Fig. 20.—Ribbed bronze dagger.
Swords.—The sword does not appear to have been contemporaneous with the early thin dagger, but was no doubt a subsequent evolution based upon the dagger. Of all the forms which have been handed down to us from the most remote antiquity, the bronze sword is the most beautiful, and it is very questionable if any of the hundreds of shapes of lethal weapons of that description which have subsequently seen the light can vie with it in symmetry of form and general gracefulness. Only one other class of weapon of this period attempts to rival in beauty the leaf-shaped sword, and that is the spear, which is often of the most graceful lines. The beautiful workmanship exhibited by these weapons raised doubt at times as to their real origin, many asserting that they were of Roman fabrication, but it has been definitely settled that they antedated the Italian historical period. Iron and steel were substituted for bronze at a very early period in the Roman army, the shape, however, being unaltered. The fact that the majority of finds of bronze swords occurs in countries where the Romans never penetrated militates against the supposition of their Roman origin. The length of the blade averages about two feet, though some are as short as one and a half feet, and some as long as two and a half. The hilt plate alters much in form, and there are many varieties: the handle was of wood, bone, or horn, split into two plates and riveted on either side (Figs. [21], [22]). The blade was apparently cast in a mould so carefully made that there was no necessity for file-work or hammering afterwards, the edges being formed by the uniform reduction all round of the thickness of the metal ([Fig. 23]). Blade and tang were cast in one piece, although one variety which appears to be common to the British Isles has a handle affixed to the blade by rivets, after the manner of the dagger ([Fig. 24]). The rivet heads occasionally show signs of having depressions in them, as though they were splayed by a punch, while some have been closed by a hollow punch so as to leave a small stud. Occasionally swords are found having the hilt and finished blade cast in one piece, while others occur bearing signs of the hilt being cast upon the blade. A few swords have been found with gold ornamentation upon the hilts, and many in which the blade is decorated with a pattern produced in the casting. Although of bronze, and therefore not subject in any great degree to aerial oxidation, the sword appears to have been universally protected by enclosure in a scabbard. These in some instances were of bronze, but more often of leather or wood, with fittings of bronze, and in all cases the scabbard was of greater length than the blade it contained. Some scabbards even appear of fantastic forms, as though the man of the Bronze Age, like his successor of the Iron Period, was not averse to the occasional outshining of his fellow-man.
Fig. 21.—Bronze sword.
Fig. 22.—Bronze sword showing rivet-holes.
