Edged Weapons 219
He regarded some of them as Avar copies of Frankish products.182 Seaxes are
treated as Carolingian imports in more recent Austrian research.183
Béla Miklós Szőke observed the popularity of the seaxes in the Late Avar
period (8th–9th century), and argued that they were not unknown to the
Avars, despite some being western imports which suggests that such weapons
were suitable for the fighting techniques of the Avars.184 Central European
(German) research on seaxes will be presented in chapter VI.3.
1.4.1 Classification
The classification of the seaxes is primarily metric, and this approach to their
primary attributes will be used in this study. These main attributes are the
length and the width of the blade, upon the basis of which four types can be
identified: short seaxes (E.IV.A: Kurzsax), narrow seaxes (E.IV.B Schmalsax)
(fig. 82), broad seaxes (E.IV.C Breitsax) and long seaxes (E.IV.D Langsax)
(fig. 13).
Three variants can be distinguished based on the form of the blade: a. blades
with a straight back, the tip located on the back of the blade (Wernard I);
b. the back is curved, the edge is straight, and the tip is on the edge (Wernard II);
c. symmetric seax blades, and the tip located on the midline of the blade
(Wernard III). These blade types also have a metric basis, with the a. type blade
(Wernard I) being common on short and narrow seaxes (Kurz- and Schmalsax),
b. type blades (Wernard II) associated with long seaxes (Langsax), and finally
blades of c. type (Wernard III) are characteristic of broad seaxes (Breitsax).185
1.4.1.1 Short Seax (Kurzsax, E.IV.A)
Short seaxes (Kursaxe) are edged weapons with a short, single-edged blade,
and cannot be easily distinguished from knives in most cases. Therefore, vari-
ous morphological aspects were used for separating these weapons from tools,
with a blade length of more than 20 cm identified as a primary attribute.186
182 Szameit 1987, 164.
183 Falko Daim (1998, 108–109) treated seaxes as imports and used them to determine chrono-
logical alignments.
184 In spite of the popularity of seaxes in Avar cemeteries, double-edged swords were mainly
used in Moravia, the Eastern Alps, Slavonia and Dalmatia (Szőke 1992a, 95; Szőke 1999,
85). Szőke first linked the appearance of seaxes to events at the end of the 8th century
(Carolingian wars) (Szőke – Vándor 1982–83, 73–74) but later noted that these weapons
were already in use during the 7th century in the Zala valley (Szőke 2002; Szőke 2007, 141).
185 Wernard 1998, 749–750.
186 Zlata Čilinská (1966, 184) called every knife over 20 cm in blade length warrior-knives
(‘dyka’ in Slovakian or ‘Kampfmesser’ in German). Jozef Zábojník (1995, 252) regarded