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

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322 CHAPTER 6


of the kurgan from Sivashovka, dated to the first half of the 7th century.113


The ring-pommel sword from Malaia Pereshchepina also has a false edge, as


observed by conservators at the Hermitage Museum, the find being dated to


the middle of the 7th century.114 As a consequence, it is clear that straight


single-edged swords with false edge were generally known in Eastern Europe


during the 7th century, though the main attribute of the sabre, the curved


blade, did not appear at this time.


1.4.1.2 Curved Blade


After the 7th-century curved sabres from the Carpathian Basin and Afrasiab,115


similar edged weapons with curved blades first appeared during the first half


of the 8th century in the Northern Caucasus and along the river Volga. The ear-


liest example is known from a burial chamber at Galiat: the blade of this sabre


is slightly curved, its false edge is long and well emphasised, its crossguard is


long and straight, like the crossguard of the early Saltovo culture.116 The east-


ern end of the Caucasus, around the region of Dagestan, also has important


early Khazar sites for the understanding of the early evolution of sabres: a bone


carving representing a mounted warrior with a sabre with curved blade was


found in kurgan No. 17 at Chiriurt.117 Sabres with curved blades were found at


the site of Agachkala118 and Tarkov, and fragments of curved blade were found


in the cemetery at Verkhne-Chiriurt which dates to the end of the 7th and first


half of the 8th century.119


Sabres with curved blades were found in early Volga Bulgarian cemeteries


which date to the early 8th century. A sabre with curved blade and false edge


equipped with a long, straight rod-like crossguard, was found in the 3rd burial


of the 14th kurgan in the 2nd cemetery at Novinki, near the city of Samara.120


113 Orlov (1985, 101–105) dated it to the end of the 6th and first half of the 7th century. The
false edge of the sword was cited by Bálint (1992, 340) as well.
114 Werner 1984, 26.
115 Arzhantseva 1987, 127–128.
116 This find is a transition towards the Saltovo culture, the cemetery dated by coins of
Heraclius and ’Abd al-Malik (701) (Krupnov 1938, 113–121; Erdélyi 1982, 55–58. 31–42. képek;
Bálint 1989, 26–27; Komar 2006, 88), while Gavritukhin (2005, 411) dated it to the first half
of the 8th century.
117 Magomedov 1983, 77. ris. 23; Komar – Sukhobokov 2000. http://archaeology.kiev.ua/
journal/020300/komar_sukhobokov.htm
118 Smirnov 1951, 113.
119 Magomedov 1977, 41–42; Magomedov 1983, 75–77. 93.
120 Matveeva 1997, 63–64. 171. Ris. 73 (end of the 7th-first half of the 8th century (Matveeva
1997, 88).

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