for elegance of form and for the skill displayed in their casting are the leaf-shaped swords, of which a considerable number have come down to our times. The only other forms that can vie with them in these respects are the spear-heads, of which many are gracefully proportioned, while the coring of their sockets for the reception of the shafts would do credit to the most skilful modern founder. Neither the one nor the other belong to the earliest period[1003] when bronze first came into general use for weapons and tools, the flat celts and knife-daggers characteristic of that period being as a rule absent from the hoards in which fragments of swords and spear-heads are present.

There is also this remarkable circumstance attaching to the bronze swords, viz., that there is no well-authenticated instance[1004] of their occurrence with any interments in barrows. It is true that Professor Daniel Wilson[1005] speaks of the frequent discovery of broken swords with sepulchral deposits, and mentions one found alongside of a cinerary urn in a tumulus at Memsie, Aberdeenshire, and another which lay beside a human skeleton in a cist under Carlochan Cairn, Carmichael, Galloway. But one of these discoveries took place so long ago as 1776, and in both cases there may, as Canon Greenwell has suggested, either have been some mistake as to the manner of finding, or the connection of the sword with the interment may have been apparent rather than real. A portion of a sword 6½ inches long, said to have been found in a cairn at Ballagan,[1006] Strathblane, Stirlingshire, in 1788, is in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. A “sarcophagus with ashes” is said to have been in the cairn. Another sword, broken in four pieces, is said to have been found in a barrow in Breconshire.[1007] Another, found at Wetheringsett, Suffolk, is said to have lain fourteen feet deep in clay, with a great number of human bones, but no pottery or other remains. In this case, however, there is no mention of a barrow. The sword is elsewhere said to have been found in a sandpit.[1008]

In Scandinavia, however, bronze swords have not unfrequently been found with interments in barrows; and inasmuch as the owners of the bronze swords in Britain were, after death, in all probability interred, either in a burnt or unburnt condition, there appears no reason why in some instances their swords may not have been buried with them, though as yet the evidence of these weapons having been found in tumuli, is far from satisfactory. Possibly at the time when the swords were in use the practice of erecting mounds over graves had ceased, and there are now no external marks upon the ground to indicate the graves of the warriors who wielded the bronze swords, and who have thus escaped disturbance in their “narrow cells” from the hands of treasure-seekers and archÆologists; or possibly the custom of burying weapons with the dead may at that time have ceased.

But not only has there been a question, as to what was the method of interment in vogue among the owners of the bronze swords, but, as already mentioned in the Introductory Chapter, serious dispute has arisen whether the swords themselves are not Roman, or at all events of Roman date. The late Mr. Thomas Wright[1009] was the most ardent advocate of this latter view, and he has been to some extent supported by Mr. C. Roach Smith.[1010] The contrary view, that the swords belong to a Bronze Age before the use of that metal was superseded by that of iron, has been ably advocated by the late Mr. A. Henry Rhind, F.S.A.Scot.,[1011] and Sir John Lubbock.[1012] It seems almost needless for me here to enter further into this controversy, in which, to my mind, as already stated in the Introductory Chapter, the whole weight of the argument is in favour of a pre-Roman origin for these swords in Western and Northern Europe. There was no doubt a time when bronze swords were in use in Greece and Italy, and the substitution of iron or steel for bronze, so far as we can judge from the early iron swords found in the ancient cemetery at Hallstatt and elsewhere, involved little if any alteration in the form and character of the weapon, which was better adapted for thrusting than for striking. Even here in Britain, by the time when the Roman invasion took place, not only were swords made of iron in use, but the form of what is known as the Late-Celtic[1013] sword was no longer leaf-shaped, but slightly tapering, with the edges nearly straight almost as far as the point. Among the Romans it would seem that more than one change was made in the form of their swords after the introduction of iron as the material from which they were formed. As Mr. Rhind has pointed out, Polybius speaks of the swords wielded by the soldiers of Æmilius at the battle of Telamon, B.C. 225, as made not only to thrust but to give a falling stroke with singular effect. “During the Second Punic War, however, which immediately succeeded the battle of Telamon, the Romans adopted the Spanish sword,” the material of which we have no difficulty in definitely ascertaining, as “Diodorus Siculus[1014] particularly mentions the process by which the Celtiberians prepared their iron for the purpose of manufacturing swords so tempered that neither shield, helmet, nor bone could resist them.” How far their process of burying iron underground until a part of it had rusted away would, in the case of charcoal iron, leave the remaining portion more of the nature of steel, I am unable to say. Perhaps the amount of manipulation in charcoal necessary to restore the rusted plates to a serviceable condition may have produced this effect of converting the iron into mild steel. The steel of the sabres made in Japan,[1015] which will cut through an iron nail without their edge being injured, is said to be prepared in a similar manner from iron long buried underground.

Most of the bronze swords are shorter than those of the present day; but the Roman sword would, in the time of Julius, appear to have been longer than ours. Otherwise Cicero’s joke about his son-in-law, Lentulus, would have but little point, however small in person he may have been. Indeed, Macrobius[1016] expressly says that it was a long sword that Lentulus was wearing when Cicero made the inquiry, Who has tied my son-in-law to a sword?

The swords in use among the Britons at a somewhat later period appear to have been of great size, for Tacitus speaks of them as “ingentes” and “enormes.” They were also bluntly pointed, or “sine mucrone.” Such a description is entirely inconsistent with the form and size of our bronze swords, though it might well refer to some of the iron blades of the Late-Celtic Period, which are 3 feet in length. Others are, however, shorter.

Of the comparative rarity of bronze swords in Italy, and of their abundance in Scandinavia and Ireland, countries never occupied by the Romans, Sir John Lubbock[1017] has already spoken; and he has also summarized the reasons which convince him, as they do me, that our bronze weapons cannot be referred to Roman times. I will only repeat one of the arguments, of which perhaps not sufficient use has been made. It is that at the time when Julius CÆsar was invading Britain, and its inhabitants were thus for the first time brought in contact with Roman weapons, iron had been so long in use for swords in Italy that the term for the weapon was “ferrum.”

Another feature in bronze swords, which has been frequently commented on by archÆological writers, is the comparatively small size of the hilt. “The handles are always very small, a fact which tends to prove that the men who used these swords were but of moderate stature.”[1018] “The handles of the bronze swords are very short and could not have been held comfortably by hands as large as ours—a characteristic much relied on by those who attribute the introduction of bronze into Europe to a people of Asiatic origin.[1019]

I must confess that I regard this view of the smallness of the hilts as being somewhat exaggerated. My own hand is none of the smallest, and yet where the bronze hilts of the Danish and Hungarian swords have been preserved I have no difficulty in finding room to clasp them. The part of the hilt where it expands to embrace the base of the blade was, I think, probably intended to be within the grasp of the hand, and not to be beyond it as a guard. In the case of some of the short dagger-like weapons it seems possible that the projecting rim, which forms a kind of pommel at the end of the hilt, was intended to rest between the fourth and the little finger, and thus to assist in its being grasped firmly when in use as a stabbing weapon. When the plates of horn or wood, which, as we shall subsequently see, once covered the hilt portion of the sword, have perished, it is hard to realise what was the exact form of the hilt; but it is quite evident that we must not assume that because the bare bronze does not fill the hand so as to give it a good grip, the same was the case when it had a plate of some other material on each face, which also possibly projected beyond the sides.

There is, moreover, one peculiarity about the hilt-plates of these swords which I have often pointed out by word of mouth, but which I think has not as yet been noticed in print. It is that there is generally, though not universally, a proportion between the length of the blade and the length of the hilt-plate; long sword blades having as a rule long hilt-plates, and short sword blades short hilt-plates. So closely is this kind of proportion preserved, that the outline of a large sword on the scale of one-sixth would in some cases almost absolutely correspond with that of one which was two-thirds of its length, if drawn on the scale of one-fourth.

This relative proportion between the length and size of a blade and its handle is by no means restricted to the swords of the Bronze Period, but prevails also among various tools, such as the saws and chisels of the present day. If, for instance, we were to argue from the saw-handles in a carpenter’s shop as to the size of the hands of the carpenters, we should soon find ourselves in difficulties. The handle of an ordinary hand-saw is sufficiently large to admit the hand of any one short of a giant, while the orifice in the handle of a small keyhole-saw will not admit more than a couple of fingers, and the handles of saws of intermediate size range between these two extremes. This fact suffices to inculcate caution in arguing from the hilt-plates of the bronze swords as to the size of the hands of those who used them. It is a question which will be more safely determined on osteological than archÆological evidence; but, owing to the remarkable absence of bronze swords from the interments in our barrows, it may be some time before a sword and the bones of the hand that wielded it are found in juxtaposition.

Professor Rolleston[1020] has well said, “I am not quite clear that this bronze sword, leaf-shaped or other, has always a very small hilt.” “At any rate, there can be no doubt that in this country the skeletons of the Bronze Period belonged to much larger and stronger and taller men than did the skeletons of the Long Barrow stone-using folk who preceded them. In some parts of England the contrast in this matter of size between the men of the Bronze and those of the Stone Age is as great as that now existing between the Maori and the gentle Hindoo.”

The stature of several of the men interred in the Yorkshire barrows, examined by Canon Greenwell, was not less than five feet nine inches, and the bones of the hands were proportional to those of the bodies; but, unfortunately, no bronze swords accompanied them, though many of the interments were of the Bronze Age.

The usual form of sword to which the term “leaf-shaped” has been applied is that shown in Fig. 342. Their total length is generally about 24 inches, though sometimes not more than 16 inches, but they are occasionally as long as 30 inches, or even more. The blades are in most cases uniformly rounded, but with the part next the edge slightly drawn down so as to form a shallow fluting. In some instances, however, there is a more or less bold rounded central rib, or else projecting ridges running along the greater part of the blade near the edges. They differ considerably in the form of the plate for the hilt, and in the number and arrangement of the rivets by which the covering material was attached. This latter, as will subsequently be seen, usually consisted of plates of horn, bone, or wood, riveted on each side of the hilt-plate. In rare instances the outer part of the hilt was of bronze. Of the scabbards of such swords and the chapes attached to them I shall subsequently speak.

On an Italian oblong bronze coin or quincussis, 6? inches by 3½ inches, and weighing about 3½ lbs., is the representation of a leaf-shaped sword with a raised rib along the centre of the blade, and in general character much like Fig. 345. A specimen of this coin is in the British Museum,[1049] and bears upon the reverse the figure of a scabbard with parallel sides, and a nearly circular chape. Another coin of the same type, engraved by Carelli,[1050] has a nearly similar scabbard on the reverse, but the sword on the obverse is either represented as being in its scabbard or is not at all leaf-shaped, the sides of the blade being parallel. The hilt is also curved, and there is a cross-guard. In fact, upon the one coin, the weapon has the appearance of a Roman sword of iron, and on the other that of a leaf-shaped sword of bronze. These pieces were no doubt cast in Umbria, probably in the third century b.c., but their attribution to Ariminum is at best doubtful. From the two varieties of sword appearing on coins of the same type, the inference may be drawn either that at the time when they were cast, bronze swords were in Umbria being superseded by those of iron; or that the type originally referred to some sacred weapon of bronze such as is represented on the coin in the British Museum, but was subsequently made more conventional so as to represent the sword in ordinary use at the period.

English swords, with the hilts, or pommels, or both, formed of bronze, are not of common occurrence. The first which I have selected for illustration has the side edges so straight that it hardly belongs to the class usually known as leaf-shaped. The hilt-plate is peculiar in having well-developed side flanges which expand at the base so as to form an oval pommel. The hilt has as usual been formed of two plates of bone or wood, which have been secured to the hilt-plate by six rivets. This sword, which was found in the Fens, near Ely, has unfortunately lost its point, but is still 19¼ inches long. It was lent me for engraving (as Fig. 348) by Mr. M. Fisher, of Ely. In some Danish examples the high flanges of the hilt-plates are covered by thin plates of gold, beyond which, of course, the hilt of bone, wood, or horn did not project, and no doubt in this instance also the side flanges were left visible and not in any way covered. They are upwards of 4 inches in length, so that the hilt would fit into a large hand.

A small but very interesting sword with a perfect bronze hilt and pommel is shown in Fig. 349. It was found in the River Cherwell,[1072] and is now in the Museum at Oxford. It was kindly lent me by Professor Rolleston for the purpose of engraving. The total length of the weapon is 21 inches, of which the pommel and hilt, which is adapted for a decidedly large hand, occupy about 5 inches. The hilt has the appearance of having been cast upon the blade, and seems to be formed of bronze of the same character. There are no rivets visible by which the two castings are attached the one to the other.

I am of opinion that the same process of attaching the hilt to the blade by casting the one upon the other was in use in Scandinavia and Germany. Some of the bronze daggers from Italy seem also to have had their hilts cast upon the blades in which the rivets were already fixed.

In Scotland a number of bronze swords have been found which bear, as might have been anticipated, a close resemblance to those from England.

A few other swords with pommels to their hilts have been found in Scotland. That shown in Fig. 353 was found in Edinburgh,[1100] with, it is said, thirteen or fourteen more, a pin, and ring, and a kind of annular button, of bronze. It is now in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. The hilt appears to have been added to the hilt-plate by a subsequent process of casting. The pommel has been cast over a core of clay, which it still retains within it. Another of the swords (24¼ inches) has the hilt-plate pierced for six rivets. Two others which have been examined are imperfect.

Mr. Joseph Anderson, who has described this find, points out that this hilt must have “been cast in a matrix modelled from a sword which had the grip made up of two convex plates attached on either side of the handle plate, and their ends covered by a hollow pommel”—in fact, from such a sword as that from Tarves, already mentioned. He also observes that the holes in the hilt are not rivet-holes, and thinks that they may have been caused by wooden pins used to hold the clay core in position, for the handle as well as the pommel is hollow. I am rather doubtful as to the accuracy of this theory, as such pins would, I think, produce blow-holes in the metal in casting. There may, however, have been clay projections from the inner core which would leave holes such as these, into which studs of wood, bone, or horn might afterwards be inserted by way of ornament and to add firmness to the grip. For details of the finding of from thirty to forty bronze swords in Scotland, the reader is referred to Mr. Anderson’s paper.

The bronze leaf-shaped swords from Ireland, of which nearly or quite a hundred, either perfect or fragmentary, are preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, have been treated of at some length by the late Sir William Wilde,[1101] whose Catalogue the reader may consult with advantage. Ingeneral appearance they closely resemble the swords from the sister countries, and vary in length from about eighteen to thirty inches. The blades are usually rounded on the faces, or have a faintly marked median ridge, and are slightly fluted along the edges. This fluting or bevelling is sometimes bounded by a raised ridge. The form with a rounded rib along the middle of the blade is almost unknown. There is considerable variation in the form of the end of the hilt-plate, in which occasionally there is a deep V-shaped notch, or several smaller notches. The most common termination is that like a fish-tail as seen in Fig. 354. The number of rivet-holes is various, ranging from four to eleven. There are occasionally slots[1102] in the hilt-plate and in the wings at the base of the blade.

They have been found in most parts of the kingdom.

A common type of Irish sword is shown in Fig. 354 from a specimen found at Newtown Limavady, Co. Derry, in 1870. One wing of the fish-tail termination is wanting and has been restored in the sketch. The nine rivet-holes seem to have been cast and not drilled, though they may have been slightly counter-sunk subsequently to the casting. The hilt-plate is slightly fluted, perhaps with the view of steadying the hilt.

In a fragment of a sword found with spear-heads, a socketed dagger, and a fragment of a hammer on Bo Island, Enniskillen, there are five deep flutings on each side of the hilt-plate. As is the case with some of the English examples already mentioned, this hilt-plate has been joined to the blade by some process of burning on. One of the four rivet-holes in it has been partially closed by the operation. Sir William Wilde has noticed that several of the leaf-shaped swords under his charge had been broken and subsequently “welded” both by fusion and by the addition of a collar of the metal which encircles the extremities of the fragments. The term “welding” is, however, inappropriate to a metal of the character of bronze.

At least two swords have been found in Ireland still retaining the plates of bone which formed their hilts. By the kindness of Mr. Robert Day, F.S.A., I am able to reproduce full-sized figures of both sides of one of the most perfect specimens, as Figs. 358 and 359, which have already appeared in the Journal of the Royal Historical and ArchÆological Association of Ireland.[1112]

The sword itself, shown on a small scale in Fig. 360, was found in Lisletrim Bog, Muckno, Co. Monaghan. It is 24½ inches long, with a thick midrib running along the blade. The plates of bone which are still attached have been pronounced by Professor Owen to be mammalian, and probably cetacean. It will be observed that at the wings of the hilt-plate the bone projects somewhat beyond the metal. The same peculiarity may be observed in the bone hilt of a sword found at Mullylagan,[1113] Co. Armagh, which has somewhat the appearance of having been carved at the end next the blade into a pair of rude volutes. It is shown full-size in Fig. 361. The sword itself, on a small scale, is shown in Fig. 362. In this instance the bone projects beyond the sides of the hilt-plate. I have not seen the specimen, which is preserved in the collection of Mr. A. Knight Young, of Monaghan.[1114] A bronze sword with six rivets, found near Kallundborg, Denmark,[1115] had the hilt formed of wood.

As is the case with several of the bronze swords discovered in Scandinavia, some of those found in Ireland seem to have been decorated with gold upon their hilts.

On one of the rivets of a sword found in a bog near Cullen,[1116] Tipperary, was a thin piece of gold weighing upwards of 12 dwts. Another sword,[1117] found near the same place in 1751, had a plate of gold on one side which covered the hilt; at the end was a small object like a pommel of a sword, with three links of a chain hanging from it. The whole weighed 3 ozs. 3 dwts. 11 grs. In this bog about twenty bronze swords were found at intervals, besides about forty pieces of hilt-plates in which the rivets stood. In one sword[1118] there was a recess near the blade, ½ × ¼ × ¹/₆ inch, in which was “a piece of pewter which just fitted it, with four channels cut in it, in each of which was laid a thin bit of fine copper, so that they resembled four figures of 1.”

A fragment of a blade which Wilde[1119] considers to be that of a sword, is decorated with raised lines and circles in relief, which were cast with the blade. A portion of it is shown in Fig. 363. As the whole fragment is only 4¼ inches long, it may have formed part of a socketed knife or some other instrument, and not of a sword. A part of a spear-head, with a series of ring ornaments engraved on the blade, was in the hoard found at Haynes Hill, Kent.[1120]

There is considerable general resemblance between the bronze swords found in the British Islands and those of the continental countries of Europe. The similarities with those from France have already been pointed out. Several with ornamented hilts have been figured by Chantre[1121] and others. One has a hemispherical pommel and a varied design on the hilt.

The bronze swords from the Swiss Lake-dwellings[1122] have frequently bronze hilts, like those of the swords from the South of France. In some instances the hilt-plate has side flanges, with a central slot or line of rivets, and rivets in the wings. In others the broad tang forming the hilt has two or three rivet-holes. In some hilts cast in bronze there is a recess for receiving a piece of horn or wood. The blades have frequently delicate raised ribs, sometimes six on each face, running along them.

The bronze swords of Italy[1123] present several varieties not found in Britain. The sides of the blades are more nearly parallel, and many have a slender tang at the hilt, sometimes with two rivet-holes forming loops at the side of the tang, sometimes with one rivet-hole in its centre. In some the blade narrows somewhat for the tang, in each side of which are two semicircular notches for the rivets. In some Italian and French swords the blade is drawn out to a long tapering point, so that its edges present a somewhat ogival curve.

A fragment of a very remarkable Greek sword from Thera[1124] has a series of small broad-edged axes of gold, in shape like conventional battle-axes, inlaid along the middle of the blade between two slightly projecting ribs.

The double-edged bronze swords found by Dr. Schliemann[1125] at MycenÆ are tanged and often provided with pommels made of alabaster. The hilts and scabbards are in some cases decorated with gold. The blades are usually long and narrow, though some widen considerably at the hilt-end, so as to form a broad shoulder to the tang. Swords appear to have been much rarer on the presumed site of Troy.

There appear to be doubts whether the beautiful bronze sword in the Berlin Museum,[1126] reported to have been found at Pella, in Macedonia, does not belong to the valley of the Rhine.

Bronze swords have but rarely been found in Egypt. In my own collection, however, is one which was found at Great Kantara during the construction of the Suez Canal. The blade, about 17 inches long, is leaf-shaped, and much like that of Fig. 360, but more uniform in width. Instead of having a hilt-plate it is drawn down to a small tang about 3/16 inch square. This again expands into an octagonal bar, about ? inch in diameter, which has been drawn down to a point, and then turned back to form a hook, probably for suspending the sword at the belt. At the base of the blade are two rivet-holes. The hilt must have been formed of two pieces which clasped the tang. The total length of the sword from the point to the top of the hook is 22? inches. I have never seen another similar example, but a bronze sword blade, presumably from Lower Egypt, is in the museum at Berlin. It has an engraved line down each side of the blade, and its sides are more parallel than in mine from Kantara, already mentioned. The hilt is broken off. A German sword from the Magdeburg district, with a tang and two rivet-holes at the base of the blade, closely resembles mine from Egypt, except that it has no hook to the tang.

The bronze swords found in Denmark[1127] and Northern Germany[1128] have often side flanges to the hilt-plate, like Fig. 348, occasionally plated with gold; but the blades are generally more uniform in width, and have the edges straighter than those from the United Kingdom. Some blades have a simple tang. On a very large proportion the hilt formed of bronze (or of some more perishable material alternating with bronze plates) has been preserved. The pommels are usually formed of oval or rhomboidal plates with a central boss, and are generally ornamented below.

Some of the swords found in Sweden and Denmark have been regarded by Dr. Montelius[1129] and Mr. Worsaae[1130] as of foreign origin.

A bronze sword from Finland with a flanged hilt-plate and eight rivet-holes has been[1131] figured.

In Germany[1132] the bronze swords present types which more nearly resemble those of France and Denmark than those of the British Isles. Those with a flanged hilt-plate are found, however, both in Northern and Southern Germany, as well as in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Others have long and narrow tangs, but a large proportion are provided with bronze hilts, usually with disc-like pommels. These hilts conceal the form of the tangs. Some few have spirals at the end of the hilt, as already mentioned, and one from Brandenburg, in the Berlin Museum, has a spheroidal pommel. In some of the bronze hilts there are recesses for the reception of pieces of horn or wood, as on some of the French and Swiss swords.

Iron swords of the same general character as those of bronze have been found in the ancient cemetery at Hallstatt and elsewhere. Those from Hallstatt[1133] are identical in character with the bronze swords from the same locality. In one instance the hilt and pommel of an iron sword are in bronze; in another the pommel alone; the hilt-plate of iron being flat, and provided with rivets exactly like those of the bronze swords. In others the pommel is wanting. I have a broken iron sword from this cemetery, with the hilt-plate perfect, and having three bronze rivets still in it, and the holes for two others at the pommel end. The blade has a central rounded rib along it like Fig. 345, but with a small bead on either side. I have a beautiful bronze sword from the same locality, on the blade of which are two small raised beads on either side of the central rib, and in the spaces between them a threefold wavy line punched in or engraved. In this instance a tang has passed through the hilt, that was formed of alternate blocks of bronze and of some substance that has now perished, possibly ivory. A magnificent iron sword from Hallstatt, now in the Vienna Museum, has the hilt and pommel formed of ivory inlaid with amber.

The late Celtic iron swords found in Britain have been described by Mr. A. W. Franks, F.R.S., in an exhaustive paper in the ArchÆologia,[1134] in which also the reader will find many interesting particulars of analogous swords found in continental countries.

Several iron swords have been found in France with flat hilt-plates and rivets exactly of the same character as those of the bronze swords. Nine have been discovered in tumuli at Cosne, Magny Lambert, and elsewhere in the department of CÔte d’Or. Others have been found at Cormoz, Ain; and at GÉdinne, in Belgium. There can be but little doubt that M. Alexandre Bertrand[1135] is right in assigning the French examples to the fourth or fifth century b.c., and in regarding them as direct descendants from the bronze swords of ordinary type. He adduces, also, the remarkable fragment of an iron sword with a bronze hilt found in the Lac de Bienne, which is in exact imitation of a bronze sword with ribs on the blade, as an additional proof that these early iron swords are the reproductions, pure and simple, of those in bronze, and fabricated from the metal then recently introduced into the West. How far back in time the use of bronze swords in Gaul may have extended it is difficult to say, but the varieties in their types testify to a lengthened use before they began to be superseded by those of iron.

I must, however, now describe the sheaths by which these blades were protected.

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