Fig. 60.—Rapiers and Daggers found in Ireland.
The rapiers belong to the middle and later portions of the Bronze Age. This type of weapon is common in France, and is described by M. Déchelette as widely spread in the British Islands and the north of France, and as having been introduced from there into South Germany and the region of the Middle Rhine.[16] The rapiers of advanced type he places in the third division of the Bronze Age, as they have been found in Bronze-Age tumuli of that period, as at Staadorf, Haut Palatinat (1600-1300 b.c.). Montelius places the rapiers in his fourth period dated at the end of the fifteenth to the middle of the twelfth century b.c.,[17] so that his dating of these objects practically coincides with that of M. Déchelette. It is now well recognized that the swords of the Ægean-Mycenæan area were developed on parallel lines to those of Western Europe. We find that the long rapiers or thrusting swords are developed from the tanged Cypriote dagger, and that the true sword is a later evolution from the rapier. It is hardly to be doubted that some of the western forms of daggers and rapiers were influenced by Mycenæan types; and the discovery in Sicily of rapiers of Mycenæan type with pottery dated as recent Minoan III, establishes a direct bond between the Ægean and Western Europe.[18]
CHAPTER VI
Gold Gorgets
Fig. 61.—Gold Gorget found in Ireland, formerly in the possession of the Earl of Charleville. From Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. v, Pl. xxviii.