Some examples of Type G found in the west, especially in the British Isles, vary in some details from the specimens found in Hallstatt. This is especially the case with regard to the shape of the finial. But speaking generally this type must have survived for a long time with relatively little change, since it appears first in the oldest graves at Hallstatt, while it is believed to have remained in use in this country until the introduction of iron swords in the fifth century.
There are certain local variants of all or most of these types, and it would be an interesting task to trace these out in all their ramifications. To do so here would lead us too far away from the main lines of our thesis, nor would it be easy to draw correct deductions until drawings of all such swords found throughout Europe were available. Here I must content myself with tracing out the broad lines of the evolution of the leaf-shaped swords, and leave it to others to work out the local varieties.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORDS.
WE have seen how the leaf-shaped sword was evolved from the ogival dagger in the plain of Hungary, and passed through a series of forms until it reached the Hallstatt type, which gave way to the iron sword. We must now consider the distribution of each type, which presents certain peculiarities which are very instructive, and then consider how it was that leaf-shaped swords, of one type or other, became dispersed throughout the greater part of Europe, and reached, in some cases, beyond the confines of that continent.
Let us first deal with Type A, the distribution of which was summarised in the last chapter. A very fine example of this type is in the Museum of Archæology and Ethnology at Cambridge; nothing is known, unfortunately, of its provenance beyond the fact that it came from Hungary. Another, almost identical, is in the National Museum at Buda-Pest, and has been figured more than once,[272] but the published illustrations are not very accurate, and in Plate VII. I give one taken from a drawing made from the original for this work. In this case, too, the exact site is unknown. The third Hungarian specimen, a photograph of which is in existence, was sold in London on 25th June, 1891. It was the property of the late Dr. S. Egger, of Vienna, and the catalogue states that it had been dredged from the Danube near Buda-Pest.[273] These are the only examples which I have met with which have been found in Hungary, and I have been unable so far to trace the present ownership of Dr. Egger’s specimen.
Much more recently a very similar specimen, but with some slight differences in the decoration, was found in the Friuli. It was dug up in 1909 by Antonio Tommassin, near Castions di Strada, in the district of Palmanova, in the province of Udine, at a place called Selve, at the depth of about one metre. It is, or was, in the Museum at Cividale.[274] Another, very unlike the others in decoration, and varying somewhat in outline, was found in the neighbourhood of Treviso, north of Venice, and is now in the Treviso Museum.[275]
Lastly we have one found in a grave somewhere in Schleswig-Holstein. Splieth, who has recorded it, does not state exactly where it was found, nor in what collection it was deposited at the time he was writing.[276] He compares it with the second Hungarian specimen, but in reality it more closely resembles that in the Museum at Cividale.
All these specimens, except that from Treviso, resemble one another so closely that we may well believe that they were contemporary, and the products of the same region; the type must have continued in use for some little time in the Friuli, where it developed local variants like the Treviso specimen.