Another variety of the sword has a strong central rounded rib along the blade, of which kind a good example is shown in Fig. 345. The original is in the collection of Mr. Robert Fitch, F.S.A., who has kindly lent it to me for engraving. It was found at Wetheringsett,[1046] Suffolk, and is said to have had remains of a wooden hilt and scabbard, attached to it when found. Human bones are also reported to have been found near it. It is 25½ inches long, with engraved lines on the hilt, and has only two rivet-holes besides the central square-ended slot.
Mr. Fisher, of Ely, has a sword of the same character (25 inches), but with four rivets and a slot, found in the Fens near Ely.
A fragment of what appears to have been a sword of the same character, but with two rivet-holes instead of the central slot, was found with socketed celts and spear-heads at Bilton,[1047] Yorkshire.
I have a fragment of a blade of this kind in the Reach Fen hoard. Another fragment, from Chrishall, Essex, is in the British Museum, as is also one found under Beachy Head.[1048] It has two rivet-holes in each wing, and three considerably larger in the centre. They appear to be cast, and not drilled. With this fragment were found palstaves, socketed celts, lumps of copper, and gold armlets.
The type also occurs in France. I have a specimen from the Seine at Paris, with the hilt and lower part almost identical with Fig. 345, but the blade does not expand in the same manner, and has two lines engraved on each side of the central rib, the inner pair meeting on the rib some little way from the point, the outer continued to nearly the end of the blade. I have fragments of a sword of similar character from the hoard found at Dreuil, near Amiens. The fragment from Beachy Head already mentioned may possibly be of Gaulish origin.
On an Italian oblong bronze coin or quincussis, 6⅝ 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.
| Fig. 346. Tiverton. ¼ | Fig. 347. Kingston. ¼ |
The sword with a central rib was sometimes attached to the hilt in a different manner from any of the blades hitherto described, as will be seen by Fig. 346, copied from the Archæological Association Journal.[1051] This sword was found at Tiverton, near Bath, and it is provided with four rivets, a pair on each side of the continuation of the central rib along the hilt-plate. Human remains and stag’s-horns are said to have been found near it.
In the British Museum is a blade of the same kind (19⅝ inches), with semicircular notches for the four rivets. It was found in the Thames at Kingston. Another from the Thames (21 inches) has the two upper holes perfect.