them, is the Type A rapier found in 1981 at Kolonna.^90 This prestige sword, from
the rich “Shaft Grave” of the MM (or MH) II period, was topped by an ivory and
gold pommel. Its hilting was more secure than that on the Mallia rapiers: the hilt
was fastened to the blade by five rivets across the shoulders, and by two more in
a rather short tang. Although swords had enormous potential in battle, these early
rapiers seem still to have served as status symbols or ceremonial objects rather
than as practical weapons.
Most impressive, because of their numbers, are the Type A swords found 100
years ago in the Arkalochori cave in central Crete. A hoard deposited in the cave
included, in addition to more than twenty small gold and silver double-axes, dozens
of bronze rapiers, some of them ornately engraved.^91 The swords were probably
cast in a foundry at the palace at Galatas, 2 miles from the cave, and probably
during the MM III period.^92 Perhaps in a time of danger the palace’s treasures
were hidden away in the Arkalochori cave, and the owners and their servants did
not live to recover the hoard.^93 How many rapiers there once were is uncertain:
many of them were broken, and the cave was partially looted before archaeologists
arrived on the scene to make an inventory.^94 The Arkalochori rapiers were
obviously not intended for use. Because the stubby tangs have no rivet holes at
all, an organic hilt may have been fitted to the bronze but could not have been
attached to it. From the evidence now available we may surmise that in the Middle
Minoan period rapiers were conspicuous in the rituals and ceremonies that took
place in the Cretan palaces. Rapiers must also have been carried by men of
distinction: the specimen from Kolonna was found lying parallel to the man buried
in the “Shaft Grave.”
Swords were very rare in the eighteenth century BC, and the Cretan rulers were
unusual in acquiring and displaying considerable numbers of them. It is debated
whether already in the third millennium BCa few privileged men in the Aegean
may have carried a sword rather than a dagger. That possibility rests on three
decorated swords reportedly from Amorgos, the island from which so many
Cycladic figurines came to European and American collectors and museums.^95
The Amorgos swords have been dated by some to the third millennium BC, but
their casting in tin bronze makes this doubtful.^96 Although the Amorgos swords
have been considered to be precursors of the Middle Minoan Type A rapier, there
are more likely antecedents further afield. Barry Molloy is correct in saying that
in the Aegean world “the Type A sword appears virtually fully formed in Middle
Minoan (MM)/Middle Helladic (MH) II.”^97 Fifty years ago Nancy Sandars
supposed that, although the rapiers had some features anticipated by daggers in
use on Crete and the Cycladic islands in the EB III period, an important prototype
for the Mallia rapiers was a sword found at Byblos: because the hilting is similar,
as is the pronounced central rib on the blade, northern Levantine influence
probably helped to shape the Aegean rapier. Shortly after Sandars’ publication,
Keith Branigan argued that the Byblos sword was made on Crete and imported
to Syria, and that the rapier tradition originated in the Aegean and for a long time
was confined to the Aegean.^98 More recently Imma Kilian-Dirlmeier agreed with
Branigan that rapiers were an Aegean innovation.^99
78 Warfare in Western Eurasia