Militarism in temperate Europe 147the dramatic beginning of swordsmanship, a tradition that was to last for well over
three millennia. In his catalogue, Die Schwerter in Rumänien, Tiberiu Bader
identified 470 bronze swords or fragments of swords from Romania. He also
included (no. 20) the broken but spectacular gold sword found in a hoard at
Pers,inari. Of the bronze swords, 331 came from hoards, each hoard usually
containing a few swords but several containing a great many. Greatest of all was
a Halstatt hoard found at Uioara de Sus (in western Transylvania, not far from
the eastern slopes of the Apuseni range), in which were seventy swords. Another
seventy-seven swords were single finds, many of them turned up by farmers or
diggers. Only a few swords have been found in rivers or streams (these are likely
to have been votive deposits), and even fewer come from graves.^68
The very first of the Romanian swords are Type A rapiers almost identical to
those that Schliemann found in Grave Circle A at Mycenae. One Romanian
specimen with the shoulder of the blade still visible (no. 11 in Bader’s catalogue)
had three rivets, and so is closer to the Aegean rapier than to the single-riveted
and somewhat earlier rapiers in southern Caucasia. Bader identified eleven Type
A rapiers from Romania, all but one of them being single finds and so suggesting
that for at least a short time the type was fairly widespread in Transylvania and
western Romania.^69 Because of its place in the typological evolution of swords it
is quite certain that the Type A arrived in Romania late in the Bz A2 period, but
further precision is not possible. The archaeological contexts of these Type A
rapiers are not known, and dating them depends mostly on comparison with the
more securely dated Aegean specimens. Bader concluded that the Carpathian
rapiers are “somewhat later” than those from the Shaft Graves.^70 Analyses of their
manufacture indicated to Bader that the rapiers were not made in the Carpathian
basin, but were imported. Unless evidence to the contrary is found, I think we can
tentatively conclude that swords were probably not carried by the military men
when first they came to the Carpathian basin, but were soon brought in from
Mycenaean Greece.
Just as significant as the arrival of the Type A in Romania is the sword’s rapid
evolution there. The Type A rapier, as described in Chapter Three, was often close
to 100 cm long (and sometimes a prodigious 110 cm long), was poorly hilted, and
was surely meant more for display than for combat. A few rivets attached the bronze
blade to an organic hilt. Although hilts were made of bone, horn, or even ivory,
most often they were of well-polished wood.^71 Here it may be useful to explore
more generally the hilting of swords. Unlike the wooden shaft of a spear, easily
graspable, a long metal blade presented problems of grasping and gripping.
Organic hilts were well suited for gripping, but the attachment of an organic hilt
to a metal blade was quite insecure. On some swords (the Type A rapier) it
depended on a few rivets and on a short tang that protruded a few centimeters
from the blade into the hilt. Weapons so hilted could seem serviceable for
thrusting, but not for slashing, because the force of a vigorous slash would break
the blade from the hilt. Another unsatisfactory hilt was the Griffplatt. Here the
top of the blade swelled and flattened out into a thin and circular “grip plate,”
through which four or six rivets were driven in order to attach it to an organic