The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORD 87
been usual to classify swords mainly by the shapes of their blades or their sections
for reasons which will become apparent as I proceed, I am proposing a new classification,
based upon the shape of the butt of the blade, the portion, that is to say, which
immediately adjoins the handle-shaped tang.
Now if we examine a large number of swords of these types, we shall find that these
butts vary in form, some being convex and others concave. In Plate VI. I have placed
them in a series of seven, and it would, perhaps, be possible to sub-divide them more
minutely, and to give several variants of most of the types. For reasons, which will.
FIG. 13.—CONVEX AND CONCAVE BUTTS.
I think, be apparent to anyone consulting the Plate, and which I give more fully
below, I beUeve Type A to be the earliest of the series ; Type G, on the other hand,
occurs in the famous cemetery at Hallstatt, in the Salzkammergut, and as iron swords
and implements were found in most of the graves there, we may consider these bronze
swords as belonging to the very last phase of the bronze age in Central Europe. As the
butts of the blades show a gradual transition from the form usual in the daggers vnth
riveted handles shown in Plate IV. to the Hallstatt type, we may, I think, feel
satisfied that we have placed our series in strict chronological sequence.
A glance at Type A, especially as seen in full length in Plate VII., shows us at
once that it is a transitional form, and that it has grown out of an ogival dagger, similar
to those given on Plate V. The butt is of the same shape, being a flattened semicircle,
;