14 CHAPTER 1
Simon’s observations on the appearance of sabre attributes during the Early
Avar period led to significant changes in research on the origin of sabres.61
Formerly these artefacts were regarded as a result of a new wave of migration
by the Onogur-Bulgars around 670 AD from Eastern Europe,62 whereas Simon’s
studies revealed that all attributes of the sabre were already known in the
Carpathian Basin in the first half of the 7th century. However, his identifica-
tion of the false edge on Early Avar blades was not an entirely new discovery,
since it was already evident with the publication of the sword of Tarnaméra
in 1965,63 but László Simon was the first to put such data into an historical
scheme for these weapons,64 while Csanád Bálint examined the problem in a
wider, Eurasian context.65
During the first half of the 1990s a new approach emerged as part of the
study of early medieval archaeology in Hungary due to the research of Csanád
Bálint. These new results were partly based on Bálint’s study of the burial of
Üch Tepe from Azerbaijan and its Sassanian and Byzantine contacts. A single-
edged sword with false edge was found in this grave, which was interpreted
by Bálint as a ‘protosabre’ since he regarded the false edge, rather than the
curvature of the blade, as the main attribute of sabres. The appearance of a
‘protosabre’ in this burial was of great chronological significance since Bálint
dated it back to the 6th century by use of coins of Justinian origin found in
the burial,66 although this dating is not widely accepted.67 Following this early
chronology, this edged weapon would be the first one equipped with such a
false edge in the world. In a search for analogies Bálint observed similar false
edges on several Early Avar blades,68 noting that this important attribute was
61 Simon 1991; Simon 1993a, 171–192.
62 István Bóna (1970) regarded the appearance of the sabres as an evidence for the Onogur-
Bulgarian migration around 670–75, and he refuted their existence in the Early Avar
Carpathian Basin.
63 János Győző Szabó described the false edge and the crossguard cast of copper alloy on
the single-edged sword of burial No. X (10) from Tarnaméra – Urak dűlő cemetery. He was
already aware of the significance of his observations, but did not draw further conclu-
sions from it (Szabó 1965, 29–71).
64 Simon 1991, 285; Simon 1993a, 171–192.
65 Bálint 1992, 338–343; Bálint 1995a, 64–73.
66 Bálint 1992, 338–343; Bálint 1995a, 64–73. The early dating of this burial is not generally
accepted.
67 Attila Kiss (1997, 261–265) and Alex Komar (2006, 118) dated the burial to the 7th century.
68 Csanád Bálint (1992, 338–343; Bálint 1995a, 65–67) listed single-edged swords from
Martynovka, Sivashovka, Malaja Pereshchepina, Corinth, Keszthely and Tarnaméra
from Hungary, as sword blades with a false edge, however, no blade is known from the