Edged Weapons 273
mount can be interpreted as a starting point for a strap.467 This spatha belt
type was used from the first third to the end of the 7th century.468
3.2 Two-point Suspension
Two-point suspension means that edged weapons were suspended by two
loops usually at an angle of 30–45° which first appeared on daggers or seaxes
of the 5th century, like the dagger of Novogrigorevka from the Hunnic period469
or the seax with gold fittings from the grave of Childerich in Tournai.470 Similar
daggers are also known from the Sogdian wall paintings and from the frescoes
of Kucha in Xinjiang (China) dated to the end of the 5th and beginning of the
6th century.471 Exact analogies for these suspension loops are known from the
Hunnic burial of Tugozvonovo (Kazakhstan) on a sword scabbard.472 Daggers
of earlier periods were worn vertically, fixed to the thigh by means of four
loops.473
Daggers with two suspension loops were suspended sloping or horizontally,
the former being characteristic of the Tokhars of Eastern Turkestan, while the
latter of the Sogdians of Transoxiana.474 The scabbards with P-shaped sus-
pension loops of Kerim-lo (Kyongju) of South Korea and Borovoe (Northern
Kazakhstan) show some archaic features.475 The suspension loops of daggers
were usually semicircular or rectangular during the 5th and first half of the 6th
century, while from the second half of the 6th century P-shaped suspension
loops became common.
467 Christlein 1971, 22–26, Abb. 7; Menghin 1983, 42–45. Abb. 32–33; Reiß 1994, 56–58. Abb.
- reconstructions: Vida 2000, 167–168; Menghin 1983, 48–53; Baumeister 1998, 166–170;
Terzer 2001, 176–181; Schwarz 2004, 60–94. Most of the known examples of Civezzano type
were made of iron decorated with inlay.
468 Menghin 1983, 48–52, 60.
469 Minaeva 1927, t. VI. vyp. III.
470 Anatolij Konstantinovich Ambroz (1986a, 33. ris. 3) suggested a new reconstruction for
the seax of Tournai on the basis of the dagger from Novogrigorevka, instead of the for-
mer suggested by Arbman (1948). Its most recent reconstruction was suggested by Dieter
Quast (2003, 597–614).
471 Belenitskij – Marshak 1973; Belenitskij – Marshak 1979. For the chronology of the
Pendzhikent wall paintings (Azarpay 1981, 35–47).
472 The chronology of this weapon is problematic, since the blade was straight and single-
edged but the gold covering of the scabbard was decorated by polichrome style charac-
teristic for the 5th century (Umanskiy 1978, 138, Ris. 9).
473 This mode of being worn is also known from the 6th century in Abkhazia (Voronov –
Shenkao 1982, 148–154. ris. 17–19).
474 Ambroz 1986a, 31.
475 Ambroz 1986a, 31.