Avar-Age Polearms and Edged Weapons. Classification, Typology, Chronology and Technology

(Nandana) #1

Origins And Cultural Contacts 341


Carpathian Basin. Instead they seem to be imported weapons from a period


when these weapon burial rites were no longer exercised in the western ter-


ritories, and they had not yet appeared in Moravia and old Croatia (Dalmatia).


This type is therefore regarded as a transitional type.


3.2.2 Edged Weapons


3.2.2.1 Spathae


Similarly intensive relations can be observed in the case of edged weapons of


the 8th century. From the beginning of the 8th century the long seaxes became


a widely spread and common single-edged weapons. Double-edged spathae


were used but in much smaller numbers (E.I.A/2.a). These swords differ from


the early spathae, since these examples from the 8th century always have iron


crossguard and pommel.


The classification of the 8th-century spathae focused mainly on the cross-


guard and pommel (‘Gefäß’ in German) of the sword, its blade only seldom


being examined. The basic classification was created by Elis Behmer,263 and


later Frauke Stein studied the double-edged swords from the 8th century264


who also described examples from the Carpathian Basin.265 Double-edged


swords from Viking-period Scandinavia were studied by Jan Petersen, how-


ever, most of these swords date to later periods (9th–10th centuries).266 His


classification was based on the fittings of the hilt, mainly the pommel, and it


has proved the most used division of these double-edged swords.267 Research


on double-edged swords was readdressed by Alfred Geibig who emphasised


a combined classification of pommel, crossguard and blade, the latter hith-


erto a neglected field. Based on his classifications of the pommel, crossguard


and blade, Geibig created 19 combination types for hilt-fittings (‘Gefäß’) and


14 types of blade, meaning these weapons were addressed more completely,


being comprised of several different parts.268


The identification of a narrower type of this sword is difficult to establish,


since only top-view or plan and cross section drawings are available and which


focus on the pommel. It seems likely that it belongs to the Petersen B type, thus


263 Behmer 1939.
264 Stein 1967, 9–12.
265 Stein 1968, 239.
266 Petersen 1919, 50–180.
267 This classification was followed by Kirpichnikov (1966), Kovács (1990, 39–4; Kovács 1993,
45–60; Kovács 1994–95, 153–189) and Ewart Oakshott (1964).
268 Geibig 1991, 20–21.

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