but it is doubtful whether foundries there had ever produced anything quite so
beautiful as the Vollgriff sword, an artifact designed specifically to kill men. The
man who carried such a sword was proud to advertise himself as both a warrior
and a man of substance. The Boiu sword, which appeared at the same time or
slightly later than the Apa, was even more ornate. The circular grooves on the
shoulder may have been meant to represent eyes. As interpreted by Mark Pearce,
each of the Boiu swords may have been invested with a “spirit” and possibly a
name.^75
By ca. 1400 BCa sword superior to the Apa and the Boiu was in use at the western
end of the Carpathian basin. This was the Sprockhoff Ia, a cut-and-thrust Griff -
zungenschwertand in some respects the first true slashing sword. J. D. Cowen was
insistent on locating the origin of the flange-hilted cutting sword in central Europe
(or, more narrowly, in Hungary): first came the Boiu, then the Sprockhoff Ia,
and finally the Naue Type II.^76 Although both the Boiu and the Sprockhoff Ia were
effective for either a thrust or a slash, the improvements in the Sprockhoff Ia
made it a more reliable slashing weapon. The sword was between 70 and 80 cm
long, and its blade was much less tapered than that of a Boiu (the Boiu is often
described as a rapier). The blade of a Sprockhoff Ia was close to 3 cm wide, and
was strengthened by its high midrib. The flanged hilt, into which organic hilt-pieces
were inserted, was much easier to grasp than the Apa’s Vollgriff. Soon after its
development in central Europe the Sprockhoff Ia appeared in the far north of Europe,
where most of the in corpore specimens have been found. Remarkably, in less
than two centuries swords in the Carpathian basin had evolved from the wobbly
Type A rapier to an extremely effective and sturdy sword that was to remain
standard—first in bronze and then in iron—until the middle of the first millen -
nium BC.^77
Axes in the Carpathian basin
Although axes are another sign of militarism in the Carpathian basin their meaning
and utility are debated. In the ancient world axes were often a sign of religiously
sanctioned authority, the most well known being the double axe of Minoan Crete,
the labrysof southwest Anatolia, and the fasces of Etruscan cities and Rome. In
prehistory “Ötzi the Iceman” carried a copper-bladed axe, and throughout the
Neolithic period the stone “battle-axe” was a common accoutrement for adult males
in Europe. This tradition continued in the Bronze Age. The hundred axe-heads in
the Dermsdorf hoard show that in the Únĕtice culture there was a strong demand—
from the gods as well as from ambitious mortals—for impressive axes. The
Dermsdorf axes were somewhat small and not very securely hafted, being flanged
rather than shaft-holed, but shaft-holed copper axes had been in use since ca.
3000 BC: first in the Near East but soon in northern Caucasia, and in temperate
Europe at least by 2500 BC.
In the middle of the second millennium BCwe meet something much more
impressive than the Dermsdorf axes and more than twice their weight, although
150 Militarism in temperate Europe