- The Social Implications of Celtic Art -
(Kromer 1983). A sword from the London reaches of the Thames (Brailsford 1953:
60, 65, fig. 23.1; Sievers 1982: pI. 38.2; but note Stead 1984b), and the Weybridge
(Brooklands) bucket (made probably in the Kurd region of Hungary, Jope
and J acobsthal in press: pI. 12 notes) are other pieces that might have travelled for
the purpose of gift-exchange. This seems to speak of a prosperous southern Britain
at this time in continental Celtic eyes. Further away in the north of Ireland the
enigmatic two swans and three cygnets confronting two ravens on the Dunaverney
flesh-hook could be additions to a native implement (Brailsford 1953: pI. IV; Jope
and Jacobsthal in press: pI. 7, d. Figure 2I.6b; Spindler 1976: pI. 21) and are perhaps
best explained as exotics coming by gift-exchange (as also the roundel from
Danebury).
In Europe these daggers have come mostly from burials. In Britain, as we have
noted, there are virtually no rich burials of this age and nearly all these daggers come
from the Thames (or its tributaries). The Thames system has yielded twenty-seven
iron daggers (some nearer 'dirks'), many with their sheathing of thin sheet-or strip-
bronze, lined with wood (or bark), of the seventh to third centuries Be. Only two
were imports, and one of these (from Mortlake), as we have noted, had been care-
fully re-sheathed in distinctive British manner, presumably as a prized family pos-
session, to be passed on through the family line, as a symbol of rank and privilege
and perhaps of specific territorial rights. At least ten of these Thames daggers might
be seen as denoting rank comparable with the Mortlake piece. If we suggest that
about 5-10 per cent of all the daggers made and used during this time-span might be
known to us today (the Thames has been well dredged), this would mean that about
100-200 such daggers were made during these four centuries (say about five to ten
dagger-chieftains per generation) for territory bordering on some 70 miles of the
Thames (all seven of the earliest come from the east London reaches). This hints at
something of the order of 500 square miles of varied terrain (some wooded, some
open downland, other areas with water-meadow) as a chieftain's subtribal domain in
the fifth-third centuries Be in southern Britain.
The seventeen daggers with the specifically British twin-loop suspension reveal a
continuity of British armourers' craft practice along the Thames valley area, and
hence of life style at chieftain level through four centuries. This is about the same
time-span through which the hill-fort at Danebury 50 miles to the south has shown
similar stable continuity of life (Cunliffe 1989: 199). It is difficult to surmise relations
between chieftainry centred upon the Thames valley and a hill-fort community 50
miles away, but someone at Danebury in the fifth century Be does seem to have had
a small openwork disc (Figure 2I.6c), made in Celtic Europe (probably in the Taunus
region north of Wiesbaden), which had probably graced a small cylindrical box of
fine wood Gope, in Cunliffe and Poole 1991: 331-2), which could have been a small
prestige gift for a lady of rank commensurate with the Thames valley chieftain, and
who, it seems, lived (at least part of the time) in Danebury (for its houses, see
Cunliffe and Poole 1991). Another remarkable exotic piece of this age (which could
also have been a prestige gift) is the Weybridge bucket, made probably in the Kurd
region of Hungary Gope and Jacobsthal in press: pI. 12; d. Hodson 1990: pI. 18-19).
There are only three other examples of this distinctively British Thames dagger-
sheath with twin-loop suspension outside the Thames area, one from upland peat in