On a fragment of a sword blade, ornamented on each side with five parallel engraved lines, the upper margin of the hilt is marked out by a raised and engrailed line of the same form as the upper end of the hilt of Fig. 350. It was found in the Fen, near Wicken, Cambs, with a part of a scabbard end, spear-heads, and other objects now in the British Museum.
A remarkably fine sword, found in the River Witham,[1074] below Lincoln, in 1826, is shown in Fig. 350, for the use of which I am indebted to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries. The original is in the museum of the Duke of Northumberland, at Alnwick. It presents the peculiarity of having two spirals attached to the base of the hilt with a projecting pin between them, the whole taking the place of the pommel. The blade appears to be engraved with parallel lines on either side of the midrib. These spirals are of far more common occurrence on the Continent than in Britain, and this sword, though found so far north as Lincoln, is not improbably of foreign origin.
Several such have been found in France. One with the spirals but a different form of hilt was found at Aliès, Cantal.[1075]
A bronze sword found in the Rhône at Lyons, but now in the museum at Rennes,[1076] Brittany, has a nearly similar hilt and pommel It has three raised bands on the hilt, but no pin between the spirals. Some of the swords from the Swiss Lake-dwellings have similar hilts. They have been found at Concise,[1077] in the Lake of Neuchâtel, and in the Lac de Luissel.[1078]
| Fig. 351. Whittingham. ¼ | Fig. 352. Brechin. ¼ |
Another of the same kind is in the Johanneum at Gratz, Styria. The same form was also found at Hallstatt.[1079] Another was found near Stettin.[1080] Another from Erxleben,[1081] Magdeburg, is in the Brunswick Museum.
The hilt of a sword with spirals and a central pin was found in the great Bologna hoard. A perfect example is in the Royal Armoury at Turin.[1082]
There are several swords with this kind of hilt in the Museum of Northern Antiquities at Copenhagen,[1083] some of which are figured by Madsen.[1084] The spirals are sometimes found detached. A highly interesting paper by Dr. Oscar Montelius on the different forms of hilts of bronze swords and daggers is published in the Stockholm volume of the Congress for Prehistoric Archæology.[1085]
The remarkable sword with a somewhat analogous termination to the hilt, shown in Fig. 351, was found at Thrunton Farm,[1086] in the parish of Whittingham, Northumberland, and is in the collection of Lord Ravensworth. With it was found another sword already mentioned, a spear-head with lunate openings in the blade (Fig. 418), and some smaller leaf-shaped spear-heads. They are said to have been all found sticking in a moss with the points downwards, and arranged in a circle. The pommel end of the hilt is in this instance a distinct casting, and is very remarkable on account of the two curved horns extending from it, which are somewhat trumpet-mouthed, with a projecting cone in the centre of each.