66 CHAPTER 1
was: Early phase 308, Middle 39 and Late phase 176 examples.299 Several new
polearms have been found and published after finishing the thesis, therefore
this work is based on 658 polearms, the chronological division of which is the
following: 407 examples are dated to the Early phase (map 2), 39 to the Middle
phase (map 3) and 200 to the Late phase (map 4). The increasing number of
known weapons inevitably improves the representativity of the conclusions
drawn from their analysis.
The collection of weapons presented is still not complete as a consequence
of limited access to the artefacts themselves, in some cases the finds not hav-
ing been inventoried or restored, while some artefacts known from literature
are lost from museum collections. It is important to note that the number of
excavated, restored and published pieces is constantly rising, and it is impos-
sible to get information on all examples, despite attempts to do so.
The examination of early medieval weapons is problematic for various
reasons: iron corrosion causes damage to the artefacts, although their state
depends on the actual soil, humidity, methods of conservation and circum-
stances of deposition.300 Unfortunately several already restored iron artefacts
are re-corroded, in several cases due to the scale-shaped or lamellar corrosion
299 This means a 91% increase for edged weapons, and 160% increase for polearms compared
to the situation in 1993.
300 The condition of archaeological finds changes radically during excavation, and even more
so for iron artefacts which are one of the most unstable of all materials because of their
DIAGRAM 1 Increasing number of examined weapons.0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
polearms EApolearms MA
and LAedged
weapons EAedged
weapons MA
and LASzentpéteri 1993
Csiky 2008
Csiky 2013