hilt. On many of the Griffplattenschwerterthat have been found the rivet holes
are torn through, a clear sign that the hilts of these swords had come loose from
the blades. A much more secure hilting characterized the all-metal sword, which
in German is called a Vollgriffschwert. The earliest of these were cast as a single
piece, blade and hilt coming from the same mold. Later and more popular versions
featured a blade with a stout tang, over which a thin (and separately cast) bronze
hilt was fitted. Although a Vollgriffschwert was securely hilted, it had a
disadvantage. Without a glove, grasping a bronze hilt could be painful, especially
in very hot or very cold temperatures. That problem was finally solved by the
Griffzungenschwert. This sword was cast with two metal “tongues,” or flanges,
extending all the way to the pommel. Organic plates were then inserted into the
flanges, so that the palm of the hand did not come into contact with the metal.
The result was a hilt that was not only very sturdy but also easy to grasp.
In the Carpathian basin the fragility of the Type A rapier and the Griff -
plattenschwertgave rise, evidently within one or two generations, to the Apa
Vollgriffschwert. This was a well-hilted short sword, capable of slashing as well
as stabbing. The Apa, or more fully the Apa- Hajdúsámson, is named for two
villages near the northern end of the Romanian-Hungarian border. On the
Romanian side, at Apa, a hoard of bronze objects included two of these swords,
and in 1907 a third was found in a hoard at Hajdúsámson, on the Hungarian side
of the border.
The Hajdúsámson hoard was certainly a votive deposit: carefully placed across
the sword were twelve bronze axes. The date of both hoards has usually been put
ca. 1600 BCor earlier, and still within the Bz A2 period, but Wolfgang David has
argued for a slightly lower date: early in Bz B1.^72 In the chronology followed here,
the hoards date ca. 1500 BC. Apa swords come from twelve find-spots in Romania
and Hungary. Bader concluded that the Apa, and therefore the Vollgriffschwert,
was invented in the Carpathian basin toward the end of the Bz A2 or the beginning
of the Bz B period, and that it was roughly contemporary with the Shaft Graves
at Mycenae.^73
The Vollgriff swords were shorter, and often much shorter, than the rapiers:
the two found at Apa (nos. 25 and 26 in Bader’s catalogue) were only 62 and 56
cm in length. The hilts of the all-metal swords were regularly stippled, striated or
pocked, so as to reduce the contact of the metal with the palm of the hand. The
Apa and other Vollgriff swords continued to be highly prized in the Carpathian
basin all through the Bronze Age. More than 500 Vollgriff swords from the basin
and western Serbia have been published.^74
Although very serviceable as a weapon, the Vollgriff was intended to be just
as much a status symbol as the Type A rapier had been. The decoration of the hilt
of a Vollgriff sword included simulated rivet-heads. The simulation indicates that,
although the new metal hilt was far more reliable, the old organic hilt with its
rivets was more prestigious. Both hilt and blade of the Vollgriff were elegantly
decorated, often with horizontal grooves on the hilt, curvilinear patterns on the
shoulder, connecting with vertical grooves running half way down the blade. Late
in the Bz A2 period the Carpathian basin had a long tradition of bronze working,
148 Militarism in temperate Europe