Later Aegean Bronze Swords

Author(s): N. K. Sandars
Reviewed work(s):
Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Apr., 1963), pp. 117-153
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
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Later

Aegean

Bronze

Swords*

N. K. SANDARS
PLATES

21-28

This was a fragile attachment of ivory, faience or

riveted to the blade and lower
In an earlier article' I attempted to sketch the semi-precious stone,
the splay of the shoulder "horns" being degrip;
origins, and the range in time and space, of the
to deflect the enemy's point from the hand.
first Aegean swords. These origins led back to Asia signed
The "pinched-up"flanged shoulder of the B sword
in the later third and early second millennium, on
served a similar purpose.
the one hand, and to a native Aegean invention
Both these swords were still in use in the Aegean
of the Middle Minoan period, on the other. The
in the fifteenth century, though finds of weapons
result of this fusion was the A type sword of Crete
earlier part of the century are few. There
and the Greek mainland; a weapon of unsurpassed from the
is
no
need
to enter into the problem of the bottom
size and considerable magnificence; also a less
date proposed for Schliemann's grave-circle at
splendid but potentially more serviceable weapon,
for without recourse to it we have the
Mycenae,
the B type sword concentrated in the Argolid.
from Kakovatos (LH II A), and
fine
A
sword
These were the two swords in the hands of the
from
tombs in Messenia, of like date;
swords
tholos
sixteenth century Aegean warrior.
for
while
evidence
survival of these swords into
The A swords, sometimes over a metre long, had
second
half
of
the
fifteenth century is provided
the
a fatal weakness in the hafting, a slender tang that
is often found snapped, and would have left the by the rather untypical A sword in grave 44 of
swordsman unarmed, with a useless hilt in his the Zapher Papoura cemetery Knossos, and a quite
hand. The shorter, stouter B swords, with their typical B in the "King's Tholos" at Dendra (LH
flanged tangs, should have been less vulnerable, IIIA i final date). There is also less direct evidence
but there too the great size of the rivet-holes left in chamber tombs at Mycenae and in the Dodecathe metal weak, and almost as liable to snap. An nese, which will be discussed below.
In the earlier article I concluded that the eviattempt was made to protect the swordsman's hand
from an antagonist's blade, in close fighting, by dence pointed to the Argolid as the home of the
the adoption of a horned type of grip on A swords. B type swords, while the A type were produced
PART 1

* I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Principal and Fellows

of St. Hugh's College, Oxford, for the award of the Elizabeth
Wordsworth Studentship 1958-61, which enabled me to travel
in Greece and Turkey, and to complete the research necessary
for writing this essay. I have received very valuable advice and
a number of suggestions from Miss Dorothea Gray, and from
Dr. Hector Catling, to both of whom I owe especial thanks. I
have had helpful discussions with others, including Mr. M.S.F.
Hood, Director of the British School at Athens, Mr. John Boardman, Mr. A. Snodgrass, Mr. George Huxley, Mr. V. d'A. Desborough and Mrs. Maxwell-Hyslop. In Greece I received valuable help from Mr. and Mrs. Karouzou at the National Museum,
Athens; from Dr. N. Platon, the Ephor for Antiquities in Crete,
and Mr. S. Alexiou, present Ephor; also from Dr. S. Dakaris
at Ioannina, Professor Morricone in Cos, Dr. P. Astrom of the
Swedish Institute in Athens, Mr. S. Iakovides of the Greek
Archaeological Service, and from the Director and Secretary of
the American School in Athens. For assistance in Turkey I am
grateful to Mr. Seton Lloyd, then Director of the British Institute in Ankara, to Bay RacI Temiazer, Director of the Archaeological Museum, Ankara, and to Dr. Nezih Firath of the Classical Museum in Istanbul, to Bay Muzaffer Ramazanoglu and
Bayan Seyyide Celikkol at Adana, and to the Secretary of the
Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem and the Director of the

Damascus Archaeological Museum. I have to thank for much

help and facilities Dr. Marie-Louise Buhl, Keeper of the Antiksamlingen of the National Museum, Copenhagen,and Mrs. H.
Salskov Roberts of that museum, also Dr. O. Vessberg of the
Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities, Stockholm, to Dr. Z.
Vinski of the Archaeological Museum, Zagreb, and to Dr.
Gabrovec at Ljubljana; Professor Mikov gave me much help at
Sofia, also Dr. Detev at Plovdiv as did Drs. Horedt and Rusu
of the Archaeological Institute, Cluj; also Professor B. Brea
and Mrs. M. Guido at Syracuse. Finally I am grateful for help
and facilities at the British Museum to Mr. D. E. L. Haynes,
Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and
Mr. R. Higgins of that department, and to Mr. R. V. Nicholls of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. I am particularly grateful to the Directors and Keepers of all museums referred to for
permission to draw and publish the swords illustrated on
plates 21-28. I also have to thank ProfessorE. Vogt of the Swiss
National Museum, Ziirich, Mr. J. D. Cowen, and Mr. L. Grinsell
of the City Museum, Bristol, for advice, and I am grateful to
Mrs. E. M. Cox for the finished drawings. The drawing of the
horse-bit (pl. 26:48) is by Audrey Corbett, to whom I owe
thanks.
1 N. Sandars, "The First Aegean Swords and Their Ancestry" AJA 65 (I96I) 17-29.

OKG

Ci

* Cii Add Greek

2
Mainland"
L Di Add Crete 5, Rhodes I, France ?1
A
El Add
Add Greece
Crete 21
A Eli
0 F

Add EnglandI

XH
K KG
KG Bulgarian
BulgarianSpears

Note: untypicalD i etc. swords not shown; in addition to swords Bulgarian spears of Aegean type and "Sian

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

119

and perfected in Crete, though later adopted on

the Mainland. Although at that time Aegean foreign relations were widening, especially those of
Crete, touching Lipari, Miletus, the Troad, the
Levant and Egypt (MM III-LM IA), yet the A
swords have a very limited range, and are not
shown among Aegean (probably Cretan) gifts in
Egyptian wall-paintings of the beginning of the
fifteenth century (tombs of Senmut and Amenuser).2 Probably their manufacture, requiring as it
did immense skill, was a jealously guarded secret;
the armourers of Egypt and the Levant could produce nothing to compare with them.
In the following pages an attempt will be made
to trace the history of the bronze sword in the
Aegean from the fifteenth to the twelfth century,
within the framework of a general classification of
types; but without detailed descriptions of individual weapons. These will be found listed, together with their references, at the end of this
article. As before the system of classificationis based
on the shape of the grip, since this shows both
greater stability and more readily definable characteristics than the blade.'

aggerated A swords. Strength and a deadly slenderness were achieved through the new cast grip, and
the high, finely ridged, midrib. The metal was
concentrated where it was most wanted for the
thrust; and these swords always feel well-balanced
in the hand. The area of their dispersal is proof
of their success, for beyond the Aegean they are
found from Palestine to the neighbourhood of
Plovdiv in Bulgaria, and of Skopje in Yugoslavia
(map). In so scattered a group it is not surprising to find variations due either to differences of
date, or to the styles of different workshops. In
fact two principal sub-types may be distinguished,
a C i and C ii.

2 N. de G. Davies, BMMA
2 "The Egyptian Expedi(1926)
tion 1924-25," pp. 41-51 Tomb of Senmut T 71 and Amenuser

3 Since it seemed preferable to include all Aegean bronze

swords (except the Type II swords already fully described and

T 131; Davies, "The Tomb of Rekh-mi-fte T Ioo at Thebes,"

discussed by Dr. Catling in ProcPS 22 [1956] 102,

and Antiquity 35 [1961] 115) in one classified system, it has not been

Ci

In their main characteristicsboth sub-types are

alike, but C i has invariably two rivet-holes in the
blade at shoulder level, or rather lower, and
usually from one to three in the grip. There is also
usually a narrow unflanged extension at the pommel-end, with a small rivet-hole for securing the
pommel; always a separate unit. The relative position of the blade-rivets and the end of the midrib
vary, being either on a level with each other, or
Type C Swords
one higher than the other (pl. 21:I-2).
The fifteenth century saw the invention of two
The C i class includes a group of outstandingly
new swords in which the swordsmiths attempted large and handsome weapons, three are over o.gom.
to combine the best points of both the earlier (Zapher Papoura 36 and 44 and no. 12 in the
weapons. The result was the "horned" sword, "King's Tholos," Dendra), while no complete
which I shall classify as type C, and the "cruci- sword is less than o.6o m. (apart from an uncharform," type D. The essential characteristicsof the acteristic one from Cos). Splendidly ornamented
horned sword, in which it differs little from A hilts are found on most of these swords, with a
swords, are a slender blade with a high midrib, free use of gold-plating, elaborate repouss6 spirals
and a horned protection for the hand, no longer and feather patterns, and often richly ornamented
as a separate attachment, but carried out in the midribs. Rivet-holes tend still to be large, and the
same casting as blade and tang. The tang itself is rivets to be capped with gold. These princely
provided with substantial flanges, such as were swords come from Knossos, the Zapher Papoura
found on some of the B swords, from which they cemetery; (pl. 21I:i) Phaestus, and the "King's
were probably adopted. These weapons were long, Tholos," Dendra; this tomb, in other respects also,
but they never reached the length of the most ex- stands close to the material from Crete. Rather

2 MMA "The Egyptian Expedition 1935" (1943) passim; see

also J. Vercoutter, "L'Egypte et le Monde tgean (1956) 207-II.

I have used again the Egyptian dates as given by E. Driotan

and J. Vandier "Les Peuples de l'Orient Mediterranean II,
I'Egypte," Clio (1946) with CambridgeAncient History (1962)
Revised Edit. Vol. I, Ch. II "Chronology" p. 17ff, W. Hayes;
also M. Rowton p. 67 and F. Stubbings pp. 69-77 for the
Aegean; in particular for lowering the date of LH IIIC from
Furumark's 1230 to ca. 1200.

possible to follow that adopted by A. Furumark, Chronology of

MycenaeanPottery (1941) 93-96; and used by S. Dakaris, ArchEph (1958)

114-53.

Where the systems 'overlap, Furumark's

a 2 is very broadly my D ii; his bi is Fii; his b3 is Eii and

his c 2 is G. I have on the whole followed the dates of Chronology p. 10obut allowing more liberal margins and some
lowering in the 13th and later centuries, see also n. 2.

N. K. SANDARS

120

plainer, but essentially similar C i swords come

from a recently excavated tomb at Knossos, found
with a silver cup, and from tombs at Mycenae
(pl. 21:2) and Prosymna. That from Chamber
Tomb 81 at Mycenae is a slighter, slenderer
weapon, with small rivet-holes, therefore typologically later than some, since the reduction in the
size of rivet-holes is only gradually introduced.
The illustration given by Tsountas shows well
the oval-shaped opening in the hilt-plate through
a discolouration of the metal (barely visible today); this is a further development of the kidneyshaped opening found in the hilt-plates of some A
swords. An incomplete sword with ivory and gold
grip from Argolis is closer again to the Dendra
and Cretan swords, its date will be discussed below.
Where discoverable the dates are all middle or
latter half of the fifteenth century, before the destruction of the LM II Palace at Knossos. It is
possible that most of the mainland swords are
slightly later than the Cretan, falling at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Chamber Tomb
81 at Mycenae cannot be dated, but the sword is
more developed than that from Prosymna T 37,
dated early LH IIIA. Blegen has suspected the
presence of other fine swords in the Prosymna cemetery because of the number of large detached
rivets, some gold-capped, which may be debris of
swords left by plunderers. The Dendra tholos is
the richest unplundered tomb of this date either in
Crete or on the Mainland (apart possibly from one
of the tholoi in Messenia, Myrsenoch6rion II, from
which however few of the weapons have been
published, only some of the daggers).4 The description of the great armoury of weapons which
accompanied the Dendra tholos burials reads
more like the account of the fourth and fifth ShaftGraves at Mycenae than any of the later chamber
tombs, there or at Prosymna, or even the "warrior
graves" of the Knossos cemeteries. The objects collected in the large burial pit with two skeletons,
called by Persson "The Burial Gifts of the King"
and of "The Queen," need not all be contemporary,
but are in any case remarkable enough, including
the famous octopus gold cup, gold and silver cups
4S. Marinatos, "Excavations Near Pylos," Antiquity 122
(1957)

97-1oo;

also ILN (April 6th, 1957)

PP. 540-43.

5 Prof. Persson uses a different notation to that of Karo,

which I followed in my earlier article, Persson's A type is our
B, his B is our D, the C's are the same.
6 Kakovatos, "Tholos Tombs," AM 34 (1909)

298-99;

My-

cenae, IV Shaft-grave, Karo, Schachtgrdbervon Mykenai (1930-

[AJA 67

with hunting scenes, a fine collection of gems and

the arms. Of these there were five swords, four
spears and two small knives.5 One of the swords
beside the skeleton is a perfectly typical B with
handsome gold covered grip (Persson's No. io),
providing a link with the Shaft-Graves, while the
technique of decorating the grip with minute gold
bars, attached to the ivory parts, strengthens the
link both with the IV Shaft-grave, with Kakovatos
Tholos B, and with Knossos, where at least one
sword was decorated in this technique. A detailed
description of the technique employed has been
published recently with reference to a sword from
Argolis.' The whole complex of finds suggests the
later fifteenth, rather than Persson's fourteenth century, with the IIIA i pots perhaps dating the interments but not the manufacture of the fine metal
work which would then be a little earlier.
The swords from the Argolid provide a typological and spatial link with a small group in the
northwest: three swords were found in Epirus, two
in a grave (pl. 21:3-4), and one near Skopje, Yugoslavia. These swords share the peculiarity of a
second pair of rivet-holes in the blade, either at
the base of the horns (Perimatos near Ioannina,
and Tetovo near Skopje) or in the horns themselves (Dodona). The break in the horns of the
Dodona, and one of the Perimatos swords, shows
that this was a fault in design: with one exception
it is not found elsewhere. The larger of the two
swords from Perimatos (pl. 21:4) must have been
an exceptionally long and heavy weapon, for without the grip it still measures o.85m. The existence
of such a tomb not far from Ioannina is sufficiently
surprising, and has led Dr. Dakaris to an extended
and interesting discussion of the problems of northern relations. Still further north is the sword from
near Tetovo, Skopje, in the Vardar valley, not far
from the watershed of the Danubian river system.7
It looks to be a genuine Aegean product, and
typologically closest to the Perimatos swords at
Ioannina. It is possibly as long as the heaviest from
Perimatos, or longer. The condition of these
weapons shows that they, at any rate, had seen
33) no. 396, p. 97, no. 435, P. 103; A. Evans, Palace of Minos
IV, ii, 854, for Knossos; see also ArchEph (1897)
(1921-35)
123; and see Prof. Elisabeth Treskow in Ars Antiqua AG Auktion III (1961)

p. 30.

7This sword is shortly to be published by Dr. Vinski of

Zagreb to whom I am indebted for additional information.

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

121

heavy use, unlike the luxury weapons further

south.
Before turning to the next small group, mention
should perhaps be made here of blade fragments
(there are no hilts) from Levkas, in the so-called
"Royal-Graves."These I illustrated as class A in
my earlier article; they could equally well be C, to
judge by the finely grooved midribs; but without
the grips it is impossible to be sure either way.
There is a still stranger extension of Aegean
traditions of bronze-working, beyond their usual
range, in a small group of swords and spears in
Bulgaria. Though diverging much from the other
C i swords in the grip, they share the use of rivets
in blade and grip; while in one of the three swords
a duplication of the pair of blade rivets links it
more specifically to the Epirus group and Skopje.
The two better preserved, from Dolno Levski near
Pazardjik and Perushtitsa near Plovdiv (pl. 22:5,
7, pl. 28:64, 61), are said to have been found in
graves, and were associated with spears of nonEuropean, probably Aegean types (pl. 22:6, 8, pl.
28:65, 62). The main difference between these and
all other horned swords is the great length of the
horns, giving a width of up to iocm., or exactly
twice that of the Mycenae chamber tomb 81 sword.
They extend at a much more open angle, in one
case not far from 90o degrees, while the construction of the hilt is simplified. The bronze horns,
instead of being flanged or "folded" to secure plates
of perishable material, are cast solid, and the perishable plates could have been simply two parallelsided strips. A tendency in this direction existed
in some of the C ii swords and it reappears in an
altogether later group (classes G and H, see infra).
Somewhat eccentric though these Bulgarian
swords appear when viewed from the Aegean,
they are totally unlike the native bronze-work, both
as to the quality of metal and the form and character of the founder's work; in particular the
grooved midribs, the great length, strength and
narrowness of the blade. In some respects they give
the impression of being even more efficientweapons
than their relatives further south. The horns are
stronger, so is the grip, due to the reduction in the
amount of perishable and fragile inlay material.
On the other hand the angle of the horns lacks
the graceful curve which seems to have been de-

signed to deflect, rather than to hold, the opponent's

blade. Perhaps these more horizontal horns needed
to be tougher to receive the jar of a forward thrust,
and the design was adapted for the use of swordsmen less skilled in the finer points of combat, as
practiced in the Aegean?
The spears found with the Dolno Levski and
Perushtitsa swords, and two other single finds
from Kritchim near Plovdiv and Krasno Gradiste,
Turnovo (pl. 22:10-Il and map; pl. 28:67, 63) are
as important as the swords for European archaeology. Here it must suffice to say that those from
Perushtitsa and Krasno Gradiste are a very common Aegean and Near Eastern type, and absolutely
foreign to Europe, especially on account of the slit
socket. They can be matched in the Ayios Ioannis
chamber tomb (A.J. 4) and the Acropolis tomb at
Knossos (with C ii sword pl. 23:14), and in the
1929 hoard from Ras Shamra (fourteenth century).
The spear found with the Dolno Levski sword
has a faceted blade that is not easy to match in
the Aegean, though similar faceting occurs on
a spear of a rather different shape in the same Ras
Shamra hoard and on a spear from Cos.8 The
great single spear found at Kritchim, near Plovdiv,
is perhaps the most interesting of all, for it is the
same exceptionally long and narrow type which has
been found frequently at Knossos (Ayios Ioannis,
Chamber tomb, No. ii, Hospital Site II 4, III, 14,
V, 7 etc.) and the Dendra tholos, all of which are
between 0o.47m.and 0o.57m.;Kritchim at 0.502 is
surpassed only by one from Crete (New Hospital
II, 4, 0.46m.) and one from Dendra (No. VI,
from Bulgaria are
0o.57m.).' These three spears
identical with their Aegean counterparts, but further discussion of them is better postponed to another occasion.

8 C. Schaeffer, Ugaritica III

(I956) fig. 224, 5 and fig. 226;
for Ayios Ioannis see lists infra in Catalogue.
9 A. Persson, The Royal Tombs at Dendra (1931) King's

Tholos, nos. vI-vII, pl. 20, p. 37. I am deeply indebted to Prof.

Mikov of Sofia for photographs of the Bulgarian swords and
spears and much help and information in connection with them.

C ii
Horned swords of the second sub-classare unlike
the first in having no rivets in the grip, and with
one exception, no pommel-tang extension. The
horns are formed by a characteristic "folding" of
the metal, which appears to be beaten together, in
place of the cast flanges more usual on C i swords;
the "Silver Cup" tomb sword is an exception. They
are usually of medium length, between o.6om. and
o.7o0m.,and the midrib is seldom so pronounced as

122

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

in the C i class. The "folded"horn brings them The other Aegean pottery in tombs at Gezer is: a
closer to the class B swords of Shaft-GraveVI at very little LM IB, and rathermore LH IIIA, so
Mycenae,and some from the Levant and Dodeca- that if the bronze sword is to be connected with
nese."0As a class they are simplerand more uni- the events which brought this pottery, it is more
form than C i. Only two come from Crete;one of likely to be linked with LH IIIA. The rather shaky
these,from the "AcropolisTomb,"Knossos,is one associations point possibly to the beginning of the
of the few that can be given a date (pl. 23:13-15). fourteenth century, the same time as the Thermi
This appearsto havebeen a LM II "warriorgrave" sword. Schaeffer prefers a date a little earlier ("belike ZapherPapoura36 and 44, and graves in the fore 1425 or 1400").
New Hospital and Ayios Ioannis cemeteries.I
Two swords from the Dodecanese fit neither inshall returnto these graves,after giving some ac- to the C nor the B class but lie somewhere between,
count of the cruciformswords which they held with some features of both. One is from the
(see map).
Asclepeion site, on Cos, but this material is unMost of the other C ii swords are uncertainof published. The horned sword is without pommeldate and of provenance,and this means unfortu- tang extension and has the same rivet arrangement
nately most of the mainland ones. Many have as the B sword in the VI Shaft-Grave at Mycenae
labels of varying degrees of probability. The (No. 905), to which it stands quite close in other
"MountOlympos"of a fine sword in the British respects, as also to its Levantine forerunners, with
Museumis suspect,though a northernprovenance shoulders midway between the horned and the
is made rathermore plausiblein view of the sword merely "pinched-up." The second is a very large
from Grevena,whichis verylike it (pl. 23:17).The weapon in New Tomb IV, Ialysos, Rhodes. If
sword from Thermi is in poor condition and is the Cos sword had more B features, this is closer
not typical,as it evidentlyhad at least one rivet- to a true C, only differing in not appearing to have
hole in the grip; its value is its date, for it was flanges on the riveted tang, and in its great size,
found in a room with LH IIIA pots.On the other which at over a metre would make it the longest
hand a sword from Gezer in Palestine(pl. 23:16) of all horned swords. This tomb is
quite exceptional
is quite typical,apartfrom the small pommel-tang at Ialysos on account of the number of
weapons
extensionwhich is shown in Macalister'sdrawing, it held,
including a cruciform and a round-shoulthough it no longer exists. The range of possible dered sword of a later type, along with LH IIIA
dates is unfortunatelymuch wider. It was found 2
pots: I shall return to it below.
in a pit in the floor of the large and often used
"Tomb 30"in the Gezer cemetery.The pit held a
A sword in the "Tomb of the Tripod Hearth"
ratherheterogeneouscollectionof bronzesandsome
Before
horned swords mention must be
pots, mostly Cypriot.The other bronzescannotbe made of leaving
the unique short sword or dirk in the
dated closely, they include a type of flesh-hook
which is MiddleBronzeAge in Cyprus,and a large "Tomb of the Tripod Hearth," Zapher Papoura
and fine scimitaror "harpe"which is very close 14 (pl. 26:45). A curiously eclectic weapon, its
to one from Ras Shamradatedby Schaefferto the length, 0.42, is too short for a sword, though the
fourteenthcentury;but these objectswere known rivets in the blade suggest the conventional horned
from at least as early as the "Royal Tombs" of C i; the midrib is high, but in place of the usual
Byblos (twelfth-thirteenthdynasty), and one is section, with a smaller ridge or rib down the midcarriedby a Syriantributebearer,with othermore dle, it has two ridges, giving an almost square
Aegean-lookingobjects,paintedon the walls of the section. The horns first rise, and then droop in a
tomb of Menkheperrasonb
at Thebes,a little after downward direction which suggests the otherwise
quite different (and much later) swords of Classes
1450." The Cypriot pots are, with one exception,
fourteenth century or even beginning of thirteenth; G and H (see infra). The horns of the shorter of
so the range of possible dates covers the whole the two Dendra "King's Tholos" swords, No. 15,
fourteenth century and extends a little beyond it.12 may be rather like it, but I have not handled it,
10
Sandars, op.cit. (supra n. I) pl. I8 etc.
11 N. de G. Davies, "The Tombs of Menkheperrasonb,"T 86
Egypt Exploration Society: The Theban Tombs Series (1933)
pl. I.

121 have received valuable help from Dr. Catling with the
difficulties of this tomb, particularly the dating of the Cypriot
pots, for which he has emphasized the very wide bracket
possible.

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

1963]

and the photograph'3 is too small to be certain. The

blade of the Zapher Papoura dirk has a sharp taper
to the point, and a flanged and T-shaped pommel-extension which, in the Aegean, is not known to occur
before the fourteenth century, and which will be
discussed later. The ivory hilt-plates of the grip
were in place, and show a skeuomorphic thongmoulding, immediately below the pommel. The
absence of vases has made close-dating of this
tomb impossible, though it is the most important
of all the Zapher Papoura cemetery on account of
the great collection of bronze table and kitchenware which it held. The dirk was in close association with a one-edged knife, a spear and an ivory
casket, none of which is any more helpful, but
the date is not likely to be very long after 1400.
Considerable doubt must attach to a sword, now
lost, apparently of C ii type, said to come from
Adliswil, Switzerland.

Class D
Just as at the beginning of the fifteenth century
there were alternative swords, A and B, so too in
the second half of the century there were alternatives: the usually longer C horned, and the cruciform D swords. Like Class C these too can be
subdivided into D i and D ii; but in this case the
division is chronological as well as typological.
Only D i is contemporary with C.

Di
D i swords are fairly uniform. The length is
usually between 0.60 and o.7om., corresponding to
the length of the shorter and more utilitarian C ii
swords. The only exceptionally long D swords
are in the same "King's Tholos" at Dendra, that
held the very long C sword. Five out of ten in the
Knossos cemeteries are between
and o.63m.
o.6im
There is usually a well-marked midrib and, with one
exception, there are two rivet-holes, rather low in
the blade, as in class A and many class C. The
grip and shoulders are always flanged like C i; but
instead of the "horns"the shoulder extension takes
the form of an angular or lobed broadening, from
which comes the name "cruciform." In fact the
outlines show two opposite tendencies. One, best
represented in the Zapher Papoura cemetery, is
for very rounded projections or lobes (pl. 24:19);
Persson, op.cit. (supra n. 9) xx, no. v.
14 F. Chapouthier, Mallia, Deux Epdes d'Apparat
(ttudes
Cretoises 5, 1938) pls. 8-20.
15 Persson describes the opening as "kidney-shaped," but if
13

123

the other, found in the graves of the New Hospital

site and Ayios loannis, has a more angular outline,
and may be slightly earlier.It certainlyhad a shorter
life-span. The width of the blade below the shoulder is much the same as in the C type, usually
about 4 cm., but owing to the blade being shorter
the D swords look stouter, and more tapered. The
small pommel-tang extension is almost invariable.
The swords come from Crete, the Argolid, and
the Dodecanese (see map). This is the sword par
excellence of the Knossos cemeteries, with the socalled Warrior Graves accounting for ten of the
thirteen Cretan weapons, the other three are without provenance; against this the mainland has five
(from the Argolid three others are uncharacteristic,
one also untypical from Attica), and Rhodes and
Cos have three between them. This class holds
some of the finest of surviving bronze swords, and
one at least (Zapher Papoura 36) is an outright
masterpiece with naturalistic ornamentation of
the gold hilt covers, showing wild goats and lions,
in a style recalling the galloping griffins and horses
of the Mycenae Shaft-Graves, and nearer home
the "acrobat" looped round the gold pommelcasing of an A sword from Mallia." The more
routine spirals of the midrib and flange are almost
identical with those on the C sword in the same
tomb, only a little smaller. Larger spirals are on
the midrib of the richest of the New Hospital site
swords (the Shaft-Grave, Tomb, II, 3), and there
are linked spirals on the gold sheet that covers
the wood of the grip. These again are found on
the best-preserved of the two D swords in the
"King's Tholos," Dendra (No. ii),"5 and apparently on the great horned sword (No. 12), where
only a morsel of ivory remains. The outline of the
shoulder projection is the same on the Zapher
Papoura and Dendra swords, whereas the New
Hospital and Ayios Ioannis shoulders are more
angular. Where the hilt-plates of these rich swords
survive they all have the same oval opening, as
do a number of the C swords. The technique of
gold-plating over wood is so little practical, where
a sword is to be jarred with hard use, that it
strengthens the general conclusion that these weapons were designed for show rather than for blows.
As well as the two handsome Dendra "King's
Tholos" cruciform swords, that from Mycenae,
we follow the distinction drawn by Evans between earlier kidney-shaped and later oval openings, this opening is certainly
oval.

124

N. K. SANDARS

Chamber Tomb 78, is well made, and possibly was

once an equally grand weapon, since the only surviving rivet was gold-capped (pl. 24:21). It has
telltale breaks at two of the large rivet-holes in
the grip. The much damaged and incomplete sword
from Grevena may have been like these, but most
of the mainland swords are uncharacteristic and
rather poor; some lack midrib: Prosymna Tomb
XXV and the two much smaller weapons in
Mycenae, Chamber Tomb 91, which also lack
grip-rivets, and have sunk lines in place of the
midrib, like D ii dirks and daggers (see infra).
An incomplete fragment from Corinth without
midrib is also probably D ii (pl. 24:28), but if its
grip was originally like these in Tomb 91 it would
have to be reckoned among D i's. A short sword
or dagger from Eleusis is only very loosely "cruciform," having slightly lobed shoulder projections;
but the rivet pattern is quite different and it seems
to belong to another tradition of flat, broad-bladed
knives and daggers, perhaps related to our class E
and to some untypical blades in Chamber Tomb
82 at Mycenae.
The three swords known from the Dodecanese
are all very much alike, short, with an angular or
intermediate shoulder, and not very high midrib
(pl. 24:20). They are particularly close to the New
Hospital Tomb V sword. The link with Knossos
is strengthened by a spearheadfrom the Asclepeion
site on Cos, which is remarkably like the spear
A.J. 3, found with another angular D i in the Ayios
Ioannis Shaft-Grave. Both spears have the same
decorative moulding at the base of the blade, and
the same section; the only difference is that Ayios
Ioannis has sharper wing-ends to the blade.
Before discussing dates and workshops there
are two features of D i swords which must be referred to. First there are the hilt-plates of semiprecious material, unused and sometimes even unfinished, which are found (rather surprisingly) in
tombs as well as in occupation sites; and second
the "skeuomorphic" thong-mouldings which decorate these hilt-plates and the bronze grips as well.
Chamber Tomb 81 at Mycenae, which had a C i
sword, also had two cruciform hilt fittings; one of
veined agate is unfinished, hollows are already
sunk for the rivet-heads, but the holes have not
been bored for the pins. Gold rings with granulated
edges are in place around only two of them.
16 It is not certain that all the small objects came from this
tomb and not from one nearby, see JHS 24 (I904)

322.

[AJA 67

Tsountasfound anotherhilt-plateof faience,rather

more lobed in shape, unassociatedon the Acropolis, and yet another very like it apparentlyin
Chamber Tomb io2.." A crystal fragment was
found at Knossos,while separategold sheet casings for B type swords were found in the same
Chamber Tomb 81 at Mycenae where the unfinished agate hilt-plate was found, and another
in the dromosto Tomb 88. This last is very like
the casingof the B swordin the "King'sTholos,"
Dendra,exceptfor having only one rivet.As well
as showing the overlapbetween lingering B type
swordsand both the new C and D i classes,these
detached, sometimes unfinished fragments pose
the questionas to whethersuch objectsof skilled
and luxuriousworkmanshipwere obtainedfrom
a few sources and then put by till needed, or
whether they were plunder from some despoiled
workshop;or whetheragain a travelingcraftsman
would leave the spare fittings behind him when
he moved on to his next job. We know so very
little about the mechanicsof bronze-workingand
other allied craftsin the secondmillennium.
The detached hilt-plates and grip-casings,
whetherof agate,faience,crystal,or gold on wood,
as well as those found in position on swords in
the Knossoscemeteriesand at Dendra,all have in
commona simulatedthong, usuallydouble,at the
base of the grip. The fine hilt of the derivativeA
sword in ChamberTomb 78 at Mycenaeshows
what is probablyan earlierstage with the lowest
grip-rivetplacedwithin the "loop"of the "thong,"
as though the latter had been hitched around a
once protrudingrivet-head.The "lily-dagger"in
the V Shaft-Gravetakes us a stage furtherback,
for it has a separategold ribbonin place of the
naturalcord or leatherthong."7The lowest rivet is
still more or less within the loop on the D sword
from New HospitalTomb II, as also on the shell
inlay from the Knossosthrone-room;but in other
cruciformswordsthe rivet has moved up the grip
and the "loop"has becomepurely ornament(Zapher Papoura36, i; and Dendra "King'sTholos"
No. I1). Even where the hilt-plateshave not survived, the existence of the moulding can be inferred from "ripples" in the bronze of the flange
(Zapher Papoura 55, pl. 24:19). This decoration
was used on swords of much later types also, and
sometimes on different parts of the grip.
17 Karo, op.cit. (supra n. 6) no. 764, V Shaft-Grave.

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

125

It seems very likely that the origins of the cruciDiscussion

form sword are to be found (as Evans thought)
Taken as a group C i swords are more variable
in those flanged-hilted, round-shouldered long dag- than C ii. No two of the rich and
princely swords
gers and short swords of MM III and LM I, from Zapher Papoura 36, Phaestos Tomba dei
found at Knossos itself (in the North House in- Nobili
8, and the "King's Tholos," Dendra, are
complete) and at Gournia, the latter with a broad, quite the same. In spite of over-all similarities they
rather flat midrib. These in turn grew naturally out
vary in the details of arrangement and placing of
of the flanged daggers without midrib, like that from
rivets, in length and section of midrib, and in the
the Hagia Triada tholos and various stray finds; the motifs of ornament. Each one is an individual
finely decorated dagger from "Lasithi" with fight- piece of skilled workmanship produced to please
ing bulls and a boar-killing is another. Evans called the taste and requirements of some individual pathem the typical dagger of LM Ia'8 beginning per- tron or
potentate, and seeming to bear the hallmark
haps as early as MM II. I have suggested elsewhere of a particular "shop." The sword in the "Silver
that these daggers may also have had a part in the
Cup" Tomb, Knossos, the shorter of the two from
formation of the class B sword, though less influDendra, and the two from Prosymna and Mycenae
ential than Syrian and Palestinian flanged daggers are more utilitarian
relatives, which may or may
and short swords. However the absence of true not be from this
shop. Nor is a date in the second
B swords from Crete makes it more likely that half of the fifteenth
century in doubt for the
they were the Cretan alternative to that sword, whole Cretan group, which belongs to the last
for use when a weapon shorter than the great
epoch of the LM II palace.
Cretan A sword was required. The protruding
The Epirus-Yugoslavia group and the Bulgarian
shoulder of Gournia brings them much closer to are utilitarian
weapons from two, perhaps several,
the D type than to B, while the midrib is more hands or
shops. They pose a curious problem, for
"advanced" than the Eleusis weapon already re- it is
unlikely that workshops operating in one of
ferred to. On the other hand this did have a pom- the establishedcentres of
Aegean civilization should
mel-tang extension, while another, otherwise ex- produce a particular style of weapon for the northactly like it, had a T-flange, which reduces the ern barbarians. On the other hand, supposing the
likelihood that they could be ancestral to crucigrave at Perimatos near Ioannina and those in
form swords.
Bulgaria to have held the bones of returned adIf the Gournia sword is probably one parent, venturers, or
temporary exiles, who had served a
the other parent of the cruciform sword is quite term at one of the
Aegean courts, then it is difficult
clearly the A type, from which it inherits the long to see why the weapons they brought back with
fine midrib, the low-set blade-rivets, and the hilt- them should have been so unlike any in use in
plate opening. These are features also common to metropolitan Greece or Crete. A possible alternaC swords, and in fact the two types, the C sword tive is that both groups were the work of craftsand D i, are exactly contemporary, found together men trained in one or other of the great centres,
in graves (Zapher Papoura 36 and the "King's Cretan or mainland, selling his skill in the northern
Tholos," Dendra, and the new Argolis find, also mountains, where in the course of time he may
Chamber Tomb 81 Mycenae, horned sword and have fallen into personal idiosyncrasy, or simply
cruciform hilt-plates). Both make their first ap- have tried to meet the special demands of the barpearance about the middle of the fifteenth century barian; this is only surmise. The Cretan palaces
and last into the fourteenth century. One of the give evidence of bronze-working on the spot; so
latest D type is probably that in Mavrospelio do houses at Malthi and at Trianda, Rhodes. In
XVIII, (pl. 24:22), a grave without pottery but barbarian lands there is no such evidence, only the
with a T-flanged knife. The sword, not much more scatteredfinds of merchants' hoards and, at a much
than a dirk, is as uncharacteristicas the C dirk from later date, founders' hoards. The existence of some
Zapher Papoura 14, it has no midrib and is in very link, however tenuous, between this part of southpoor condition. A typical D hilt said to come from eastern Europe, geographically not far from the
the Rh6ne requires authenticating.
watershed between the Aegean and the Danubian
18Evans, op.cit. (supra n. 6) I, fig. 541, p. 719; IV ii, p. 851; see also Sandars, op.cit.
n.
22.
(supra

I)

126

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

river systems, and the centres of Aegean civilization, in the middle of the second millennium, is
fact.
Compared with the idiosyncratic C i swords, the
unriveted C ii look like the product of one workshop (except for an untypical sword labelled "Dendra," if that is its correct provenance, and the two
from Cos and Rhodes). On the evidence available
it is not possible even to guess where this centre
was, unless the influence of the predominantly
Mainland B sword argues for the Argolid; but too
many of the swords are without find spots, and
the absence, so far, of any from Mycenae itself,
makes this explanation less satisfactory.The Gezer
sword is more likely to be connected with Mycenaean ventures of the early fourteenth century
(LH IIIA) than with Cretan enterprise; the same
date holds for Thermi, where no Mycenaean pottery
is later than LH IIIA and local wares imitate LH
II. Some mainland centre might be thought most
likely to have produced the Grevena sword, and
perhaps the British Museum "Mount Olympos,"
but the postulated connections of the fifteenth
century rulers of Thebes with Crete could provide
a possible point of entry for earlier Cretan bronzes
to Boeotia."9A terminus ante quem for the C ii
swords, in the middle or second half of the fifteenth
century, is given by the pots in the "Acropolis
Tomb," Knossos. So the earliest dated C ii correspond well enough with the fine swords of C i;
the peripheral C i and C ii groups may be a little
later, probably the first half of the fourteenth century. In each case, where approximate dates can
be advanced, somewhere near the beginning of the
century is preferable for the casting of the C ii
swords, because of their likeness to the one from
Knossos.
In summary, the position points to at least one
workshop capable of producing luxury weapons,
working between 145o and 1400; and another,
contemporary with it, producing the unriveted C ii
and perhaps the plainer riveted C i as well, all
thoroughly workmanlike weapons which found a
more extended market or a more enterprising
clientele. The smiths who produced the fine
Epirot, Macedonian and Bulgarian swords must
have learned their trade in one of these metropolitan workshops during the period when Class
C swords were in active production. In course of

time they became independent, but their work is

not likely to have found its way into barbarian
graves much after 1350, unless kept for an inordinate time as heirlooms. However, the evidence
of hard wear might be taken to favour a fairly long
useful life.
If sufficient evidence for tracing the style of individual workshops be conceded for many of the
horned swords, the same would hold good for
the cruciform,where in fact the evidence is stronger.
This is particularly the case with the swords from
cemeteries at Knossos: Zapher Papoura, the New
Hospital site and Ayios Ioannis. I have suggested
that the more angular shoulders, as at Ayios Ioannis and New Hospital, were slightly earlier than
those at Zapher Papoura. Most are well-dated by
pottery, and there is nothing to suggest use
of these two cemeteries after the catastrophe to
the LM II palace. Zapher Papoura, on the other
hand, does seem to have been in use after that
event and the tombs are harder to date with precision, but there is no reason to think that the two
important "warrior graves," 36 and 44, were later;
in fact they are generally placed within the last
years in the life of that palace. It is rather that D ii
with pommel flanges, typologically the subsequent
development, is always given a lobed, not an angular shoulder; also the probably later D i dirks
without midrib are lobed (except for Mavrospelio
XVIII which also appears to be late).
The workshop that produced the finest C swords
was certainly equipped technically to produce the
best D i. Although nothing like the naturalistic
decoration of the Zapher Papoura 36 D i hilt has
been found on a C sword, hilt plates have so rarely
survived that an argument ex silentio is not permissible. The Mallia workshop that produced the
"Acrobat" was certainly equal to the draughtsmanship required for tracing the goat and lion;
in fact the acrobat is superior work, and probably
more than a century earlier. Chronological continuity of surviving work can be traced from Mallia through Mycenae, Myrsinoch6rionand Vapheio,
back to Zapher Papoura and New Hospital,
Knossos, on the one hand, and Dendra on the
other. There are particularly close links between
the Dendra "King's Tholos" and Crete, as Persson, Furumark and others have agreed. Persson describes the gold octopus cup as "a perfect master-

19 LH IIIA i floor deposit in the "House of Cadmos," probably destroyed at the same time as the LM II Palace at Knossos,

A. Furumark, "The Settlement at Ialysos and Aegean History,"

OpusArch 6 (1950)

264.

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

127

piece of the finest Cretan workmanship in the

marine style." It is one among several objects
probably of Cretan provenance. He also considered
that the long horned sword probably came from
the same workshop as that from Zapher Papoura
36, though it is not clear why he thought this meant
both were manufactured on the mainland.20 The
unfinished hilt-plates of semi-precious materials
in graves at Mycenae point to Mycenae not being
the site of their manufacture, for who would treasure incomplete and unfinished objects if he had
only to go down the road to procure complete ones?
Perhaps the hilts did not come from the same
workshop as the bronze swords.21
The finds of crystal hilt-plate fragments, and
others with gold nail decoration within the Palace
at Knossos suggest that this work was done on the
spot, as at Mallia in earlier centuries, and at Trianda in Rhodes in the fifteenth century; so the
great workshop at Knossos may well have been
destroyed with the LM II palace and never reopened. After the last of the splendid horned and
cruciform swords there were no more luxurious
weapons. A little gold sheet casing with the simplest
of ornaments, or a gold rivet-cap, seems to have
been the most that later generations were prepared
to spend on their weapons.

military stress which led to the invention of the

C and D i swords? The date for the invention,
around the middle of the fifteenth century, is well
grounded, linked with LM II pottery which in turn
can be linked with Egyptian chronology.2
Mr. Hood, the excavator of some of the most
important graves of the period immediately before
the destruction of the LM II palace at Knossos, has
called them "warriorgraves," the burials of a military aristocracyconcentratedon the court at Knossos and serving, as Evans believed, a new militarist
dynasty. Whether this new dynasty was of Greekspeaking conquerors from the mainland, or thrown
up by an internal Cretan political revolution with
mainland support, does not concern us here, only
the existence of the warriors and their weapons.
Whatever its origin the aristocracy seems to have
been thoroughly "Minoanized." It is possible also
that the change appears more dramatic than it
was, for lack of LM I graves leaves a gap in our
knowledge of personal equipment which cannot
be filled from other sources. To the question,
what caused the rulers of Knossos to surround
themselves with a military caste, the usual and
most plausible answer is that which connects it
with the destructions at rival Cretan sites, Gournia,
Mochlos, Palaikastro, Phaestus and Hagia Triada.
The Phaestus cemetery is poor in bronzes and has
The Military "Aristocracy"
only one really rich military tomb, that with the
The swords themselves are among the most im- C i swords; but in the Knossos cemeteries there
portant evidence of the high standard of the fif- are at least fifteen graves with swords, so far known,
teenth century craftsmanship and metallurgy, and of which only three probably date from after the
at the same time tell us a little about the society fall of the LM II palace-a fact which suggests
that used them. It is a fair supposition that the that the organization of the military survived the
invention of a new weapon, or the radical altera- fall of the dynasty which it had served. This in
tion of an old one, only happens in answer to turn may be a hint at a situation well known in
military need. One may well ask what was the the history of empires, from the emperor-making
20 S. Hood, "Late Minoan Warrior-Graves,"BSA
47 (1952)

alike the variations could be accounted for as the hand of different scribes, one of whom tended to stylize more than the
others. The variants with a straight top to the blade might be
intended for the more angular D i type of Ayios Ioannis and
(M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greekl New Hospital, as against the lobed shapes from ZapherPapoura,
or they may represent extremes of stylization or mere symbols
p. 360, nos. 261 and 262) "so many swords: 5o"; and "Kukalos
the cutler, 3 swords fitted with (bindings?)" is established, this that could as well be applied to any of the other classes (see
might refer to the work of assembly necessary to complete infra). The cruciform D i sword shown diagrammatically in
sword-grips of this type and make them usable. It is however Documents 347, fig. 24, to illustrate Pylos Ta 716, had gone
well to remember Miss Gray's warning "archaeological com- out of use long before the Pylos tablets were deposited, and
mentary . .. is bound to begin from ideograms which belong cannot be used to support the interpretation "studs" for the
to the same physical world as the monuments" (Institute of qi-si-pe-e of this tablet. D ii which survived (as scrap) into
Classical Studies, Bulletin 6, 1959, p. 55). Some of the sword the
I3th century is not known to have had gold rivets. Weapideograms from Knossos, which according to Evans showed at ons current in the 13th century were classes F-H with pommel
least two distinct types (Evans op.cit. [supra n. 6] IV, 835), flanges and much simplified methods of fixing the haft.
are clearly meant to represent the protruding shoulders of cruci22 Recently through the LM II tomb at Katsamba, S. Alexiou
form swords of type D, but others are less distinctive. Miss Gray KPHTIKA XPONIKA 6
(1952)
9-41.
has suggested to me that since no two ideograms are quite
267, n. 121; Persson, op.cit. (supra n. 9) 45-47; see also
A. Furumark, op.cit. (supra n.
I9) 264.
21 If the suggested interpretationof the tablets from Knossos

128

N. K. SANDARS

[AlA 67

of Roman legionariesto the plots and revolutions Melos was conqueredand Cretanswere puttingin
at Miletus and Samos. Trianda still flourishedin
of the Janissaries.
A studyof these graves,as well as of the swords the earlyfifteenthcentury,but thereis no evidence
themselves,suggests that whereasthe sword was that the great A class sword found its way either
certainlya pretty thing, and probablya prestige to Rhodesor Cos. Forms relatedto the B and C
symbolof a militarycaste,the spearwas the more class have been found; one quite characteristic,
effective and lethal weapon. From fifteen tombs and all showing links with the Asiatic flanged
at Knossos we have 15-16swords and 18 spears, weapons.28On the other hand the D swordsfrom
and the bronze heads alone of some spearsalmost Rhodes and Cos are perfectly characteristicand
equal the length of the lighter swords.They must especiallycloseto the KnossostypefromNew Hoshave been tremendousweaponsbothin war and in pital and Ayios Ioannis,alsothe spears(see supra),
the gems and the pottery.24Furumarkhas said25
the chase.
These too were the years when the chariotwas that LM II vases in IalysosTombs stem not from
introduced to Crete, when the fresco of "The the local LM IA style,but from the CretanPalace
Captain of the Blacks"was painted (these inci- style; if this be concededthen they are evidence
dentally were spearmen) and only a little later of the continuationof directlinksbetweenKnossos
than the military"miniature"of the Hagia Triada and Rhodes in the second half of the fifteenth
steatitevase. Some of the soldierycame from dis- century.This was the periodof coexistence,when
tant parts,perhapssome of the Captainsdid also, Trianda still supportedits Minoan colonists and
though they are hardly likely to have come from the first Mycenaeanswere arriving,the period of
as far as Epirusand Macedoniain the north. We the earliest IalysosTombs and of the introduction
have alreadyseen that Minoans and Mycenaeans of the Class D sword, the Knossossword par exseldom made presentsof their swords, and those cellence.Whether it came as a simple import,or
found in the north could not be explainedin this in the baggage of membersof the "militaryarisway.
tocracy,"or even of an expatriateswordsmith,it
The usuallyacceptedpictureof a troubledCrete is not possibleto guess.Triandacertainlyhad supsuits the evidenceof the tombs, and explainsthe ported bronze-workers,and the B and C swords
regularpanoplyof spearsand swords which they look like localproducts,as do the latertypes.Indeed
contain; the "Chieftains"vase of Hagia Triada the importanceof the Dodecaneseas a centre of
and the "Captainof the Blacks"fresco tell the the industry in bronze-workwill emerge more
same story.The qualityof the swordsgives some clearly with these later types, and in particular
idea of the high social standingof their owners, the immediatelyfollowing D ii. Then at Miletus
while the basic alterationsin design-cast bronze there is a destructionof the first settlementwith
horns, improvedhilts-betray an underlyingneed its apparentlypeaceful Minoan-Mycenaeanconfor military efficiencywhich is also evidencedby tacts.26The influenceof the Cretanstyle on mainthe more utilitarianswordswhich have survived. land vases diminished (LH IIB) and there are
Outside Crete Minoans were still apparently clearsigns that the Minoanworld is shrinking.At
prosperingin the laterfifteenthcenturyat Trianda the same time there was no lack of enterpriseon
on Rhodes,on Cos and at Phylakopion Melos.The the partof the mainlanders.Perhapsexcludedfrom
Dodecaneseare especiallyimportantin the history Melos till after the fall of Knossos,they were exof swords,principallybecauseof their r8le as half- ploringfor alternativesourcesof obsidian,exploraway house and entrepotfor Aegean and Levantine tions which took them westwardsto Lipari,where
goods. The Minoan colony at Trianda,and prob- LH I and II/III pots accountfor 6o%of imported
ably that on Cos, were foundedin the greatperiod pottery found.27 It was possiblyin the course of
of Minoan enterprise in the sixteenth century when
23 Asclepeion

sword, Cos and Cameiros Rhodes, see Sandars,

op.cit. (supra n. I) p. 28 and pl. 19, 6.
24 Gem of well-known type with goddess flanked by griffins,
compare particularly New Hospital Tomb III and Ialysos N.T.
XX, Hood op.cit. (supra n. 20) pp. 272-73 with further references, and A. Miauri, "Jalisos," Annuario 6-7 (1926)
fig. 50,
pp. 128-33; fig. 62, p. 139.
25 Furumark, op.cit. (supra n. I9) pp. 200-01; F. Stubbings,
The Mycenaean Pottery of the Levant (1951)
20.

these westward explorations that Epirus and the

26 C. Weickert, Neue Deutsche Ausgrabungen im Mittelmeergebiet . .. . (959)
181-96, and IstMitt 7 (i957)
Io2; (I959/
6o) 67.
27 Cretans had found Lipari too, but their explorations may
belong to the earlier phase of friendly Aegean coexistence for
which there is so much evidence in the Dodecanese. B. Brea,
M. Cavalier, BPI N.S. Io (1956) 47. Late Helladic, but see
W. Taylour, Mycenaean Pottery in Italy (1958) pp. 16, 48.

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

129

"The Craftsman God of Ugarit"

Before turning to the next developments a not
entirely irrelevant picture may be glimpsed of the
functioning, the international reputation, and the
influence of certain great craft-centres, as it is reflected in the Ugaritic texts found in the ruins of
Ras Shamra, and particularly in the collection
called the Baal Epic."1
The Baal tablets were not written until the reign
of Niqmadu of Ugarit, in the middle of the fourteenth century, but the epic material itself is probably considerably older. One of the principal protagonists is the craftsman god and architect,Kathirwa-Khasis, also called Hayin: sometimes a single
individual, sometimes dual, whose names mean
skilful and clever, combining manual skill or dexterity with intelligence, also deft or handy. Not
only his name links him with Daedalus, but also
his function as worker in metals (including the
production of animal figures), furniture-maker,
and architect.Like Hephaestus he is visited by am-

bassadors who, coming from Syria, must cross the

sea to find him. They are told:
then of a
"Start away O two fishermen ...
truth do you set your face toward h(q)kpt:" towards Kathir-and-Khasisgod of it all; Crete (kptr)
the throne on which he sits (hkpt), the land of his
heritage. From a thousand furlongs ten thousand
leagues do homage and fall down ... tell to Kathirand-Khasis, repeat to Hayin the handycraftman
the message of the victor (Baal)." Syrian Baal and
Cretan (?) Hayin were allies throughout. Later
we hear "Hayin has gone up to the bellows (or
forge) the tongs (or handles) are in the hand of
Khasis, he may smelt silver, purify (?) gold,
smelt silver up to thousands ... smelt ore . ..
and beaten work (or vessels) for a god, a seat for a
god, a rest for his back, a footstool for a god which
is covered (or spread) with leather (?) a litter (?)
for a god with a canopy (?) thereon, whose carrying-poles are gold, a table for a god which is full
with varieties of game from (the foundations of
the earth), bowls for a god whereon the like of
Syrian (?) small cattle, the like of wild beasts of
(Yemen?), wild oxen up to ten thousand are the
decoration.""3Reduced from the divine to the human plane this reads like a business order for silver and silver-gilt vessels, some shaped as or decorated with animals, chiefly oxen, also for chairs,
litters, footstools and other furniture. In another
place Kathir-and-Khasis "fetches down" a mace
and names it for Baal; that is to say he supplies
it already provided with magic potency."' In another epic he made and delivered (in person) a
bow.3" There is no mention of swords, but this is
not surprising if the production of the Aegean
swords was kept secret, as appeared probable on
other grounds such as its absence from the Egyptian tomb-paintings. In other respects these descriptions could serve as text for several of the
foreign "embassy"or "tribute"scenes in the tombs
at Thebes.
We need not concern ourselves very far with the
extremely illuminating account in the Baal epic
of the activities of an international architect, the
same Kathir-wa-Khasis. It begins with the unease
of a Syrian ruler (in this case Baal, god of rain

28 H. Catling, V.
Karageorghis, "Minoika in Cyprus," BSA
55 (1960) 109-27.
29 Furumark, op.cit. (supra n.
I9) 270.
30 F. Stubbings, op.cit. (supra n. 25) passim.
31 G. Driver, Canaanite Myth and Legend, O.T. Studies III
(1956) p. 91 passim.

32 Not
Egypt, as earlier thought, but "perhaps some place in
Crete," see Driver, op.cit. (supra n. 31) corrigenda p. 169, see
Gordon JNES 7 (1948) 263.
-3 Driver, op.cit. (supra n. 31) p. 91.
34Driver, op.cit. (supra n. 31) p. 81.
85Driver, op.cit. (supra n. 31) p. 53.

Ionian Islands were visited. The mainland bronzesmith may have had greater freedom of movement
than his more orientalized Cretan counterpart,and
so been persuaded into working for the barbarians.
In these years too the Mycenaeans were discovering
Cyprus which, however, continued true to its Cretan ties for some years to come,28 and Aegean
weapons were not introduced there (only the
Middle Minoan daggers are known).
From the Levant there is ample evidence for
the presence of Mycenaeans before the Hittite advance about 1375, since LH IIIA pots were found
in a building at Katna destroyed by Suppiluliumu
about that date.29 The rare finds of LH II pots
(mostly IIB) from Syrian sites (Atchana, Ras
Shamra, Byblos, Lachish; and Tell Ajjul in Palestine), show the beginnings of a really massive
penetration, that was to take LH IIIA pottery to at
least nineteen different sites in the fourteenth century.30When the "peace of the Egyptians," which
had been so favourable to Cretan enterprise, was
shattered by the Hittites and by local Syrian uprisings, it was the Mycenaeans of the mainland and
the islands who benefited from the change.

130

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

and thunder, but equally applicableto a mortal are singularly mundane. Cilicia has produced nothprince) who, after consultation,and as a resultof ing comparable, and the rich coastal cities of Syria
reporteddisparagementsby his "brothers"(other hardly fill the requirements of the Ugaritic and
rulers of like standing), sends for the craftsman- Mari texts. By the thirteenth century things are
architect.When he arriveshe is entertainedwith altered and kptr may have become no more than
a feast and told what the rulersupposeshis palace a commercial term.
should be like. He then agrees to build it with
certain stipulationswhich are overruled,but in
PART 2
the end the architectis proved right and has his
way. All these are, of course,incidentsof myth,
D ii
the actionis superhumanand the characters
divine;
Unlike the expiring horned sword, a further debut reduced to human scale the building of a
house for Baal,like supplyingtablewareand furni- velopment took place in the cruciform. It lost its
ture, gives a fair enough picture of the methods midrib, and it gained, in place of the unflanged
and functionsof the palacearchitectand designer pommel-tang, a T-shaped flanged extension, into
of internationalreputationand sphereof influence which the plates of the hilt and pommel were
in the middle second millennium,and one that riveted. These plates of ivory, bone, or wood were
might providethe wanted link betweenthe great now presumably made in one piece for each side,
Syrian palaces,Mari and Tell Atchana,and those hilt and pommel together. The cruciform shoulof Crete.One ratherobscurepassagemay hint at ders are lobed like the Zapher Papoura D i swords.
an expeditionmade from the workshopin Crete It is a small group, essentially a continuation of
D i; and there are only two weapons large enough
(kptr) in searchof mineralsand other raw materials. "Kathir-and-Khasis
answered. . . I do (quit to rank as swords, both from Ialysos, Rhodes, and
Crete) for the most distant of gods hkp (for the measuring o.6o and o.52m. (pl. 25:24). The rest are
most distant of ghosts) two layers beneath (the in the 3ocm. range, or even less, with blades and
springs of the earth, three spans) the rocks."Or shoulders correspondingly narrower, that is to say
again this may be an entirelysupernaturalvisit to dirks and daggers.
The intermediate 30-40cm. group comes exthe "CosmicMountain"(mountain of trial after
death) to gain advicefrom El, the old high-god."8 clusively from Crete. The dirk from Palaikastro
I do not find Furumark'sargumentfor rejecting is typical at o.33m. with an abrupt taper towards
Crete as the home of the Kephtiu of Egyptian the point, clearly a stabbing weapon.
fifteenth centurytexts very convincing.Consider- The dates range from the early or mid-fourable geographicalhaziness on the side of writers teenth century (LM or LH IIIA 2), after the fall
from "outremer"may leave the exact locationof of the LM II Palace at Knossos, down into thirkptrat any one time uncertain,as betweendifferent teenth century (LM IIIB); possibly even later,
Aegean centres,Cretan,mainlandor even Dodeca- for they survived long enough to appear in
nese;but in the fifteenthcenturythereis the strong- founders' hoards which are dated LH IIIB "at
est likelihood that Crete, and probablyKnossos, earliest."The earliest of this class are the dirk from
was intended. At least one Cretan embassy is Palaikastro and the sword from Ialysos N.T. IV,
allowed by Furumark,to accountfor certainob- which has a swelling in the blade section but no
jects on the Senmut and Amenuser walls, vases, midrib. This is the same Ialysos Tomb that had,
rhytaetc.; these are known to have been made in with its two burials, a B or C i sword and an E type
Creteand are describedin Ugaritictexts and those knife, belonging probably to two periods. The diof Mari as coming from kptr,which the Baal epic mension and outline of the dirk or knife from a LM
further describes as across the sea and at a considerable distance from Ugarit. It would be difficult
to find anywhere on the coast of Asia Minor sufficiently prosperous in the fifteenth century to be
exporting luxury works. The archaeological remains from sites like Miletus, though plentiful,
86

Driver, op.cit. (supra n. 31) p. 75.

IIIB Tomb on Carpathos are so like the damaged

knife-dagger in the small Mycenae founders' hoard
that they almost certainly came from the same
workshop, and a fragment from Corinth is like
them (pl. 24:26-28). The condition of both the
mainland ones is too poor to tell whether they

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

131

also had the lines down the centre of the blade

which can be seen on the example from Carpathos.
The T-shaped, flanged pommel and the flattish
blade with grooves down the centre, or very fine
ribs outlined by fine grooves, are features radically
new to the Aegean. The handle has been taken as
the determinative feature of this sub-class,and was
to become invariable on all sorts of weapons and
tools; but the flat blade with its decoration also
had a long life, so it is worthwhile trying to trace
both features back to their source. The T-handle
is the easier to follow, but both take us in the same
direction. The flanged pommels are as old as the
Hyksos dynasties, and were used in Egypt and
Palestine from about the seventeenth century
(Apophis dagger). In Syria and Palestine they remained popular and are found frequently at Ras
Shamra, from the sixteenth century.37These hilts
generally belong to knives and daggers and only
occasionally come on sword-length weapons. The
shape is less sharply expanded than in the Aegean,
a semicircle rather than a T, and they are often
without any grip rivets. The Aegean bronzeworkers adapted an oriental idea, they did not
slavishly copy a foreign weapon.
As soon as it reached the Aegean the T-flanged
pommel was transferred to a number of different
tools including one and two-edged knives,38 since
it was an obvious improvement. An early adaptation is probably the curious dirk in Tomb 14
Zapher Papoura (Tripod Hearth) already described. The one-edged knife from a LH II or
early III deposit in a house at Mycenae is earlier,
but although the flange is carried round the top
of the grip, this is hardly yet a T. It is very like a
great number of Levantine knives, and may even
be an imported piece.39
The ribbed or grooved blade is probably also
Levantine. Fine ribbing applied to dagger-blades
had been within the competence of the Middle
Minoan bronzesmith; then there is a break of one
or two centuries. In the Levant there was no such
break and flat or flattish blades, often with this decoration, continue from the Middle to the Late Bronze

Age, with several dated in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. One is shown on an ivory from
Ras Shamra, very possibly, according to Schaeffer,
in the hand of King Niqmadu, a contemporary of
Amenophis III and of Suppiluliumu.40 The
"Syrian" weapons carried by tribute-bearers on
the walls of the mid-fifteenth century Rekhmire
Tomb are also T-hilted and appear to be flat.4
The importance of the Dodecanese as a commercial entrep6t for the Aegean and the Levant
has been mentioned. During the period spanned by
the burials of Ialysos N.T. IV, with their assortment of bronzes, Rhodes was flooding Egypt (Tell
el Amarna), and to a lesser extent the Levant, with
pottery containers of characteristic and rather
monotonous types, chiefly the LH III A2 piriform
stirrup jar. This jar is not common on the mainland but came to Rhodes directly from Crete in
LM III Ai. It has been thought to have been mainly
used in the trade in oil, which was exported from
Crete and later probably from Rhodes. Perhaps the
time lag noted by Stubbings, before the mainland
adopted this form of pot, and by him put down to
the difficulty experienced by the mainlanders in
throwing and finishing a completely closed pot,
may rather be accounted for by its specialized use
in the overseas oil trade in which the mainland was
not yet engaged-whereas Rhodes in the fourteenth
century could have taken over the shipping of oil
to the Levant? Recently light has been thrown on
a similarly specialized trade between Crete and
Cyprus.42At the same time Rhodian commerce
was active as far west as Italy, where there seems
to have been a settlement from Rhodes at Taranto.
Rhodian pots of twenty different types have been
identified there and again the monotony of some
types is suggestive of the commercial carrying
trade. Lord William Taylour thinks the murex
trade was an important commodity there.43 Oriental objects are not infrequent in Ialysos Tombs,
including the well-known Syrian duck-headed
ivory ointment boxes, also seal-stones, beads and
faience.44In view of all this activity, east and west,
north and south, it is far from improbable that

3 F.
Schaeffer, op.cit. (supra n. 8) I, 69, fig. 63, see also pp.
65, 67 etc. "from Hyksos graves"; also F. Schaeffer, Stratigraphie Comparee (1948) fig. 44 Ug. R6c. 2, fig. 45, u. also
from Atchana Level III, at Antakya no. 729, At/8/54.
38 Sandars, "The Antiquity of the One-edged Knife," ProcPS 21 (1955) 179, Class 3.
39 Sandars, op.cit. (supra n. 38) fig. 3, 2.
40 F. Schaeffer, op.cit. (supra n. 8).
41 N. de G. Davies, op.cit.
(supra n. 2) pls. 21-22.

42 Stubbings, op.cit. (supra n. 30)

I6; Catling, op.cit. (supra
n. 28) I2I; Cyprus was of course in close touch with Egypt
and the Levant, and is probably responsible for some of the
"Mycenaean" pots at Tell el Amarna.
4STaylour, op.cit. (supra n. 27) 135.
44 Furtwiingler-L6schke, Mykenische Vasen (1886) Text fig.
3, pls. B.26, E.I-3, pp. 14-15 from O.T. 31 etc. also N.T.
with cylinder seal Miauri, op.cit. (supra n. 24) 127, fig. xvwI
47
no. 71 etc.

132

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

the T-flangedpommel and flat Syrianblade were richly ornamented relatives were too long for everyadoptedfirst on Rhodes, where the only sword- day, as well as being too grand, and must have been
length D ii weaponshave been found (both from for ceremonial occasions only. Contact with the
Ialysos Tombs). From Rhodes they may have Levant probably played no small part in the abanreachedCrete and the mainland,though the dat- donment of the Aegean long sword, for there long
ing evidencedoesnot excludea contrarymovement weapons were never really popular. The few very
from Syria via Crete to Rhodes. The cruciform long swords known, like the so-called Shardana
shape was never really popularon the mainland, sword in the British Museum from near Gaza,
which is unlikely to have played any important had a short life.
part in its evolution and developmentsince D ii
Along with the disappearance of great luxury
as
in
there
much
later
metal
appears
only
scrap
weapons, and of dependence on the Levant, came
hoards.
a popularization of the short sword, which was
The Class D ii weapons take us into a new now apparently made in many more centres. This
world of drab armament;even the ivory plates change will be more apparent when we deal with
of the Tripod Hearth dirk are unique. Weapons the round and square-shouldered dirks and dagare serviceableand short with strong hafts. The gers, classes E and F. Is it pushing conjecture too
reasonis not far to seek. A long sword cannotbe far to see in these circumstancesevidence of changed
worn convenientlywhen carryingon the ordinary social conditions which now required a majority
businessof living. In the Menkheperrasonb
tomb- of the male population to go about their business
painting at Thebes, dated a little after 1450,we armed? This would be a prelude to the age of
see a short sword in a scabbardslung from the piracy and trouble that was not far off.
shoulder,and a long sword resting on the other
Class E i
shoulderof one individual,who wears the Syrian
dressand carriesalso a Syrianscimitaror "harpe." Although none are swords, certain round-shoulIn this, and the slightly earlier Rekhmirepaint- dered flanged knives and knife-daggers must be
ings, short swords with T-shaped pommels are given a place in this classification on account of
shown slung over the arm for presentationin their their r81e in the evolution of other types. All the
scabbards,while long swords are carriedresting implements of this small class have a flanged grip,
on the shoulder;and this is exactlythe positionof usually but not always with an unflanged pommelthe young soldier'sswordon the steatitevase from tang extension (like many C and D i swords). The
Hagia Triada, where he stands in front of his flange is carried round the shoulder and down
princeor captain,as thoughon parade,with sword towards the blade, which is short, broad and alon shoulder.The type of sword is not clear,but, most flat. The longest, which is also the earliest, is
being the same length as its owner's leg, it was only 0o.355m.,and comes from the Ayios loannis
probablyaboutone metre:definitelylong. It would Chamber Tomb, with a D i sword and LM II
have been as awkwardto walk aroundwith as the pots; most are around 3ocm., with an average
jingling sabres of nineteenth century cuirassiers. breadth of 6cm. The mainland group is very uniThe "chieftain"or captain, on the other hand, form around 27cm. Daggers, dirks or knives, they
wears a handy short daggerstuck in his belt, and were never an alternative to the C and D swords,
holds a spear.45Vases painted in the Levanto- but were auxiliary to these, as in the Ayios loannis
Helladic pictorial style from Cyprus show a Chamber Tomb. They range in date from midmedium to long weapon apparentlyslung from fifteenth century (LM II at Ayios loannis) to early
the shoulderand (ratherawkwardly) tucked un- fourteenth century (Prosymna Tombs III and
der the arm.46
XLIII), being therefore exactly contemporary with
The long sword and the spear were military
arms to be taken up only when needed for use in
fighting, the chase, or when on parade. Their

C and D i.
In origin they stem from the same round-shouldered dagger of MM II-LM I as do the cruciform

45 Davies, op.cit. (supra n. 11) if drawn to scale the swords

carried on the shoulder in Menkheperrasonbpl. I, and pl. 5,
would not fit into the scabbards;see also supra n. 41 pls. 18-I9,
also J. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete (1939) pl. 37, 2.

Sj6qvist, Problems of the Late Cypriot Bronze Age

fig. 20; Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery (1941) fig.
25, LH III A2 and IIIB. I am indebted to Dr. Catling for suggestions and the Cyprus reference.
46E.

(1940)

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

swords; but where the latter grew longer with

higher midribs, these were if anything shortened
and certainly flattened in the (now knife-like)
blade. In the better-preserved examples the blade
is decidedly U-shaped (pl. 25:29), but in others a
ferocious whetting of the edges has sharpened the
profile, and incidentally increases the suitability
of the label, "carvers," given to them by Miss
Benton. In all probability they were general purpose knives, one of whose functions was carving47
(see map).
Class E ii
Just as cruciform D i weapons adopted T-flanged
pommels, these knife-daggers appropriated the
same hafting improvement, retaining flatness and
broadness of blade, the round shoulder and the
blunt end. There is however a slight increase in
angularity in the blade profile (pl. 25:31). This is
still a very small group which is fairly uniform
with lengths between 0.30 and o.4om. and a breadth
of 6cm. With one exception all dated examples
come from the first half of the fourteenth century
(LM or LH IIIA). One of the earlier may be
that in Mavrospelio XVIII at Knossos, found with
an uncharacteristic,because nearly flat, D i sword.
But the tomb cannot be exactly dated for, like
Zapher Papoura 14, it had no pottery (pl. 25:30).
The D i sword must be one of the latest of its
class, having already lost the midrib, while the
other bronzes, which include a two-edged razor,
would be quite well suited by a date soon after
the fall of the LM II Palace. The same uncertainty,
though for different reasons, applies to Ialysos
N.T. IV, which, with its two burials, its C (or B)
and its D ii sword has already engaged us more
than once. Unfortunately the bronzes in the great
"Cenotaph," Chamber Tomb 2 at Dendra, cannot
be dated by the LH IIIB pottery in that tomb,
so that E ii survival into the thirteenth century is
uncertain.
E ii is in part the contemporary of D ii (Palaikastro and Ialysos) but it is not likely to have
survived as long as the latest of these, which were
found not only in LM IIIB tombs (Carpathos and
Gournes T 2, Crete), but in the even later "founders" hoard at Mycenae.
It cannot be said with certainty where the E i
knives picked up their flanged pommels, but the
4'

S. Benton, "The Pelynt Sword-Hilt," ProcPS 17, 2 (1952)

237-38.

133

late arrival of E i on the mainland of Greece makes

it unlikely that it happened there. It could equally
well have been in Crete or in the Dodecanese, due
to the same oriental impulse that produced Tflanged pommels on the other knives and daggers.
Class F
In the later fourteenth century the categories of
dirks, daggers and knives were still fairly stable
(D ii and E ii). The early thirteenth century sees
both main divisions, the more pointed dirks and
the broader knives continuing; only now we have
a square-shouldereddevelopment of E ii: Class F,
which tends more and more to meet both needs,
while the heirs of the D ii dirks (and remotely of
horned swords as well) show various bizarre developments. Finally in the later thirteenth and in
the twelfth century there is a complete breakdown
of categories and every weapon appears to be sui
generis (see map).
Some of the round-shouldered E ii knives were
already tending to squarer shoulders, and this
squareness makes a chronological as well as a
morphological division between the classes. Blades
are still flat, flanges are if anything deeper, and the
T of the pommel narrower and straighter. The
numbers are too few for subdivision but there are
two main groups; one with a broader blade with
two horizontal rivets in it (Zapher Papoura AE
472, no tomb no.), and a narrower blade with
one central rivet hole in it (Mycenae Acropolis
hoard, 2548, and Zapher Papoura 95 e, pl. 25:32,
36). The two from Zapher Papoura are probably
among the earliest. Miss Benton suggests fourteenth century.48The Chamber Tomb 95 weapon
is certainly a dirk, it is o.37m. long but the shoulders are only moderately square and it is on the
E ii-F borderline. On the slightly shorter, broader,
knife-dagger from the same cemetery (Ashmolean
AE 472 35.om.)

the skeuomorphic thong-moulding

is conspicuous, though not at the base of the grip,

it has moved up to below the pommel, which is its
position also on the Zapher Papoura 14 (Tripod
Hearth) dirk (cf. pl. 26:45). If the relationship of
F to E ii is explicit, there are also borrowings from
D ii shown by the groove lines down the blade of
another dagger from Episkopi (Pediada, Crete).
Probably typologically early is a longish weapon
48

Benton, op.cit. (supra n. 47).

134

N. K. SANDARS

from a grave on Cos at Langada (principally a

LH IIIB cemetery which however lasted on till a
later date); the pommel is broad and the length,
o.41m., makes it a real weapon, on the other hand
the moulding below the pommel has degenerated
into a mere contraction.
On the whole it is the later weapons that are
the more interesting and that means those from
Mouliana, Crete, from Perati, Attica, the hoards,
and the group from the far northwest. Some of
these are swords, and with them it may be said
that the tendency to reduce length is arrested;
some of the latest are also the longest, like a sword
from Kephallenia which is nearly half a metre,
and dated to twelfth century (see infra).

[AlA 67

Tholos A at Mouliana had two F swords, one

very damaged and incomplete, the other complete
and measuring 0o.58m.(pl. 25:33-34). The dating
of the objects in this tomb has for long been a
troublesome problem. It has been discussed by
Catling, Dakaris, Desborough and others and some
advance has been made, but it is unlikely that at
this remove of time any greater certainty will be
achieved concerning the different groups of gravegoods, and their relationship to the cremations and
inhumations. The conditions are such that each
object has to be considered on its own merits, independently of its possible associations.
Furumark has grouped the pots under two
heads, an earlier at the end of LM IIIB 2a, about
1200
according to his table of absolute dates,49but
a decade or two later if his final date of 1230 for
LH IIIB is thought too high; also a later LM IIIB
2c group at 1125-1075,or even later; while Tholos
B he dates LM IIIB 2b or 1200-1125, again perhaps beginning a little later. Desborough inclines
to a considerably later, possibly Geometric date for
the cremation and some of the bronzes of Tholos
A. The ninth or even tenth century is out of the
question for the F class swords, and in fact all
writers have agreed in placing them with the
earliest group of pots, therefore somewhere not
far from 1200, and after rather than before.
If width of pommel were a valid criterion of
date, the more complete Tholos A sword is typologically late, being narrow, though not quite as
narrow as one in a tomb at Perati, Attica, a pre-

dominantly twelfth century cemetery. The length

of this sword, 0.585,is the same as one of the "Type
II" swords in Tholos B (Catling's No. 14, formerly
No. ii) and a little longer than the other (No. 15
formerly 12). Unfortunately none of the other
Mouliana swords from either tomb is in a state
from which one can estimate its length. The more
complete F sword had some pretensions to grandeur. The rivets were capped with gold and the
hilt-plates were of ivory, there is fine ribbing on
the flanges and a moulding below the pommel and
the blade has "blood-channels":a fine line running
the length of the blade at about 8mm. distance
from the edge. This is unique for F, but is not uncommon on Type II swords, and is exactly like Catling's No. 14 in Tholos B, while the slight uniform
swelling in the section of the blade, though rather
broader here, is again matched on sword 14. The
very damaged F sword in Tholos A has the same
blood-channels and the same section. There is an
incomplete Type II sword in Tholos A and a
fragment of another (Catling's Nos. 16 and 17,
formerly 13 and 14), but the sections are quite different from our swords, having a rounded midrib
9mm. broad. Catling has now regrouped the Type
II swords to accord with the scheme worked out
for Europe by Mr. Cowen.50This classification,like
ours, depends on the hilt-form and not the blade
section, so that Type II sword No. 16 in Tholos A,
and No. 14 in Tholos B, are both Catling's Group
III, while No. 15 in Tholos B is now his Group I.
Of the four Type II swords in both tombs, it is
only with No. 14 from Tholos B (Group III) that
the F swords show any affinity. Even then the hilt
is totally unlike, having a century's long history
in the Aegean and the Orient, while the other
is seemingly a comparatively recent European
invention. Similarity depends on the blades, the
section, the blood-channels, and the (for this class
and period) unusual length. This section of blade
does come on some other F swords, but the length
and blood-channelsare unique, and the coincidence
with sword 14 can hardly be fortuitous. It is therefore my belief that both types of sword, the "foreign" Type II and the "native" class F, should be
considered together as complimentary or alternative armament. The lengthening of the blade of
the ordinary class F dagger or dirk (as found at
Zapher Papoura) is an immediate response to the

49 A. Furumark, "The Mycenaean III C Pottery and its Relations to Cypriot Fabrics," OpusArch 3 (I944) 262.

50 H. Catling, op.cit. (supra n. 3), J. Cowen, "Eine Einfiihrung ...

," Bericht R-GK 36 (1955) 52-155.

Mouliand' Tholos A

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

135

appearance of the foreign sword, and specifically

to Catling's Group III, for which he gives a date
range of 200oo-I25,with which there is no need to
quarrel. If Furumark's date of LM IIIB 2c (11251075or even later) be acceptedfor the second group
of pots in Tholos A, rather than the more usual
"tenth century or later,"it would be possible to link
the F swords with the beginning of this period, that
is to say the end of the twelfth century, but a date
in the first half of the century is the more likely.
Along with the lengthening of swords went a
shortening of spearheads.There are no more great
bronze spearheads in the Aegean of 30-50cms., as
in the fifteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries.
The latest (not from the Aegean) are probably
those in the LC III hoard from Enkomi.5 Mouliand Tholos A has a very damaged small spearhead with a faceted socket, which is descended
from an Aegean type, and in Tholos B there are
two very short (9.5cm.) spearheadsof foreign types
with entire sockets and bronze rivets in the shaft.
These changes in armament mean another change
in the tactics of combat. One of the vases in the
late group in Tholos A, the krater decorated
"in a late Minoan tradition" that persisted almost
into the Geometric period, shows on one side a
horse-riding warrior armed with a shield and
spear. In spite of the uncertainty of its date, the
scene may provide a clue to the change of tactics.
A mounted spearman would not have been able
to manipulate the great spears of earlier ages. The
shield bosses in Tholos B seem to belong to a
different pattern from that portrayed, but may
have been used in the same way.52

small iron knife with bronze rivets, not unlike

the iron knife, also with bronze rivets, in Tomb
VII of the cemetery at Gypsades, Knossos, which
is probably twelfth century.53 S. Iakovides states
that in the Perati cemetery there are no more than
three generations of burials in any tomb; so as
the pottery is almost entirely "Granary"or "CloseStyle" with a very little that is possibly earlier,
the finds should be broadly contemporary, predominantly of the twelfth century. They include
Egyptian scarabs, faience beads and carnelian
"pomegranate"beads like those that became common in the Levant, the Dodecanese, and elsewhere
in the Mycenaean world in its last phase. There
is even a little gold, so that Iakovides is probably
right in claiming this as the last flowering of
Mycenaean civilization, at a moment of comparative prosperity just before the final collapse, when
the sea lanes were still open to the southeast for
the importation of small luxuries. Like Ialysos and
some other LH III cemeteries, there are a few
cremation graves among a preponderance of inhumations in Chamber Tombs; while the few
small fibulae found may point to northern links
(but not necessarily new links, for they are of later
types than the great violin-bow fibulae in Chamber
Tombs at Mycenae, from which they may be descended)." Speaking very broadly, the Mouliana
Tholos A and Perati Tomb 38 swords appear to
be contemporary with each other.

51 Dr. Catling, who drew

my attention to these spears, considers them Aegean work.
52 V. d'A. Desborough, ProtogeometricPottery
(I952) 270. L.
Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments (1950) I55.
~ LM III B2-Sub-Minoan ca. 200-10o75;M.S. Hood-Huxley-Sandars, "A Minoan Cemetery on Upper Gypsades," BSA

53-54 (I958-59) 194-262.

54 A double spiral ring in one tomb does look genuinely
northern.
55Tsountas,ArchEph(189I) 25; Catling,op.cit. (supran.
3) 1956, p. iio, for the Athenshoardsee also Furumark,op.cit. (supran. 3) 95.

Mycenae Hoard
Before leaving Attica and the Peloponnese for
the north and west, mention must be made of
founders' hoards (apparently a new phenomenon
Perati Tomb 38
in the Aegean), since at least four F weapons have
Another original weapon is a short sword with F- come from them. There is one in the Athens
type hilt in Tomb 38 of the important and recently Acropolis hoard. Montelius' argument for dating
excavated cemetery at Perati Portoraphti, Attica. this hoard by certain sherds of a LH IIIA 2 pot
Like Mouliana Tholos A the Perati sword has very found near it is hardly tenable, and the contents
deep flanges and a narrow pommel, but the grip is of the hoard can be matched in the others: Myshorter. There is no thong moulding, no blood cenae, Anthedon, Ithaca; so there seems little
grooves, and the blade has four narrow ribs running reason to date it any earlier. The largest of the
down the middle in the place of a midrib, probably hoards is the first of two, found by Tsountas in
derived from the much finer ribbing or grooving 1890, on the Mycenae Acropolis.55 It had two F
on the blades of D ii dirks. Tomb 38 also had a dirks, both under o.4om. so not long enough for

136

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

swords (pl. 25:36).56 There were also Type II swords,

and a sword and a dirk with hooked shoulders,Class
G, to which I shall return. This hoard deserves
detailed study in itself, for some of the bronzes in
it are of great interest, and its size is remarkable.5"
Most of the other bronzes: sickles, one-edged
knives, flat and double axes, and chisels, are met
in the small "porous wall" hoard found by Professor Wace in a house at Mycenae,58in the hoards
from Anthedon, from Polis, Ithaca, and most recently in the wreck of a trading vessel discovered
off Cape Gelidonya, in southwest Turkey. Tools
are common to all, but weapons are rare and this
big Mycenae hoard is alone in having so many.
In addition to the half-dozen (at least) swords
and daggers, there was a "northern" type of spear
(pl. 25:37) (entire socket and broad, leaf-shaped
blade), and also arrows of more than one type.
The date of this hoard has been discussed by Catling, who finds no evidence for anything earlier
than I300,59 while at the other end only the foursided arrows, Tsountas' rerpdirXEvpot,and the
horse-bits have caused serious questioning. None
of the other objects, including razors, tweezers
and a great variety of one-edged knives, large and
small, are later than LH III. The arrows which
have caused most trouble are probably those with
the number 2560 in the National Museum, and
possibly the much longer and heavier ones (if indeed they are arrows) No. 2554 (pl. 25:39-40).
The arrows No. 2560 are of the same shape as certain bone arrows known from Mesolithic times
and usually called fowling or club-ended arrows;
they have a small weighted head. In these bronze
ones both head and tang are four-sided. Arrowheads very like them were found in the Menidi

Tholos and at Zygouries.60Club-ended bronze arrows, not four-sided but functionally similar, were
found in the big tomb, No. XXX at Gezer, that
had the horned sword. Of the two horse-bits I
have only seen one, the other was evidently in very
poor condition and possibly smaller (pl. 26:48).
The one bit in good condition is of the same general type as a pair of bronze bits found in a "late
Mycenaean tomb" at Miletus. This was presumably in the cemetery on the east slope of Deirmentepe, with rectangular chamber tombs with
typical Mycenaean dromos. I have failed to discover the circumstances of the find; but at the
date of their publication the earliest settlement at
Miletus was thought to be LH III, and the pottery
exposed in Berlin before the war was exclusively
IIIB and IIIC.61 The extraordinary size of the
mouthpiece, and in fact all the dimensions of
the Mycenae bit, are the same as a pair of bronze
bits found at Assur and called "late Assyrian," but
in fact of unknown date pending publication in
Assur. These bits belong to Potratz' "Class I,"
for which the range of dates is from mid-second
millennium to a little after 8oo. They appear on
reliefs of Assurnasirpal II, 883-859,but no longer
on those of Assurbanipal, 668-626. The Class I
bits have in common the twisted bronze "rope"
of the mouthpiece, in two connected sections, with
its extremities drawn through the cheekpiece and
"knotted." The bronze at Mycenae is a single rod,
twisted on itself; at Assur it is triple. The most
likely bit to be datable is one from Gezer, which
belongs to the period between the end of the
eighteenth dynasty and the Hebrew monarchy."2
So although nothing in the hoards requires a date
much before i20o all the objects could have been

56 Dakaris, op.cit. (supra n. 3) 139, n. 4. Following Furumark, Dakaris puts them in different classes, b i and b 3, because
of the different outline of the blades, but the grips are practically identical, while the difference in length (o.373m. and
o.33m.) or in breadth (the longer is also slightly narrower),
does not seem to me important enough to separate them. In
the essentials of square shoulder, pommel-flange with contraction below, and rivet pattern they are identical.
67Some idea of the quantity may be gained from the numbering in the National Museum where the catalogue numbers of
objects run from 2530-2560, and these 30 individual numbers
cover groups of, for example, 12 flat axes (no. 2540) or 9
double axes (no. 2541). It is possible that some objects from
the smaller hoard, found by Tsountas in the same year, have
been grouped with the larger hoard.
58A. Wace, BSA 48 (1953) pl. 2, pp. 6-7, and Stubbings,
BSA 49 (1954) 292, Mycenae; AJA 6 (189o) 99, Anthedon; S.
Benton, BSA 35 (1934-35) 71, Polis (?); J. du Plat Taylor,
"Underwaterexpedition off Cape Gelidonya," AnatSt II (1961)

26; G. Bass, "The Cape Gelidonya Wreck," AJA 65 (I96I) 267.

59 Dr. Catling tells me he would now lower this estimate
slightly.
60 0. Montelius, La Grace PrIclassique (1924)

I64 nos. 562,

564; also from a LH level at Zygouries, C. Blegen, Zygouries

203, fig. 191.
(1928)
61 Fimmen,
Die Kretisch-Mykenische

Kultur

(1924)

I6;

Stubbings, op.cit. (supra n. 30) 23. The bits are illustrated by

H. Potratz, AOF 14 (1941-44)

1-39, fig. 11 Mycenae, and fig.

io as "Asia Minor west coast"; Potratz accepts the "Miletus"

bits as from a late Mycenaean context "like the Mycenae bit
itself," AFO Io (1936) 317-40, fig. 13, M 151 (Berlin).
62 Potratz, op.cit. (supra n. 61) figs. 2 and 7, see also AFO
Io (1936)

334, fig.

II,

14277=VA

7284 (Berlin)

and Prze-

worski, Die MetallindustrieAnatoliens (I939) pl. xmII,3. I am

grateful to Mrs. Maxwell-Hyslop for advice on the dates of
these Asiatic bits. R. Macalister, The Excavations of Gezer
(1912)

vol. II, fig. 214, pp. 13-14-

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

hidden during the following century; individual

pieces,however,weredoubtlessmadeearlier.

Epirus, the Ionian Islands and Sicily

The E class of weapon never found its way to
the northwest. The F class did, like C before it,
and probably outstripped C, as I shall hope to
show. There is one from Dodona, and another in a
cist-grave, Tomb I, at Kalbaki, near Ioannina, not
far from the site where the two C swords were
found. This grave had, as well as a rather peculiar
F dagger (pl. 25:35), a spear with entire socket
and a tiny hump-backed knife, both probably
northern types, and some local pots. The group is
discussed in some detail by Dakaris, along with
other graves at Kalbaki, which had bronze wire
bracelets with spiral twisted ends of unequivocally
northern pattern, also an amber bead. Another
find from the district, without further details, is
an ogival spear of a type particularly frequent in
Yugoslavia, but known also in the Ionian Islands,
Italy and Central Europe. Dakaris has investigated
the background to these "northern" objects,
amongst which the F knife seems curiously out
of place. The blade is not unlike the Carpathos D
ii dagger with its narrow lines down the centre
(pl. 24:26), but the grip is unlike any other, for
it has the flanges on one face only. An old mend
is witness to the hard service it had seen before it
was buried.
The Ionian Islands are very rich in amber beads,
often crudely shaped. On Kephallenia there are
graves with fibulae and Late to Sub-Mycenaean
pottery. It is in this setting that the two F swords
from an inhumation Tomb 2, Diakata, make their
appearance. Miss Benton dates them in the twelfth
century or later, and if the pottery is as late as she
believes (Sub-Mycenaean-Proto-Geometric) the
eleventh century would seem equally appropriate
(Furumark IIIC 1-2). The pommel of the shorter
sword is among the narrowest known and typologically very late; both are over o.4om. long and
are without exotic features.
Another sword was found at Lakkithra in Tomb
A, Grave 6. This was the only swordsman's grave
in a multiple tomb of the peculiar Kephallenia
63 See Benton, ProcPS 18 (1952) 237; the Lakkithra sword I
owe to Dr. Catling. A tholos tomb said to contain LH IIIB
sherds recently dug by Dakaris near Parga, Epirus, is interesting in this connection, see Archaeological Reports I960-61,
Hellenic Society, p. 15.
64 This does not appear in photographs but I have examined

137

type. Marinatos compared the sword to those from

Diakata. Damage to the hilt and at the shoulders
leaves some uncertainty about its classification.
The pottery is not identifiable as between individual graves but as a whole it shares the peculiarities of much Kephallenia pottery of LH III and
later, the difficulty of dating being much increased
by the absence of a true Proto-Geometric from the
island.63
Sicily-Cornwall
In the second millennium T-flanged pommels
were (with two exceptions, see Appendix) unknown in Europe outside the Aegean area. It is
usually thought that the Italian Iron Age series
must derive from the Aegean. A difficultyhas been
the gap to be bridged between the last of the one
and first of the other. In view of this difficulty two
finds in Sicilian cemeteries are of particular interest. The one is an incomplete dagger or dirk
in Tomb 44 of Monte Dessueri, the other a miniature version of a sword in Pantalica North, Tomb
48. I believe that both are related most nearly to the
F class of the Aegean.
The Monte Dessueri weapon is incomplete and
much damaged (pl. 25:41, pl. 28:68). The grip
is broken off,64 and one side is badly worn. It is
not possible to say how the grip ended, but that
both shoulders were originally square and slightly
flanged can be seen from the one still intact; there
is a rivet-hole in the grip, the blade is flat and was
probably once longer. If the damaged shoulder
is restored, the width is the same as that of the
Kalbaki dagger. If this fragment had been found
in the Aegean I would not have hesitated to complete it with a T-flanged pommel. The Kalbaki
dagger had been broken, and anciently repaired,
at the same point in the grip; and a dagger almost
certainly of F class from Oros, Aegina, is again
broken near the beginning of the hilt, as is the
Pelynt, Cornwall, fragment (pl. 25:42, 44), SO
that the broken grips may explain those apparent
gaps in the spread of T-flanged pommels. The
square shoulder rules out "Peschiera"daggers, on
which the shoulder is always sloping. In fact a
miniature replica of what this once probablylooked
the weapon in the museum at Syracuse where the kindness of
Prof. Bernab6 Brea made it available, I am also most grateful
to Mrs. L. Guido for much help and for photographsand drawings. For dating see Taylour, op.cit. (supra n. 27) 74; and Maxwell-Hyslop ProcPS 22 (1956) 126, pl. io.

138

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

like is to be found not far off in the Pantalica

cemetery. It is in grave (or Chamber Tomb) 48
of the earlier north cemetery, and though only
13.2cm. long it reproduces all the features of the
F sword or dagger: the square flanged shoulder,
the T-shaped pommel, and a rivet-hole where one
is so often placed, in the centre of the upper part
of the blade (pl. 25:43, pl. 28:69). Miniatures of
this sort, surrogates for real weapons, are known
in other graves at Pantalica, at Dessueri and in
Sicilian hoards. It has sometimes been said that
miniatures are found in the (smaller) Tsountas'
Mycenae and the Athens Acropolis hoards, but
this is very unlikely. The Athens "miniature"
shows the "blade" thicker than the "grip" in section, and Tsountas is no doubt right in calling
the Mycenae one a tool.65 A far more convincing
object is the miniature in a tomb at Gezer, Palestine, dated by Macalister to his "Fourth Semitic
Period IIoo-9oo"; being round-shouldered it is
more like some of the Sicilian "miniatures" than
anything in the Aegean.66Dessueri 44 and Pantalica
North 48 are not far separated in time, for the
Dessueri Tomb is one of the earliest of that cemetery, judging by its "Pantalica type" pots and
the other bronzes, though none are closely datable.67
No more Aegean pottery was imported in the
Pantalica cemetery, but dates, based chiefly on the
fibulae found in some graves, suggest just before
or just after iioo for the end of the Pantalica I
phase, to which grave 48 belongs, and the beginning of Dessueri, with grave 44 a very little later.
They may well be contemporary with the three
swords from Kephallenia.68
Mrs. Maxwell-Hyslop has warned us against a
too facile acceptanceof an Aegean origin for exotic
Sicilian and Italian metalwork of the end of the
second and beginning of the first millennium, and
amongst others the T-flanged pommel of the Italian Iron Age swords."6The temptation to over-

simplify the problem is great, and probably many

diverse influences were at work in the disturbed
years following the great sea raids on Egypt. There
was opportunity for unexpected encounters, and
bizarre cross-fertilizations abounded. Some features of the later Italian swords have no parallel
in the Aegean; I suggest that with Aegean outposts in the Ionian Islands in the twelfth and
eleventh centuries, and Aegean swords or daggers in Sicily probably as late as the eleventh, there
is not so great a chronological gap as has been
sometimes supposed."
Class F daggers or swords in Sicily provide a
useful pointer to the date of, and the route taken
by, that otherwise curiously isolated dagger said
to have been found over a hundred years ago in
a barrow at Pelynt, Cornwall71 (pl. 25:44). It is
quite typical with its square shoulders and wellmarked flanges. The end of the grip is missing,
so that it is not possible to apply width of pommel
as a criterion of date; nor is the position of the
single surviving rivet at the base of the grip any
help; but this provides a clue to the shop or hand
that manufactured it. Others with the rivet in this
position are the two from Diakata, Kephallenia,
one from Langada, Cos, Tomb 46 (the widths are
exactly the same at the shoulder) and Dessueri
Tomb 44.
The route westward taken by the daggers may
be the same as that, in reverse, of the later dispersal of amber beads, often very crude, that have
been found on the Mycenae Acropolis at various
times and places, in Crete and the Dodecanese
(including tombs on Cos), in Epirus and in the
Ionian Islands (Ithaca and Kephallenia very plentiful), and of course in Sicily. The amber is not
necessarily Baltic, and generalizations as to its
ultimate source cannot be made without analysis
of each individual example."
The impression gained from this class as a whole

6
sMontelius, op.cit. (supra n. 60) I54, fig. 498 Athens;
Tsountas, ArchEph (1891) 26, pl. 3, 6, Mycenae; I owe to Dr.
Catling an interesting suggestion that they may be unfinished
rough-outs for small tools.
66 Macalister, op.cit. (supra n. 62) fig. 531 b. Gezer; H.
Miiller-Karpe,Beitriige zur Chronologie der Urnenfelderzeit . . .
(1959) pl. 2, H-I Pantalica.
67 The longest of the weapons, a parallel-sided blade with no
grip extension but three large rivets, may belong to the same
family as unclassified blades in Chamber Tomb 82 at Mycenae,
and one like them from Steno, Aulis, at Chalkis; see Tsountas'
excavations Mycenae, and Theocharis, Aulis, not published.
68 Brea, Sicily Before the Greeks ('957) 151, Taylour, op.cit.
(supra n. 27) p. 69 n. I.
69 Maxwell-Hyslop, op.cit. (supra n. 64) 135, fig.
I, 3, Modica

hoard, miniature sword with flanged pommel, probably the

earliest from Italy; see also Miiller-Karpe,op.cit. (supra n. 66)
text fig. 32, Pantalica "phase 2," iith century; also figs. 46-47
from Tarquinia and Terni 2; 9th century. See Wainwright,
AnatSt 9 (1959) 197 on other Asiatic traits.
7o Miiller-Karpe,op.cit. (supra n. 66) absolute chronology pp.
226-27, the evidence for dating Bronze "C" seems based on
Aegean objects by no means restrictedto the I4th century, i.e.
the flanged pommel of Hammer for which see Appendix; flanged
pommel swords must bridge Pantalica II-9th century in Italy.
71I am indebted to Mr. L. Grinsell for advice on the reliability of this old find.
72 Hood-Huxley-Sandars, op.cit. (supra n. 53) 237, 261 (A.
Werner).

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

1963]

139

The new tendency seen in the F class dagger,

dirk, and sword of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, to break away from standardized forms in
favour of the uniquely peculiar specimen, is even
more marked in the G class. The chief distinguishing mark is the shoulder with downward hooked
horns (or "quillons," to give them a more technical name). This is Furumark's class C2. Unlike the
F class, some of the shorter of which may have
served as knives or double-purpose knife-daggers,
the G class is exclusively one of weapons, as may
be seen from the narrow, pointed, dirk-like blades.
All have the T-flanged pommel and either a distinct midrib, or grooves, or raised lines down the
centre of the blade (there is one possible exception). The curious form of horns or quillons leads
one naturally to look back to the C swords, the
latest of which was dated to the first half of the
fourteenth century. The only possibly later horned
sword from the Aegean was the Tripod Hearth
(Zapher Papoura Tomb 14) (pl. 26:45) dirk, which
is also typologically midway to class G, since it
has a downward bend to the broad ends of the
horns. Even so this does not carry the tradition of
horns below the fourteenth century, unless we
date the Tripod Hearth Tomb considerably later
than is justified by its other contents. There are
however G swords for which we have no dating
evidence at all, and which might help to bridge
the gap. One comes from Siteia, and has horns

very like those of the "folded" C ii swords, though

of course now hooked downwards (pl. 26:50),
also a moulding below the pommel and groove
lines (either incised or produced by the mould)
down the blade that hark back to Class D ii. At
the other extreme there are examples from graves
in Attica and Delphi that take us down to LH
IIIC and so into the twelfth century (see map).
The longest and most interesting of the G
swords is one from the Perati cemetery, from
which also came a massive class F blade (Tomb
38). The hooked sword was in Tomb ii, it measures o.6om., longer even than the Mouliand F
sword, and the same as some Type II. The pommel is very narrow, and immediately below it
there is still a ribbon of gold with tiny punched
bosses. This, with the gold-capped rivet of one
of the Mouliand F swords, is the only surviving
gold from later weapons. The blade also is unique,
being truly leaf-shaped with the greatest width in
its lower third. Gold and carnelian beads in the
same Perati Tomb confirm an impression of comparative riches; another interesting object is a
bronze one-edged knife with the grip-end in the
form of a bird's head, turned back to face the point.
The date of most of the tombs at Perati is given
by the Close and Granary style pottery. A knife
extraordinarily like the bird-head knife in this
tomb was found in a hoard of bronzes at Spalnaca
in Transylvania,73 but the date of the hoard is
Hallstatt B, therefore possibly as much as two
hundred years later. In fact the Perati bird-head
is more likely to have relatives among what appear to be bird-head scabbard-ends of Asiatic
swords. These have not survived in metal but
one seems to be worn by the BoghazkiSy warrior
at the gate, by a "weather-god" at Sinjerli, and a
"Baal" figure on a stele from Ras Shamra.74The
style is the same as that of the Syrian ointment
boxes, and there are many oriental luxury goods
with this motif.
The longest of all G weapons is a sword in the
big Mycenae Acropolis hoard to which we have
already given some space. It is 0.623 long and has
a strong midrib; there is also a short sword very

73 Now in the Museum of the ArchaeologicalInstitute in Cluj,

Rumania, I am indebted to Drs. Horedt and Rusu for information and facilities for study of this hoard. See Holste, Hortfunde
Sildost Europas (1951) pl. 47, 25. I am also indebted to Mr.
Cowen for advice.
7 The existence of a bird head is not in all cases equally

clear, owing to the weathering of the stone, but in all the

scabbardend is bent back so that the tip faces the grip and the
bird head is more or less strongly suggested: 0. Gurney, The
Hittites (1952) pl. 4; Schaeffer, op.cit. (supra n. 8) Ugaritica II
(1949) 23-24; Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli x (1895); Mitteilungen aus OrientalischenSammlungen XI pls. 40-41.

is no longer that of the products of big prosperous

workshops, with a long tradition behind them, like
those of Crete and mainland Greece and even the
Dodecanese, in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. It suggests instead work turned out by
foundry smiths of no great ambition or particular
skill, who were capable of producing a rather dull
utilitarian weapon on the one hand, but who under some exceptional stimulus could also produce
the large, clumsy, ill-conceived weapons of Perati
and Mouliani. After a brief account of the two
remaining classes, G and H, I will return to this
change and make tentative suggestions as to some
of its causes.

Class G

140

[AJA 67

N. K. SANDARS

like it measuring0.471"(pl. 26:47,46). The shorter bronzes,from an importantfind now at Copenweapon looks quite well-balanced,a handy dirk; hagen. Details of the find are not ascertainable
but the longer is most unwieldy and eccentric, but there seems no reason to doubt the associamoreso thanthe Peratisword,and may be grouped tion of the three bronzes,a short sword or dirk,
with it and with the Mouliana F sword as ex- a knife and a spear, which were purchasedtoamples of inexpertexperimentation.
gether in Rhodesand are said to have come from
I
that
sword
a Mycenaeantomb at Siana (pl. 27:53-55).The
suggested
Regardingthe Mouliani
of class H sword or dirk is essentiallyidenticalwith
the reasonfor its manufacturewas the appearance
Type II swords, introduced from north of the one in the Ashmolean, Oxford, left by Arthur
Pindus.The sameMycenaehoardhad one of these Evansand saidto comefromPergamon(pl.
27:52).
new style weapons,now incompletebut which is The lengths are very nearly the same, also the
estimatedto have measuredabouto.6om.,like the grip and the formof the horns.The only difference
longer of the classG. Dr. Catling has arguedper- is that the lines down the bladecentreare, in one
suasivelyfor the introductionof Type II swords case,sunk and in the other raised.Most of all they
mercenaries,enlistedby hard-pressed resembleeach other in the rivetlessflanged grip
by "barbarian
Mycenaeanprincesat a time of greatdisturbance.""7which narrowsto a rodlikeextensionof rectanguIf this were the true explanationa sight of these lar section, the hallmarkof this workshop.It is
eminently efficientweapons might have spurred found also on the knife in the Sianagroup,which,
on local smithsto attemptto betterthem by longer though slightlybroaderand heavier,is in all other
and bigger weapons in an old tradition,before respects like a knife from Ialysos found in a
themselvesgoing over to the new fashion.
gravewith a spear,a pin and potsdatedLH IIIB-C
A G dirk, probablyfrom Ithaca(pl. 26:49), has (pl. 27:56). This in turn is so close to one from a
the blade decoratedwith finely outlined ribbing "Mycenaean Tholos" at Colophon that they
like the Siteiasword,but it is the grip that is more could have come from the same mould (pl.
interesting,for in placeof the usual skeuomorphic 27:57). Both are now in the British Museum.
moulding and its debasedproduct,a single con- Unfortunatelythe pots from the ColophonTomb
striction,there are two constrictions,one imme- have not survived,but a silver pin or needle with
diatelybelow the pommeland the other abovethe a loop-headis a fairly common type, usually in
shoulderwith a parallel-sided,
broader,middle sec- bronze (Tarsus LH II, Troy etc.), and a faience
tion between. There is also deep channellingon spacer-bead,which has been illustratedwith the
the outside edge of the flange rather like the pin, is of a kind that occursfrequentlyat Ialysos
Dodona F dirk. These featuresgive it a most un- and elsewherein the late Mycenaeanworld.77Yet
Aegean aspect, nor is it Italian either. Oriental anotherof these knives comes from Troy, from
handleslike that on a two-edgedknife from Gezer the VII city. It appearsto be slightly heavierand
broaderthan the Ialysosand Colophonknivesand
provide a more likely source (pl. 26:51).
so closer to Siana.78
Class H swords: Siana GroupBronzes
The third of the Siana bronzes,the spear (pl.
This history of bronze swords in the Aegean 27:55),is characterized
by the facetingof the socket
must end with a small group which lies on the and the markedsplay of the facets at the base of
borderlinein time and in space of the Minoan- the blade.This is an Aegean feature;it is known
Mycenaeanworld. These swordsor dirks are part also in Rhodes,at Ras Shamraand at Tarsus (pl.
of what I proposeto call the "Siana Group"of
27:59).79 The last is perhapsthe closest and may
75 There has been some confusion in the past between these
weapons as only the shorter is figured by Tsountas. This has
been often copied with the position of the top rivet wrongly
placed: it should be central.
76 Catling, op.cit. (supra n. 2) I96I, I20.
77 Furtwingler-L6schke, op.cit. (supra n. 24) pl. D, 9 and pl.
C, Io and ii from tombs 13-38; lalysos O.T. XXVII had, as
well as the knife (no. 72. 6-20. I) in the British Museum, the
pots illustrated op.cit. Atlas pl. 9,51 and another "like" pl. 30,
270; the spear mentioned op.cit. pp. 14 and 75 was not identified by the excavators and cannot now be traced. I am very
grateful to Mr. R. Higgins of the British Museum for this in-

formation. British Museum Bronze Age Guide (I92o) i66, fig.

177 and AJA (1923)

17.

78 Unfortunately not datable, it came from room VII e and

could be either from the VII a or b city, W. D6rpfeld, Troja
und Ilion I, p. 396 fig. 384.
79 Furtwdingler-LSschke, op.cit. (supra n. 24) pl.

14; Schaef-

fer, op.cit. (supra n. 8) III, fig. 224; Tarsus at Adana Archaeological Museum no. 38-1645 3681 and H. Goldman, Excavations at Gdzlii Kule Tarsus II (1956) pl. 427, 97, and p. 55
where the reference to "a beautifully preserved lancehead" (no.
96) evidently is intended for this.

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

141

be LB IIA (before the conflagration), but the

house in which it was found had a squatters' occupation over it and may equally have been introduced from above and belong to the LB IIB
period, the sea raids.
This very small group of bronzes is so sharply
distinguished from all others, the knives as well
as the dirks, that it seems reasonable to treat it on
its own. At the same time I believe the dirks may
be legitimately related to certain Syrian-Levantine
weapons which are, at first sight, rather different.
They do not have horns but have a projection
which must have served the same purpose. First
there is a sword or dirk from Ras Shamra which
is a little longer than Siana, but the blade is similar
in shape and there is central ribbing like Pergamon, and the same rodlike extension of the flanged
grip (pl. 27:58). This flange however is deeper
and is scalloped in outline, and there is a separate
metal collar (a feature the Pergamon and Siana
dirks almost certainly also had if they were to
keep pommel and grip together, but it was very
likely not of metal). A possible local forerunner,
also at Ras Shamra, appears on an ivory in the
hand of a ruler who Schaeffer thinks may be
Niqmadu II, the contemporary of Suppiluliamu
and Amenophis III, and which has already been
referred to in connection with the adoption of central ribbing on Aegean blades."8
The Ras Shamra dirk is undoubtedly very closely
related to one from Atchana, belonging to levels
I or II, which has a similar grip, but this time the
wide lunate metal pommel has been preserved.
This hilt has a long Asiatic ancestry going back
to Ur and the Royal graves at Alaca H6y6k.81
The blade is generally similar though a little
thicker in section. The dates too are broadly contemporary: before the destructions by the Sea
Raiders early in the twelfth century. The only
points of similarity to the much longer sword
with the cartouche of Mineptah, from Ras Shamra,
is the parallelism of part of the blade, and the
section with central ribbing. This applies too to
the problematic sword from Samos which, though
said to have been found with a sixth century

bronze statue, must certainly belong to an earlier

epoch.82A fragment that might possibly have belonged to a dirk of Atchana type is in the Ashmolean Museum (pl. 27:6o).
Finally, the Medinet Habu reliefs seem to show
our swords in the hands of the Sea Raiders.83A
great variety are shown and among them are some
with marked horns of the Pergamon dirk type,
while others are more like the Atchana sword; the
lines down the blade centre are clearly shown. We
should not perhaps put too much weight on this
evidence, or expect exact archaeological documentation from such a source, but on the whole it
appears that the "horned" or semi-horned sword
is oftener in the hands of figures with feathered
headdresses (called Peleset, Thekel, Shekeles and
Denyen), while the figures with horned helmets
(called Shardana "of the Sea") have swords with
sloping shoulders which are certainly not Aegean.
Swords which might represent Type II are in the
hands of Egyptian mercenaries.
If the Siana and allied bronzes are admitted to
be a distinctive group their distribution is interesting, comprising as it does the coastal fringe of
Asia from the Troad to Syria, with the best authenticated examples coming from Rhodes (two gravegroups), particularly if the comparative isolation
of Rhodes from the Greek mainland in the twelfth
century is remembered (see map). Typologically
the swords can be explained by a marriage of
Aegean and Orient. The type of blade is not
originally Aegean though Aegean weapons had
been evolving in that direction, particularly in the
Dodecanese, since the fourteenth century (D ii
from Rhodes and Carpathos). The horns are undoubtedly Aegean and closest to the Siteia class
G sword, but the pommel extension is not, and is
confined to this small group. However rod-handles
of a sort are Asiatic and Cypriot rather than
Aegean. There is unfortunately little material evidence from inside Anatolia and particularly from
the Hittite Empire, but the "Dagger-god" of
Yazilikaya stands embodied in a dirk with a
pointed blade and ribbed or furrowed centre lines.84
The Siana group are not the only bronzes that

so Schaeffer, op.cit. (supra n. 8) 276-77, fig. 239; Schaeffer

dated the dirk 1250-1200.
81 Maxwell-Hyslop Type 9, "Daggers and Swords in Western
Asia," Iraq 8 (1946) 1-65.
82 Schaeffer, "A Bronze sword from Ugarit,"
Antiquity 29
226-29; Samos sword L. o.5o5m. including I2cm.
(1955)
tang JHS (1909) i9h. I am indebted to Mr. A. Snodgrass for
drawing my attention to this sword.

83 N. de G.
Davies, Medinet Habu, University of Chicago
Oriental Institute Publications, I pl. 39, detail showing Ramses
III defeating the Sea Raiders,the warrior in the left-hand "swanboat," see also pl. 32. It should perhaps be noted that the bow
was the weapon that saved the Egyptians-proving superior to
the sword; see also G. Wainwright, JEA 47 (1961) 71ff.
84 Seton Lloyd, Early Anatolia (1956) pl. 13 b, frequently
illustrated.

142

N. K. SANDARS

straddle the Aegean and Asiatic coasts. The horsebits in the Mycenae Acropolis hoard with their
connections with Miletus and Assyria have been
referred to. There is also a rather insignificant
little one-edged knife with a twisted rod of bronze
for a handle, which has escaped notice so far, but
which also has an interesting distribution. There
is one in the same big Mycenae hoard (pl. 25:38),
one in a tomb at Perati, another from Karphi
and yet another from Boghazkay.8"
With these and with the Siana group of bronzes
we have moved into a world of confused frontiers
and probably still more confused politics. The great
powers are no longer land-empires and principalities but small groups scattered among islands and
along a coastal fringe, inhabiting the nests of
pirates; they are almost certainly raiders, footloose
and on the make.

[AlA 67

Historians of the end of the Mycenaean age

have, with the help of Egyptian and Hittite documents and Greek traditions, pieced together a reasonably convincing chronicle of events. There is
very little that a study of swords can do to deepen
knowledge of those troubled years. On the other
hand the historical findings do help considerably
in the interpretation of the archaeological material. On the whole, I have preferred in these pages
to restrict myself to presenting the material evidence (as far as that may be done with regard to
a single arm), and have left interpretation aside.
Yet here and there a few conclusions are likely
to be forced on any objectively archaeological observer.
Enough evidence exists for each of the latest
weapons we have been discussing, the F, G and H
swords, to date them as contemporary with one
another. They belong to the thirteenth and twelfth
centuries. We have seen that by 1300 the last of
the products of the great fixed workshops, the C
and D i swords, had disappeared. Their traditions
were now carried on in a number of smaller workshops in places farther removed from each other,
or by traveling bronze founders and smiths who
produced the D ii and E ii weapons and tools;
and who also owed a good deal to fresh contacts
with the Levant, in which the Dodecanese had an

important r61le.By the later thirteenth century disintegration had gone much farther, and though
some of the F class daggers and short swords retain a semblance of traditional uniformity, the
majority of weapons are strange hybrids. There
is a return to pointed dirks with flat blades and
blade decoration borrowed from Asiatic sources;
and occasionally to longer blades with midribs.
There are significant new factors that begin to
make themselves felt at the end of the thirteenth
century (probably very little if at all before 1200)
and which have nothing to do with the Aegean tradition. There is the appearance of Type II swords
and of short spearheads with entire sockets. At the
same time metal seems to be more plentiful, or
at any rate more accessible (not necessarily the
same thing), for which fact the large numbers of
sickles, knives, and flat axes in hoards are evidence.
The hoards themselves point to new methods of
trade and transport, and the shipwreck off Cape
Gelidonya with its vast weight of copper ingots,
and its bronzes clearly linked to those of the hoards,
show how metal was traveling in bulk between
the Aegean and the Levant, and how easily simple
types of tool and weapon were dispersed abroad.
The Type II swords themselves appear to be
an exception to the general disintegration of types.
The eight weapons of Catling's Group I are widely
scattered but reasonably alike; they come from
Mycenae, Crete, Naxos, Cos and Cyprus, while
his second group is confined to the mainland of
Greece."8The northern origin of this sword and
the relationship of Group I to Cowen's Nenzingen
type will hardly now be disputed. The short spearhead with entire socket is no less northern in appearance; the only other possible source would be
the Caucasus. I have no exhaustive list of the
Aegean find-sites of these spears, most of which
are of a simple leaf-shape, but some (with a distinctly northwesterly grouping) are ogival. Of
those known to me there is a not insignificant coincidence with sites from which Type II swords
have come. Mycenae, Moulian~i,Anthea, Langada
Cos, and Enkomi have both. At Cos and at Anthea
they were in the same grave. Other notable finds
of spears are in the Ionian Islands, in Epirus, and
Delos.87 There is at least a strong likelihood that

85The National Museum (no. 2744) group of knives includes this type; S. Iakovides excavations, Perati Attica, preliminary report To Ergon ... 1959 (1960) 9-12, fig. 9; BSA
38 (1937-38) pl. 28, 540, 687, 645, Karphi; K. Bittel, Boghaz-

kdy I, pl. Io, 9-10.

86 Catling,
op.cit. (supra n. 3) 1961.
87 MetaxataKephallenia, Marinatos,ArchEph (1933) 92, with
amber; Polis Ithaka, Benton, op.cit. (supra n. 58) 72; Dakaris,

Discussion

1963]

LATER AEGEAN BRONZE SWORDS

the mercenaries of Dr. Catling's article came

armed with sword and spear; what else they
brought with them is more problematical. Neither
the numbers nor the distribution of Type II swords
(Group I) nor of "northern"spears suggests more
than the movement of highly mobile individuals.
The next question is naturally: did they bring
their own bronzesmiths with them? I have suggested that the lengthening of F and G swords
into the o.6om. range, and the occasional adoption
of so-called "blood-grooves" was a first reaction
of Aegean smiths and their clients to the Type II
swords. Dr. Catling has made a very interesting
suggestion that the addition of the pommel-spur
took place in the Aegean (Group II) and was then
introduced into Central Europe, where it is typical
of Hallstatt A swords (Erbenheim Group). If
this is accepted it shows a second stage in which
Aegean smiths have learnt to copy and modify
an alien weapon, just as earlier they had adopted
and adapted the T-flanged pommels of the Orient.
Thereafter the southern swords diverge further
from the European ones.
With these mercenaries we are perhaps in the
presence once more of a military caste, with its demand for a degree of uniformity of armament,
and its patronage of smiths and workshops, such
as existed when Class C and D swords were in
use. The absence now of luxurious weapons
show there was no rich court circle behind this demand. I do not believe there was a spectacular
eclipse of Aegean metalwork in the "Dark Age."
The production of all except the earliest Type II
swords was probably in the hands of local smiths.
By the time that iron came into general use the
old outmoded types like F, G and H had been
superseded in Aegean workshops. As far as concerns the swords after the twelfth century, the
transition to new styles is partly blanketed by
the simultaneous translation into the new, more
perishable metal: iron. But it is an inescapable
fact that the iron swords trace their ancestry back
to Type II, with very little indeed of Aegean or
Levantine tradition behind them.
The little that can be deduced from the outgoing swords of the twelfth century concerns two
important and apparently unconnected developop.cit. (supra n. 3); Delos Museum, B 4004, 10365; see also
V. G. Childe, "The Final Bronze Age ...,"
ProcPS 14 (1948)
185; D. Gara'anin, Katalog Metala, National Museum Belgrade

(1954) pl. 7, 2; pl. 38 etc. For Greek sites with northern spears
see also Catling, op.cit. (supra n. 3) p.
111 Anthea, 114; Cos

143

ments. First a very close link with Anatolia, particularly between the coasts and the islands: Siana
type bronzes (dirk, spear and knife); bronze horsebits (Mycenae-Miletus-Assur), the small knives
with twisted stem, the Anatolian-type boot-vase
from Voula, Attica;88 and secondly the foreign,
northern armament, sword and spear, found lightly
scattered over the entire Aegean and Levant, including Egypt. A third factor, less spectacular but
not without importance, is the influential r61leof
the Dodecanese: Cos and Rhodes outstandingly."8
This had been building up for a long time, but,
whereas in the fourteenth century it was as a
relay-point and centre of exchange between Crete
or mainland Greece and the Levant and Cyprus,
now with the Siana Group we find those close
ties with the Anatolian coast which were strangely
lacking before. This then is the material: its interpretation in terms of Hittite correspondence,
of sea raids and land raids, of Philistines and
Achaeans is not the business of this essay.
APPENDIX:

HAMMER DRNOVO BORODINO

At present the best discussion of the sword from

Hammer, Bavaria: Bronze C tumulus burial with
sword and pin, is probably E. Lomborg, ActaA
Copenhagen 30 (1959) 136, where it is compared
to one very similar from Dollerup, Aalborg, Jutland, found in a double grave with small bronzes
characteristicof Northern Bronze Period II (IIbc),
op.cit. 136-37. Both swords are extraordinary in
Europe north of the Alps, having flanged grips
without rivets, and T-shaped flanged pommel ends
like Italian Iron Age and Aegean and Oriental
Bronze Age swords. There are rivet-holes in the
T, placed in a way never found in the Aegean.
It will have been seen from these pages that the
T-flanged pommel could have been taken from
the Aegean any time after 1400 and down to the
twelfth century, but not much later. At that time
it was beginning to appear in Sicily and then in
Italy. In the Orient its time range was altogether
greater.
These two swords are not quite as isolated as
they appear if account is taken of one from Drnovo
in Western Yugoslavia now at Ljubljana (no. P
3333). I am indebted to Dr. Gabrovec of that
Langada T. 21 etc.
88 Praktika (I955) 24, fig. 20.
89 Dr. Catling has pointed out to me the curious situation
in the I2th century when links between Cyprus and the Greek
mainland are more obvious than between the latter and Rhodes.

144

N. K. SANDARS

museum for information and for supplying me

with a drawing. It is a single find; the length is
0.47 and, though slighter, the blade and shoulders
are very like Dollerup. The slightly flanged grip
has two rivet-holes and the top is unfortunately
missing. It does not belong to any of the betterknown European sword types. Drnovo may be
compared with another rather similar sword found
in the Danube at Nagytiteny, south of Budapest,
which may never have had a T pommel projection,
but the shoulders are similar. This I saw through
the kindness of Dr. A. Mozsolics of the Budapest
National Museum. None of these swords are
Aegean work but all in greater or less degree
show some southern inspiration, and may be in-

[AJA 67

mania 40 (1962) 255-87, appeared too late for comment here.

CATALOGUE
C
Crete
ZapherPapoura36, "Chieftain'sGrave,"Shaft-Grave.
L. 0.945m. (without pommel), grip has pommeltang or spur, three small rivet-holesin grip, one in
spur, rivets gold-cappedand pommel of ivory, two
rivets in blade level with top of midrib, high rounded

midrib with decorationof fine spirals,also doublespiralson flangesof grip, and quadrupleon shoulder
flange. Evans, "Prehistoric Tombs at Knossos"
(hereafter PTK) Archaeologia 59 (1906)

51, figs.

38 and iio. In direct associationwith cruciform

sword. Other bronzes, spears and tableware on
Awith
much
hoard
silver
important
very
gold,
slab above the single body.
A very important hoard with much gold, silver
and precious material, found at Borodino in South ZapherPapoura44, shaft-grave.L. o.955m., pommelRussia, held a silver dagger with a broad flattish
tang with small rivet-hole, grip with three large
rivet-holes, two large rivet-holes in blade, high
gold-plated middle section, not so much a midrib
strong
midrib, with fine spirals, double-spiralson
as a central panel. The hoard is discussed by Dr.
At present pommel-tangand horns incomflanges.
Gimbutas in ProcPS 22 (1956) 143-72,see especially
plete.
PTK,
p. 62, fig. 66, AshmoleanMuseum"AE
and
terlinked.

p. 144 and pls. 12 and 13. The dagger is ca. o.275m.,

has square flanged shoulders and a flanged grip

462." Found with single burial, untypical A sword

and stirrup-jar: date LM II/IIIA i (pl. 2i:I).

with three rivet-holes and no projection, there are Knossos, "Silver Cup Tomb," small ChamberTomb,
sword found with first burial under skeleton. L.
no blade rivets. Dr. Gimbutas, like earlier writers,
o.613m., in three pieces, three rivets in grip, small
connects the dagger with Mycenaean Shaft-Grave
rivet-holes,pommel-tangextension with rivet-hole,
be
derived
from Aegean
weapons, but if it is to be derived from Aegean
two small rivet-holesin blade, high angular midrib. Hutchinson, "A Late Minoan Tomb at Knosprototypes it is actually closer to later types. The
B class swords and long daggers of the Shaftsos,"BSA 51 (1956) 68-73,pl. 8, e, f; fig. 2, 16, no.
2. Found with bronze, silver-plated,stemmed cup,
Graves seldom have a flanged grip of this type,
Cretan type silver pin, two alabastra,blossom vase:
and where they do there are always rivet-holes
date LM IIB (Hutchinson), LM IIIA I (Furuin the blade as well. The square shoulder, flanged
mark).
grip and rivetless blade are most like class F, but Phaestus, ChamberTomb 8 of "Tombe dei Nolili,"
these always have the T pommel, while E i, which
two swords found but only one is illustrated,condition poor, in five pieces, lower part missing. Surdoes not, has a more rounded shoulder. In fact
viving
L. 0o.43m.,grip with pommel-tang,number
is
a
Borodino
mixture of characteristicsdrawn from
of
rivets
uncertainbut one survivingwith gold cap,
several different types of dagger. The "idea" of the
high midrib ending at level of shoulders,gold sheet
decorated centre panel of the blade might come
on flanges with feathered pattern. MonAnt 14
from daggers like Vapheio

and Myrsinoch6rion,

(I904)

pp. 508-35, figs. 2o, 2oa, found with traces

of burning, and other bronzes including tableware

but the decoration is only distantly Mycenaean.
like Z.P. 36.
The decorated pin has its best analogues in the
Hungarian Bronze Age, where Mycenaean motifs ZapherPapoura 14, see under class H.
are found much filtered through the local style. Mainland Greece
The closest to this decoration which is actually Dendra, "King's Tholos," found in pit I of Chamber
from the Aegean is found, perhaps suggestively, on
near "King's"body. L. o.94m.,grip with three small
the pommel of the sword of uncertain classificarivet-holes,gold-cappedrivets, two similar in blade,
pommel-tangnow lost. Fragments remain of ivory
tion from the island of Skopelos (possibly a fusion
hilt-platesdecoratedwith spirals and probablythe
of A and B class weapons), see Zenakis, KPHTIKA
small gold bars of which some 5,000 were found,
XPONIKA (hereafter KChr) 3 (1949) 534.
see infra, Argolis sword for descriptionof this techThe important article by H. Miiller-Karpe, Gernique, high rounded midrib to level of end of

1963]

LATER AEGEAN

shoulder-flanges. Persson, Royal Tombs at Dendra

(1931) p. 35, pls. xx no. III, xxII 2, xxIII 1-3 (sword
no. 12); found with two cruciform swords and one
class B, also spears and knives, gems, the octopus
cup, and silver and gold cups. LH III A i (Furumark); the swords may be earlier.
Dendra, "King's Tholos," from pit I found at the
"King's" feet in a heap with other bronzes. L.
o.682m. (incomplete), three gold-capped rivets in
grip, two in blade, no pommel-tang surviving, horns
unusually thick and short, strong rounded midrib
to shoulder-level. Persson, Royal Tombs p. 36, pl.
xx no. v (sword no. 15); found in a heap with
spears, knives and two small lead horns (probably
for bulls) date same as above.
Mycenae, Chamber Tomb 81. L. o.62m., pommeltang, one small rivet-hole in grip, two in blade, the
outline of the oval hilt-plate opening shows as a
stain on the metal, well-marked rounded midrib.
The sword is unusually light and slender, width
at horn-tips only 6cm. Undated tomb, it also held
an uncharacteristic class A sword and two unfinished
hilt-plates of cruciform swords, one of banded
agate, a bronze "drum" and small bone objects.
ArchEph (1897) pl. 8 no. 2, pp. 107-o8. Nat. Mus.
3118, Tsountas dig of 1895 (pl. 21:2).
Prosymna, Chamber Tomb XXXVII, two or more
period tomb, the sword came from the earlier
stratum. L. 0o.75m.,three gold-capped rivets in grip,
one in pommel-tang, two in blade, fragments of
wood and ivory from grip and gold wire-binding,
Blegen, Prosymna (1937) 329 and 123-28, fig. 298;
the lower stratum had at least ii burials much
mixed, the sword was found in a heap with 6
skulls, bones and pots and a two-edged leaf-shaped
razor. The pottery is LH IIIA.
Argolis. Incomplete, lower part of blade missing, surviving L. o.40m., three rivet-holes in grip, goldcapped rivets with small pins, grip originally had
ivory plates, ivory pommel preserved with gold
covering, spiral decoration on gold which is formed
of numerous tiny staples hammered flat and incised (see full and interesting account by Prof.
Elisabeth Treskow of Cologne). There is a high
strong midrib and two rivet-holes in blade. Sword
typical of the fine quality C i swords of Crete and
Dendra. There is a strong probability that this and
the class D sword (see infra) came from the recently plundered tomb 12 at Dendra, which held
a fine corselet and bronze vessels; gold-capped rivets,
probably from a sword and vases of LH IIB-III
AI. This sword is described and illustrated in Ars
Antiqua AG Auktion III (1961) p. 30 No. 70 and
coloured frontispiece. Dr. Astrom, Director of the
Swedish Institute in Athens, who with Mr. Verdelis
of the Greek Archaeological service has recently
excavated further tombs at Dendra, has very kindly
communicated the following information in connection with this, and the second sword of cruciform type. "Tomb 12 at Dendra was plundered
early in January 196o, before the excavation took

BRONZE SWORDS

145

place in May of the same year. Some gold-capped

rivets were found in the plundered part of the tomb
(see Verdelis in ArchEph [1957] i6ff.). I believe
that it can be proved in the forthcoming publication of the finds that the rivets belong to one of
the two swords that were sold in Lucerne in April
1960. The tomb contained two Mycenaean IIB and
two III AI pots. Only a single burial took place in
the tomb and that in the Mycenaean III AI period,
at which date the swords were placed in the tomb."
See also JHS (1961) Archaeological Reports I9606I, pp. 9-Io for a general note on Tomb 12 at
Dendra.
Dodona. L. 0.58, "from the ruins," much damaged
and incomplete, most of grip missing and tip, stout
midrib, small rivet-holes low in blade, two more
within and at base of horns, Carapanos, Dodone et
ses Ruines (1877) pl.
no. 140.
LVII
Perimatos, Ioannina. From a tomb, broken and incomplete, L. o.58m., no pommel-tang, two small
rivet-holes in grip, two in blade, low down, and
two at base of horns, finely ribbed high midrib,
nicks for hilt-plates at end of grip and horns. Dakaris, ArchEph (I958) 131 figs. 6, 7. I received
much assistance from Mr. Dakaris at Ioannina (pl.
21:3).
Perimatos, Ioannina. From a tomb like above, very
damaged, almost the whole of the grip and horns
missing. L. o.857m., two rivet-holes low in blade
alone survive, strong midrib. Sword probably like
the other but longer. Dakaris, ArchEph (1958) 131,
n. 7, fig. 6 (pl. 21:4).
islands
Ialysos, Rhodes. New Tomb IV, two burials in Chamber Tomb, L. I.ogm., quite untypical sword, halfway between C and B, grip appears to be unflanged,
and without pommel-tang extension, 3 (perhaps 4)
rivets in grip, two in blade, outline of oval hilt
opening on blade, shoulders slightly flanged, and
less horned than sharply pointed, strong high midrib, Maiuri, Annuario 6-7 (1926) No. 3622 pp. 93ioo, fig. 15, no. 18. The tomb had also a D ii
sword, an E ii knife-dagger, and a one-edged razor,
also pots LH III A2, but association not certain.
Asclepeion, Cos. L. o.4Im., untypical, a cross between
C i and the Syrian relatives of B. Three large rivetholes in grip and two in blade, stout faceted midrib, shoulder more pointed than horned, no details,
unpublished, kindly shown me by Prof. Morricone.
Nidhri, Levkas, "Brennplatz" R 7 and "over grave
24." Two very incomplete blade fragments, no trace
of hilt, but with strong lobed midribs; they belong
to the lower part of two different swords, but may
be class A. D6rpfeld, Alt Ithaka (1927) pp. 229,
241, Beil 62, 3; AJA 65 (1961) 26 and pl. 17, 5, 6.
Yugoslavia
Tetovo, Skopje, Yugoslav-Macedonia. L. ca. Im. No
pommel-tang, six rivet-holes in grip, two pairs of
rivet-holes in blade, well-marked midrib. An excep-

146

N. K. SANDARS

[AJA 67

tionally fine sword perhaps closest to Perimatos.

Dr. Vinski of Zagreb is publishing it shortly. I am
indebted to him for information.

o.56m., Casson, Man (1923) 172, fig. 2 top; also

Heurtley, Prehistoric Macedonia (1939) figs. Io4ff.,
where it is erroneously labeled "Karagliri, Bulgaria."
Bulgaria
"Bought in Athens," Stockholm, Museum of National Antiquities, No. 19293. L. o.675m., hardly a
Dolnolevski, Prov. Pazardjik (Kalglari or Karaglhiri
in older literature). L. o.77m. width of horns (point
midrib but central thickening outlined by two
channels 8mm. apart.
to point) o.i2m., almost perfect, two rivet holes in
grip and two pairs in blade, high grooved midrib, ?Dendra. Fragments of a sword in the National Muhorns nearly horizontal and cast solid. Found toseum, Athens, labeled "Dendra" but unpublished;
if all fragments are from the same weapon approxgether with a spear but without other particulars.
Guide to Archaeological Museum, Sofia (1952) pl.
imately o.8om., horns flanged not "folded," high
midrib with decorative ribbing, a curious sword in
9.1 (my pl. 22:5-6, pl. 28:64).
some details more like C i.
Perushtitsa, Plovdiv: L. o.76im., flanged grip with
pommel-tang and slot opening, three rivet-holes in
Islands
grip and two in blade, nearly horizontal solid horns,
round midrib, blade in two pieces and worn at Thermi, Lesbos. From room 4 in T; hilt and fragment of blade only. L. o.34m., uncharacteristic havedges; found according to information supplied at
Plovdiv with a spear and a skeleton in a tomb (pl.
ing one rivet-hole near end of grip, but no other
rivet-holes and in all other respects a C ii type, rather
22:7-8, pl. 28:67).
broad midrib, analysis of the metal gave a high
Doktor-Iosifovo, Michaelograd. L. o.567m., worn condition, particularly top of grip and blade, which is
tin content of i6.o tin to 83.0 copper, found with
reduced to the midrib, one surviving rivet-hole in
LH IIIA imported vases and dated by the excavator
grip, two in blade, horns solid, midrib round, grip
"just after 1400." See W. Lamb, Thermi (I936) pl.
very like Perushtitsa (pl. 22:9, pl. 28:66). I am
32.63 and pl. XLVII, also BSA 31 (1933) 161-62.
most indebted to Prof. Mikov at Sofia and Dr. P.
Detev at Plovdiv for assistance with these Bulgarian Palestine
swords.
Gezer, Tomb XXX, broken and in poor condition.
Fragment surviving today (in the Classical MuC ii
seum Istanbul) is L. o.235m., the top of the grip
is lost, there are no rivet-holes but Macalister shows
Crete
one in the part of the grip now lost, the shoulders
are flanged not "folded," and the narrow midrib
"Acropolis Tomb" S.W. of Aqueduct, Knossos. Ashmolean No. AE 489. Incomplete, L. o.694m., evihas decorative ribbing; found in 1909 with a number of bronzes including a scimitar or "harpe"
dently from a grave, found as a result of kilnand a Cypriot type flesh-hook, also Cypriot pots
digging. Entirely typical with a not high rounded
midrib; poor condition, the tip missing. Found
covering a wide range of dates but concentrated on
with three spears, one exceptionally fine and very
the i4th century; the tomb was used over a long
long, also a fragment from the horn of what apperiod. Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer (1912)
pears to be a second horned sword, and a squat
iii, pls. lxxiv-v, and see Schaeffer, Stratigraphie
alabastron dated by Evans LM I but probably LM
Comparde (1948) 197-98 and fig. I58 (pl. 23:16).
II; see Hood, BSA 51 (i956) p. 83, n. 5, and BSA
47 (I952) P. 245, n. 5, P- 54; A. Evans, Palace of Switzerland?
Minos (1921-25) IV, ii, fig. 832, p.
85I. (pl. 23:I2Adliswil, Ziirich. A very doubtful sword published in
a bad drawing by J. Naue, Vorrdmische Schwerter
15).
Chersonesus, Giamalakis Collection No. 500. Hilt end
(1903) pl. v, 2, and p. io; Heierli, Urgeschichte der
and lower part of blade missing, existing L. 0.332m.
Schweiz,
269, fig. 280. Prof. Vogt of the Swiss NaNo further information. Zenakis, KChr (1950)
tional Museum, Ziirich, has kindly informed me
III,
pl. 3.
that the Museum has no records of this sword
its archives so that it is best ignored.
amongst
Mainland Greece
Galaxidi, Nr. Itea on the Gulf of Corinth. Copenhagen Museum No. 3249; L. o.682m., good condition, very fine rilling on midrib. Bought in Athens,
see J. Undset, ZfE (1890o) 15, fig. 23, P. J. Riis,
Fortidens Kultur I, p. 27 (pl. 23:18).
"Mount Olympos," British Museum I930, 12/15/o10.
L. o.6i8m. Finely grooved midrib, some staining
on grip from grip-plates. Bought (pl. 23:17).
Grevena (in Naturhistorische Museum Vienna). L.

Di
Crete
Zapher Papoura 36, "Chieftain's Grave" (see Class C
i). L. o.6Im., rounded shoulders, agate pommel,
grip with gold plates and gold-plated rivets, three
in grip, two in blade; pommel-tang extension with
small rivet-hole. Originally there was a wood back-

1963]

LATER AEGEAN

BRONZE SWORDS

ing between the bronze grip and the gold of the

hilt-plates;repouss6and incised decorationof lions
and wild goats in a rocky landscapeon the gold
hilt-plates,a double-thongmoulding round the base
of the grip shown in the gold and the bronze, a
well-markedmidrib decoratedwith fine spiralsand
double-spiralson the flanges, fragments of linen
adhere to the blade. Found in the lower part of
the tomb directlyassociatedwith the C i sword and
seals. PTK p. 51, figs. 53, 59, 109, 112, see also
Evans P. of M. IV ii p. 853, and BSA 47 (1952)
265-67.
Zapher Papoura 42, Shaft-Grave.L. o.62m. (Evans
gives o.585m.which must be wrong) roundedshoulders, pommel-tangextension with small rivet-hole,
one small rivet in grip, none in blade, rivets goldplated, no surviving hilt-plates, but gold collar,
small spirals on flanges and midrib. Single burial
with two one-edgedrazors and a hone. PTK p. 60.
Zapher Papoura43, pit-cave.L. o.5om., no pommeltang surviving, rounded shoulders, no rivets?, no
decoration surviving but fine fluting on midrib;
burial disturbed by collapsed roof, sword found
near body and one-edged razor, one-edged knife
found higher up. PTK p. 62.
Zapher Papoura 55, Pit-cave. Present length without
tip o.655m., AE 481 (the measurementsgiven in
PTK do not seem to tally with the present length
or those shown in fig. io9), rounded shoulder,
fragments of ivory hilt-platessurvive, pommel-tang
extension with rivet-hole, small rivet in grip, two
small holes in blade, fine ribbing of midrib, double
thong-mouldingon flange.Found with single body,
a spear,one-edgedknife, boar'stusks cut for mounting as a helmet, and a stirrupjar, LM IIIA I, PTK
p. 66. See BSA 53-54 (1958-59) 245 for a similar

147

a painted coffin; large number of bronzes: spears,

including one very long one, knives, daggers, twoedged razor, arrows, fragments of wire possibly
from a helmet, a gold cup, gems (seal-stones) and a
lamp, probably LM IB-LM II? Hood BSA 51
(I956) p. 83 n. 2, p. 95, 97, pl. 14,e, fig. 3, 5.
New Hospital Site, Knossos, Tomb II, Shaft-Grave.
L. o.6im. (with pommel restored) angular shoulder, ivory pommel (pommel-tang lost?) grip with
three large rivet-holes for wooden pegs with goldcapped decorative studs, two small gold-capped
bronze rivets in blade, wooden hilt-plates with gold
sheet covering decorated with repouss6 spirals, also
on the gold casing of top of midrib; gold thongmoulding at base of grip and gold ring and "cup"
for pommel, sword much decayed, perhaps from
contact with body. Found with exceptionally long
decorated spear, a jug and alabastron, date LM III
A i. BSA 47 (I952) pp. 265-67,
fig- I5, a; pls. 50,
b, 53, a.
New Hospital, Knossos, V, Chamber-tomb. L.
0o.47m.,
angular shoulder, pommel-tang with small rivethole, one small rivet in grip and two in blade, broad
flat midrib with grooves; found with very long
spearhead, bronze helmet, lead disc, stone bowl and
three alabastra, date probably LM II. BSA 47
(1952) p. 275, pl. 54,e, fig. 12, v, 6.
Mavrospelio XVIII, Knossos, Chamber-tomb. L.
0.475m., very poor condition and now incomplete,
angular shoulder, pommel-tang broken, no rivets in
grip, two in blade, probably had broad flattish midrib
but now very corroded, found with an E ii knife,
a two-edged razor, a spear and small "cutter." BSA
28 (1926-27) 282 (pl. 24:22).
Giammalakis Collection 356, no provenance, tip missing. L. o.365m., rounded shoulders, pommel-tang.
Zenakis KChr (1950) 109, pl. 3Giammalakis Collection 437, incomplete. L. 0.415m.,
no pommel-tang surviving, moderately rounded
shoulder, KChr (1950) 110, pl. 3Herakleion, no provenance, No. 409. L. 0.212m., tip
missing but taper suggests never much more than
a dagger, no pommel-tang, three large rivet-holes
in grip, two small rivets in place in blade, broad
flattish midrib.

stirrup-vasefrom Gypsades (pl. 24:19).

Zapher Papoura 98, Chamber Tomb. L. o.6im.
(Evans) slightly rounded shoulder, no pommeltang, some remainsof wood grip; ratherbroad,not
so high midrib; two burials, the later in a larnax
disturbed, the earlier had the sword, a "charcoal
holder"or lamp, a stone vase and a one-edgedrazor.
PTK p. 98 and pl. io9 (where it is numbered 97
a).
Ayios loannis, Knossos,Shaft-GraveA.J. i. L. o.4om.,
Mainland
angularshoulder,pommel-tangextensionwith small Greek
rivet-hole,three large rivet-holesin grip, two small Dendra "King's Tholos" (see under C i). L. 0.765m.,
in blade; rather broad, ribbed midrib. Found with
rounded shoulder, agate pommel, pommel-tang
spear with short tang and slots "boar spear,"and
probably present, grip with three rivet-holes and
another with thong mouldings, and small spear
gold-capped rivets, perhaps wooden pegs and bronze
and two-edged razor. Hood, BSA 47 (1952) 261,
studs with gold capping like New Hospital II?
Wooden hilt-plates covered with gold sheet with
fig. 8.
spiral patterns incised on it, thong-moulding at base
Ayios Ioannis, Knossos Chamber-tomb(A.J. 2). L.
of grip; oval hilt opening and two gold-capped
o.62m., angular shoulder, pommel-tangwith small
rivets in blade, strong rounded midrib. Sword no.
rivet-hole,three large rivets in grip, two small in
blade; staining shows oval hilt opening, fragments
ii found by "King's" body with other swords, no.
of ivory pommel and of wooden hilt-plates also
12 etc. Persson Royal Tombs p. 35, pls. xx, I, no. n;
XXII, I.
found; blade in three pieces and tip missing; thick
ratherbroad midrib with grooves;found in part of Dendra "King's Tholos." L. o.715m., tip missing,
a destroyed tomb probably with single burial in
moderately rounded shoulder, pommel-tang with

148

N. K. SANDARS

rivet-hole, three grip and two gold-capped blade

rivets, ring of granulation rounded edges of gold
sheet covering for grip-plates, oval hilt opening,
strong rounded midrib, found beside the "King's"
body, sword no. 9, Persson, Royal Tombs p. 34,
pl. xx no. iv. Date LH III A i.
Prosymna, Chamber Tomb XXV. L. o.445m., uncharacteristic sword, rounded shoulder, pommel-tang,
no rivets in grip, two in blade, no midrib. From
the cist in the north chamber of this uniquely
complicated tomb; found with an E ii knife. Blegen,
Prosymna 86-92, fig. 198, upper.
Mycenae, Chamber Tomb 78. L. o.66m. (Tsountas)
angular shoulder, grip broken and in poor preservation, pommel-tang, three large rivet-holes in grip
and one large gold-capped bronze rivet, two small
rivet-holes in blade; high faceted midrib. Found
with quantities of gold nails, perhaps from the grip
(see Dendra C i sword etc.), also an uncharacteristic class A sword, with handsome hilt, and two
one-edged knives (class ia and class 2) bronze cup
with wishbone handle etc. Nat. Mus. no. 3084,
ArchEph (1897) pl. 8, i (pl. 24:21).
Mycenae, Chamber Tomb 91. L. 0.502m., two similar swords, uncharacteristic, rounded shoulder,
pommel-tang, no grip rivets, two in blade, no midrib, but grooved lines down centre of blade, unpublished? Most like Prosymna XXV.
Argolis (perhaps from a Chamber Tomb at Dendra).
Incomplete, pommel end of hilt and lower part of
blade missing, surviving length o.387m., one rivet
in surviving part of grip, flanges gold-covered,
shoulder angular, two small gold-capped rivets in
blade. Very probably from the recently plundered
tomb 12 at Dendra, along with the C i sword (see
above) dated LH IIB-IIIA I. Ars Antiqua AG
Auktion III, p. 30 No. 70, and coloured frontispiece, see also JHS (I96I) Archaeological Reports
I96O-6I, pp. 9-Io.
Grevena, incomplete. L. o.418m., shoulders angular
(if drawings accurate), hilt broken at first rivethole, two blade rivets, and strong midrib, NHM
Vienna, Man (1923) 172, fig. 2 bottom, Heurtley,
Pre. Mac. fig. 104, ee.
Islands
Ialysos, Rhodes, N.T. XLV. L. o.37m., angular shoulder, no pommel-tang, no grip rivets, pronounced
broad midrib; found with two-edged razor and
spear, Annuario 6-7 (1926) p. 199, no. 3601, fig. 124.
Ialysos Old Tomb, no tomb number. L. ca. o.42m.,
moderately rounded shoulder, pommel spur with
rivet at break, one rivet in grip, two in blade, broad
not high midrib, top missing; Furtwlingler-L6schke,
Mykenische Vasen (F. and L.) pl. D, 13.
Rhodes or other Greek Islands. B.M. Walter's No.
3, L. o.52m., moderately rounded shoulder, pommeltang broken, no grip rivets, two blade rivets, narrow rounded midrib, tip missing. Conceivably the
same as F. and L., D, 13, but not very likely (pl.
24:20).

[AJA 67

Eleona, Cos, probably from a tomb. L. o.418m., angular shoulder, pommel spur with rivet-hole, no grip
rivets, two in blade, broadish low midrib. Unpub
lished.
France?
Rh6ne at Lyons, fragment of grip and blade. L. 0.25m.,
angular shoulder, top of grip missing, two bladerivets, broad midrib, Chantre, "Jtudes Paleoethnologiques . .. Age du Bronze" Album (1875) pl.
xv bis, 3; appears to be a characteristic D sword but
provenance suspect? (pl. 24:23).
Swords related to Class D i
Crete
Knossos, North House, in a hoard of bronzes. L.
o.37m., top of hilt broken, incipient flange to grip,
bulging rounded shoulder, possibly antecedent to
class D i, P. of M., II, ii, pp. 627-28, fig. 392, no.
i7;
IV, ii, p. 851, fig. 835. MM III or LM IA.
Gournia, F. 14. L. o.353m., rounded flanged shoulder,
grip broken, has one rivet-hole, three blade rivets,
broad low midrib. LM I? B. Hawes, Gournia (90oI04) pl. Iv, 50.
Greek Mainland
Eleusis cist-grave type "gamma," H. 10. L. ca. 0.34m.
Round shoulder with slight bulge, pommel-tang
with rivet hole, no grip rivets, blade has large
rivets in a row, no midrib, ILN (Nov. 13, 1954)
840-43, fig- 7; Praktika (I954) 55-57, fig5.
Class B and D i Type Hilts, Unattached
Crete, Knossos Throne Room. Shell and crystal, P. of
M., IV, ii, 931-33, fig. 904; PTK p. 10, n. D.
Greek Mainland, Mycenae, Chamber-Tomb 81. Agate,
unfinished, hollows sunk for rivets but not bored,
gold granulation round edges, thong-moulding;
with Class C i sword etc. ArchEph (1897) pl. 8,
no. 5.
Mycenae, Chamber-Tomb o02. Faience class D, and
gold class B, perhaps associated with gold beads etc.
and "palace style" pots. ArchEph (1897) pl. 8, 6;
JHS 24 (1904) 322, pl. XIi.
D ii
Crete
Palaikastro, The Beehive-Tomb. L. o.33m., very poor
condition; broke up during cleaning, one rivet in
pommel, one in grip and in blade, parallel-sided
blade with sharp taper toward the point. Found
probably with a knife and razor and the pots.
Date LM III A 2, or possibly earlier. Furumark,
Chronology 95, BSA Suppl. (I923) pl. xxv, I, p.
II7; BSA (I901-02)

vIII, p. 303.

Gournes Pedhiada Tomb 2. L. o.37m., fragments of

1963]

LATER AEGEAN

ivory of hilt-plates still survived, blade with sharp

taper to point; in tomb but bronzes found outside
larnax, pots LM IIIB(?) Archaiologikon Deltion 4
(1918) p. 73 fig. I8 No.2 (photograph not at all clear).
A sword or dagger which I have not seen reproduced
is referred to in Deltion as being "like" the Palaikastro dirk, from "a late chamber tomb" near
Canea. See reference under Gournes above.

Mainland
Mycenae, from the Acropolis, from above the III
Shaft-Grave, found with many "Hera idols." L.
ca. o.33m., blade badly corroded splitting laterally,
three rivets, H. Schliemann, Mykenae (1878) pp.
90o-91 N. 238.
Mycenae, in large Acropolis hoard of 189o (see under
class F infra). Two swords are referred to by
Tsountas, ArchEph (1891) 25, as being "like"
Schliemann's N. 238 (see above) and their measurements given as o.4om. and o.345m., a third mentioned as measuring o.37m. is evidently the class
F sword illustrated ArchEph (1897) pl. 8, 4, for
which see infra.
Mycenae, "porous wall" small founder's hoard, No.
52. 409. L. o.29m., two breaks, two rivets in grip.
LH IIIB or later. Wace, BSA 48 (1953) pl. 2, d;
F. Stubbings, BSA 49
(I954) 292 (pl. 24:27).
Corinth, MF 1271, a fragment. L. o.Iim., as hilt-end
missing it could be D i but other proportions, width
etc., identical with Mycenae No. 52.409 above.
Corinth XII, pl. 91, American School of Classical
Studies at Athens, 1523 (pl. 24:28).

Islands
Carpathos, BM No. 46, from a tomb. L o.3Im., some
ivory or bone of grip survives, two rivet-holes in
grip, blade with two breaks, sharp taper to point,
very fine decorative grooving on flanges and four
parallel lines down centre of blade, better state of
preservation, but slender dimensions like Mycenae founder's hoard and Corinth fragment. Found
with pots of LM IIIB; JHS 8 (1887) 449, pl. 83, 3
(pl. 24:26).
Rhodes, Ialysos, O.T. IV (B. M. Walters 2). L. o.52m.,
two rivets in grip, two in blade on same level with
each other, staining visible from oval-shaped hiltopening, one moulding in bronze flange below
pommel and two at base of grip, very broad lobed
shoulder, one fine groove down flange and four
fine ribs down centre of blade. A very rich tomb,
the other bronzes including a long very narrow
spear like some in the Knossos cemeteries (L. o.315)
also bronze bowl fragments, gold sheet with sphinx
motif, glass beads "oenochae" type, perhaps LH
IIIB, Furtuw'ngler and Laschke, pl. D, 11, pp. 8 and
75. See also pl. A, I8, and pl. D, 6,8,I2,I6,I7 (pl. 24:

BRONZE SWORDS

149

or B sword, class E ii dagger and one-edged razor.

Pots dated LH III A 2 include one (no. 2927, p.
97) of specifically Cretan type, Maiuri, Annuario
6-7, p. 93, fig. I5, No. I8, see also p. 97, pot no.
2927.

E i (Daggers)
Crete
Knossos, Ayios Ioannis, Chamber Tomb (gold-cup)
see D i above. A.J. 6, L. o.355m., pommel spur with
small rivet-hole, one large rivet-hole in grip and two
in blade, found with other bronzes, gold cup etc.
and D i sword. LM II; Hood, BSA 51 (1956) fig.
3, 6; pl. 15, a.
Ayios Ioannis, Chamber Tomb, ditto. A.J. 7, L.
o.2o5m., one small rivet-hole near base of grip. LM
IB or II? BSA 51 (1956) fig. 3, 7; pl. I5, a.
Giammalakis Collection No. 355. L. o.324m., two
large rivet-holes in grip, two in blade on a level,
pommel spur with small rivet-hole, blade narrower
than usual (due to whetting down?), profile of
shoulder squarer than usual in this class. Zenakis,
KChr (1950) pl. 3, P. 109.
Giammalakis Collection No. 357. L. 0.3I5m., pommel
spur appears broken, one rivet hole in blade (looks
very like A.J. 7 above), KChr (1950) pl. 3, P. iio.

Greek Mainland
Prosymna III, Chamber Tomb, damaged end of grip
and blade. L. o.266m., one rivet in grip, no pommel
spur (very like A.J. 7 above), found in a great pile,
presumably floor sweepings, including LH II-III
pots, Blegen gives the date LH III but see Hood,
BSA 51 (1956) p. 96, n. i, on possibility of a slightly
earlier dating. Blegen, Prosymna, fig. 462, pp. 18384Prosymna, XLIII, Chamber Tomb. L. o.272m., one
rivet in grip, one in blade, no pommel spur, the
bronzes which were heaped together include twoedged razors, and a bronze dish. Pottery all LH III.
Prosymna, fig. 485, p. i85.
Galaxidi (Ashmolean AE 65 1895). L. 0.265m., one
side badly damaged and mostly missing, one rivet
hole in grip, one in blade (unpublished).
"From near Patras" 1891 (Ashmolean Museum 1927.
1375). L. o.243m., two rivets, most of grip lost,
blade much narrowed by whetting.
"From near Olympia" I898 (Ashmolean Museum
1927. 1376). L. o.282m., pommel end of hilt slightly
damaged, otherwise fair condition, one rivet hole
in blade (pl. 25:29).
Note: Where the end of the grip is missing, as
in the dagger from "near Patras," the missing portion could have had a pommel flange, in which case
it would belong to Class E ii.

24-25).

Ialysos, N.T. IV. L. o.6om., one rivet-hole in grip,

one in pommel and two on a level in blade, three
finely grooved lines down centre of blade (see type
C i), rich tomb with two burials, a very long C i

E ii
Crete
Mavrospelio XVIII, Chamber Tomb (see also under

150

N. K. SANDARS

D i). L. o.275m., one rivet in pommel, one in

blade, sides of blade much whetted down. BSA 28
(1926-27) 282; Herakleion Museum No. 2142 (pl.
25:30).

Greek Mainland
Dendra, Chamber Tomb 2, "The Cenotaph." L.
0.40m., parts of wooden hilt-plates survived, three
rivets one each in pommel, grip, and blade. Found
in a pit under the entrance to the tomb with a large
quantity of bronzes including table and kitchen
ware, spear, knives and razors; this collection may
be the sweepings from several burials, so dating
and associations are uncertain. Some pottery from
the chamber has been identified as LH IIIB. Persson, Royal Tombs at Dendra, p. 97, no. 23 pl. xxxIII,
4; and pl. xxx which shows the 35 objects from the
pit, see also Furumark Chron. 64.
Dendra Chamber Tomb 7. L. o.38m., fragments of
the wooden handle survive also ancient repairs,
one rivet in pommel, two each in grip and in blade,
shape of pommel rather flat. From shaft V; this
tomb had five burials, the shaft was full of bronzes
crushed together as though swept from several
burials, it held bronze mirror, bowls with wishbone
handles, one-edged razors, the knife with flanged
pommel is very like that from Gypsades T. I, which
is probably LM IIIA 1/2 (BSA 53-54 P. 232, fig.
32, 5). Nothing in Dendra Ch. T. 7 is earlier than
LH III. Persson, New Tombs at Dendra (1942)
34-35, fig. 25, I.
Prosymna XXV, Chamber Tomb. L. 0.31IIm., one rivet
in pommel, one in grip, four in a line in blade,
shoulder only moderately rounded, there is a moulding in the grip. Found in a cist in the north chamber with a D i sword and two beads, date LH IIIA
2? Blegen, Prosymna fig. 198.
Prosymna XLII, Chamber Tomb. L. o.299m., one rivet
each in pommel, grip, and blade, rather narrow
pommel, shoulders squarer than that in T. XXV,
decorative grooves on flange, date LH IIIA? Blegen,
Prosymna fig. 377.
Prosymna XLIII, very damaged, blade shown in fig.
487, i. In Prosymna described by Blegen as probably same type as the two above, the blade looks
very thin and perhaps more like the two-edged
razors with tang?
Eleusis, cist-graves. L. o.3Im., one rivet in pommel,
two in grip, five in a line in blade, four rivets survive and three have large heads, all have narrow
shanks, from the same cemetery as the D i knife,
but not illustrated, Praktika (i954) and ILN (i955)
67.
Thebes, Ismenion Tomb 5. L. o.305m., one rivet in
pommel, two in grip and in blade, LH III A2,
Delt. 3 (1917) 80-98, fig. 69.
Greece (provenance not known, John Evans collection,
Ashmolean Museum 1927. 1445). L. o.35m., damaged
tip missing, one rivet in pommel and in grip, two
in blade, decorative grooves on flange, perhaps the
sword referred to by Naue as from Corinth and in

[AJA 67

a privatecollection,J. Naue, VorromischeSchwerter,

p. 10, pl. 5, 3 (pl. 25:31).

Islands
Cos, Asclepeion (1939). L. o.383m., one rivet in pommel, two in blade; unpublished.
Rhodes, Ialysos N.T. IV, see also under class C i and
D ii. L. o.38m., one rivet in grip and in pommel,
two in blade, very pointed top to pommel, date
probably LH IIIA 2, Maiuri, Ann. 6-7, pp. 98-ioo,
fig. 15, 20.
F
Crete
Zapher Papoura, Knossos, Chamber Tomb 95. L.
0.37m., two rivets in grip, one in blade, very narrow pommel, blade triangular and pointed, undisturbed tomb with two burials, bronze mirror and
stirrup-vase, LM III A2? Evans, PTK p. 83, figs. 94,
I14.
Zapher Papoura, no context (Ashmolean Museum AE
472). L. o.35m., two rivets in grip, two in blade,
there is a moulding in the flange below the pommel.
ProcPS (1952) pt. 2 pl. 27, 3 (pl. 25:32).
Episkopi Pediadha, Heracleion Museum no. 4326. L.
o.345m., one rivet in grip, two in blade, some ivory
of haft adhering, pommel semicircular profile, four
fine ribs or grooves down centre of blade, Praktika
1952 (1955) 619.
Moulianai Tomb A, Heracleion No. 997. L. o.585m.,
one rivet in pommel, three in grip, fragments of
ivory in grip, gold-capped, square-shafted rivets,
pommel very narrow, moulding in grip just below
pommel, upper part of blade much whetted down,
fine decorative grooves or "blood-channels" following profile of blade 5 cm. inside the edge. Very
complicated tomb with two period burials, inhumations and cremations. ArchEph (1904) 46; V. d'A.
Desborough, Protogeometric Pottery (1952) 269;
Catling, PPS 22 (1956) pt. II, p. 113 and Antiquity
35 (196i) 115; Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments
(1950) pl. 19, 3. A. Furumark, Chronology 0O6-07
(pl. 25:33).
Moulianai, Tomb A. Heracleion Museum No. 998,
second sword of type F from the same tomb, much
more damaged, top third of grip and pommel missing. Surviving L. 0o.435m., broken at a rivet hole,
decorative ribbing down outside of flange, and
grooves following profile of blade 8 m. from edge,
blade a little thicker in section than no. 997: 5mm.
at centre. Other bronzes include a Type II sword,
Catling's Group III, and fragment of another,
fibulae, pins, spearheads, bronze bowl handles with
bull-heads, traces of iron and pots of rather uncertain date (LM IIIB-Geometric?) (pl. 25:34).
Dikte, Heracleion no. 326, grip and top of blade
only. Surviving length 9.5cm. of which 8cm. is grip,
three rivets in grip, one in pommel which is very
narrow, moulding below pommel, blade made

1963]

LATER AEGEAN

separately from grip. J. Boardman, The Cretan

Collection at Oxford
(I96I) p. 17, fig. 3, J.
Dikte, Heracleion no. 327, grip only and top of blade
surviving. L. Io.2cm. of which 8.2cm. is grip,
three rivets in grip, two in blade, pommel very
narrow, moulding in grip below pommel, blade
made separately, Boardman, op.cit. p. 17, fig. 3, K.

Greek Mainland
Mycenae Acropolis, large hoard found in I89o, National Museum no. 2547. L. o.35m., three rivet
holes in grip, one in blade, contraction in grip below pommel, according to Tsountas found in a
ruined house on the Acropolis along with other
swords and daggers (Type II and class G swords,
and possibly class D ii for which see above), also
double axes, sickles, wedge-shaped tools, flat-axes,
spears, arrowheads, horse-bits, tweezers, metal
strips and embossed discs and gold wire. Tsountas,
ArchEph (1897) Iio, pl. 8,4; Dakaris, ArchEph
(1958) 138-39, fig. 8, a (where it figures as type
/8 3) Catling ProcPS 22 (1956) pt. II, p. o09 (pl.
25:36-40 and pl. 26:47-48).
Mycenae Acropolis, large hoard of 1890, National
Museum no. 2548. L. 0.373m. three rivets in grip,
one in blade, contraction below pommel, refs. as
no. 2547 above, illustrated by Dakaris fig. 8 and
called type P i (following Furumark).
Mycenae Acropolis, large hoard of 1890, handle only
survives. L. 0o.o094m.,for refs. see above.
Mycenae Acropolis, staircase hoard. Two swords or
daggers, each having three rivets in grip, were
found in a hoard with knives, sickles and double
axes in the LH III staircase, probably hidden at the
final destruction. Mylonas, AJA 66 (1962) 406-08
and pl. 121, fig. 4.
Athens Acropolis, hoard. L. 0o.374m., one rivet in
pommel, two in grip, one in blade. The hoard has
sickles, wedge-shaped tools, etc. like the Mycenae
hoard. Montelius, La Grace Preclassique (1924)
155, fig. 498, the proposed association with sherds of
LH IIIA 2 is unlikely.
Perati, Attica, Chamber Tomb 38. L. 0.403m., two(?)
rivets in grip, very narrow pommel, four narrow
ribs down centre of blade, found (probably associated) with a small iron knife with bronze rivets
and a bronze ring, LH III C lakovides, Praktika
(1955) P. 100, pl. 30, P i and pl. 31 3 (knife) see
also BCH (1960) 2, p. 661.
Dodona. Length not known, one rivet in pommel,
two in grip, one in blade, pommel with triangular
profile, moulding under pommel, decorative channelling of flange. Montelius, La Grkce Preclassique
pl. 13, 2; Dakaris, ArchEph (1958) 141, fig. 9, 15.
Kalbaki near Ioannina, cist-grave A. L. o.328m. (restored as 0.352) (see Dakaris ArchEph [1958] 123),
rivet holes damaged and reworked in antiquity, one
in pommel, one in grip, two in blade; pommel very
narrow, flanges of grip and pommel on one side
only, three pairs of finely incised lines down centre
of blade, signs of old mends, grip much damaged

BRONZE SWORDS

151

and broken. Found with an inhumation, a spear of

European type (without slit in socket), small oneedged knife. Dakaris, ArchEph (1958) 123-84,
where northern links are discussed (pl.
25:35).

Islands
Oros, Aegina, Aegina Museum No. 969/o.15. Fragment of a blade only, with beginning of grip. L.
o.1Im., one rivet in blade, one in grip at break,
very corroded. G. Walter, Aigina (1938) 25; the
dagger is not published (pl. 25:42).
Rhodes. Incomplete, L. ca. o.40m., two rivets in grip,
one in pommel, contraction in grip below pommel,
section of blade shows slight thickening. Montelius,
La Grace Preclassique pl. 13, I.
Langada, Cos, Tomb 46, tip missing. L. o.41m., two
rivets in grip, one in pommel, slight contraction
below pommel, two fine decorative ribs along
flange, unpublished but see JHS 65 (0945) 102,
which refers to Chamber Tombs with dromos of
usual type, containing swords and pottery of the
"last Mycenaean period" at Langada.
Langada Tomb 53, a sword possibly similar to Langada 46.
Diakata, Kephallenia, Tomb 2. L. o.40m., tip missing,
one rivet in pommel, three in grip, grip contracted
below pommel which is moderately narrow, condition poor with two breaks; found with a pot described as "more Protogeometric than Mycenaean";
date 12th century or later, Benton ProcPS 18 (1952)
pt. 2, pl. xxvII, I, p. 237; ArchDelt (i919) 118.
Diakata Tomb 2, second sword better preserved, tip
missing. L. 0.405m., one rivet in pommel, three in
grip, pommel very narrow and flat; date and refs.
the same as above.
Lakkithra (Goekoop excavations) Tomb A 6. L.
of grip missing and probably tip of
o.4Im., top
blade, two rivets survive in grip, two in blade,
shoulders too damaged to see their shape clearly,
traces of wood remain in the haft, blade flat. A 6 also
had a spear which appears to have been deliberately
bent, the type cannot be seen from the photograph.
ArchEph (I932) Marinatos pp. 1-47. I owe this
reference to Dr. Catling.

Sicily
Dessueri Tomb 44. Syracuse museum no. 22064, very
damaged and incomplete. Present L. o.223m., grip
broken but with one large rivet surviving in hole,
only one shoulder and one side of grip intact, and
slightly flanged; found with arc fibulae, a sword
of local type, a two-edged razor, one-edged knife
and red "Pantalica" pottery. Date around or just
after IIoo, see Maxwell-Hyslop, ProcPS (1956) 126,
pl. x. I am indebted to Mrs. Margaret Guido for
drawings and photographs of this and the following
dagger and to Dr. Brea (pl. 25:41, pl. 28:68).
Pantalica North, Grave 48. The only undoubted miniature known to me of this type; tip missing, L.
o.o032m., one rivet at top of blade, slight flange on

152

N. K. SANDARS

shoulder, on grip and round the T-shaped pommel

(pl. 25:43, pl. 28:69).

England
Pelynt, Cornwall, from a barrow in the "Five Barrows" group, a fragment. L. o.1Im., strongly
flanged grip and shoulder, rivet-hole in grip; an
old find but probably reliable. ProcPS 17
(195i)
pt. i, p. 95, pl. ii, also ProcPS 18 (1952) pt. 2, p.
237. I am indebted to Mr. L. V. Grinsell for further
information about the circumstances of finding,
according to which it reached the Truro museum
between 1840 and 1850 along with other objects
from the barrows (pl. 25:44).
G
Crete
Zapher Papoura, Knossos, Tomb 14, "The Tomb of
the Tripod Hearth." L. 0.42m., domed pommel
with one rivet-hole, three in grip, four in blade,
two larger above the two smaller, ivory of pommel
and grip survives intact, two mouldings below pommel in the ivory and the bronze of the grip, horns
rise, then thicken and drop to the point, there is a
high double-lobed midrib down the blade's length,
the blade tapers sharply to the point. This Chamber Tomb is described as the largest and most important in the cemetery, it held fourteen bronze
vessels (cauldron, jugs, etc.), a plaster tripod-stand,
fragments of an ivory casket, and bone-inlayed
wooden box; and close to the dirk, a spear, razors
(one-edged), mirrors, and a one-edged knife. Evans
thought that the main burial had been removed
soon after the funeral because of a fall of rock; redrawn from PTK, pp. 34-45 figs. 38a and b. Not
dated but probably beginning of 14th century (LM
IIIA)

(pl. 26:45).

Siteia, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, no. G.R.

Dawkins collection. L. o.5om., tip miss94b-I9o6,
ing, pommel rather flat, four rivet holes in grip,
flattish blade with three fine ribs, spaced about 5mm.
down its length, perhaps produced by chasing after
the casting but this is unusual, the horns or quillons
begin as horizontal projections and then turn down,
the metal is folded forming a "seam." Benton, BSA
29 (1927-28)
114, fig. I, 3; Dakaris, ArchEph
(1958) 141 (pl. 26:50). Purchased in 19o6 together
with a Type II sword from the same provenancepublished by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from a tracing by
Mr. R. V. Nicholls.
Mainland Greece
Mycenae, Acropolis, large hoard of 1890, National Museum no. 2536. L. o.4Im., three rivets in grip, one
(central) moulding below pommel. The drawing in
Furumark, Chronology 94, fig. 4, c2, is evidently intended for this weapon, it shows the rivet-hole in-

[AJA 67

correctly placed to one side, redrawn from the

correct drawing; see Tsountas, ArchEph (1891) pl.
2, 5, horns very much as in Siteia sword with
"seam" visible, strong rounded midrib. For this
hoard see under class F above; see also Benton,
ProcPS 18 (1952) 2, p. 237; and Montelius, La Gr'ce
Pr'classique, pl. 13, Io (pl. 26:46).
Mycenae, Acropolis, large hoard of i89o, National
Museum no. 2537. L. o.623m. (Tsountas gives 0.65;
the sword has been sometimes confused with no.
2536); one rivet in pommel, two in grip, two in
blade, grip very narrow, horns rather broad and
with "seam," pronounced midrib with very narrow
central flattening, tip now missing; for refs. see
above (pl. 26:47).
Perati, Attica, tomb 12. L. ca. o.6om., three rivets
in rather broad grip, two in blade, pommel extremely narrow, remains of bone or ivory in grip
and gold ribbon below pommel with small repousse
dotted decoration, horns narrow and sharply bent
down, they have a "seam" in the metal, one is
broken near the tip, the blade is leaf-shaped with
the greatest width in the lower half, three fine ribs
run down each side of a slight central swelling
shown in section. Also in the tomb was a one-edged
knife with bird-head on handle, date probably LH
IIIC. Iakovides, Praktika (1954) 88-10o3,figs. 5 and 6.
Delphi, Temenos T. L. o.38m., part of wooden grip
in place, one rivet in pommel, others if present not
visible, horns like Siteia sword above, Fouilles de
Delphes (90o8) V, pp. 6-io, fig. 19, this refers to
nervure mediane but see Benton, ProcPS (1952) 2,
p. 237, who has "checked that the blade is flat."
The tomb also held a one-edged razor and leaf
fibula, Furumark, Chronology 95, gives date as LH
IIIC 1-2.
Islands
"Probably Ithaca," British Museum no. 38. I-10 342,
2753. L. o.43m., dome-shaped pommel, three rivets
in grip, grip contracts below pommel then broadens
remaining parallel till above the quillons where it
contracts again, the horns or quillons have a downward curve and show a "seam," there are two decorative grooves in the pommel-flange and one in
the grip-flange, three very fine ribs run the length
of the blade at 5mm. apart. Benton, BSA (1927-28)
29, 114, fig. I, no. 2 (pl. 26:49).
Gezer, Jerusalem Archaeological Museum, 971 (M76).
L. o.i75m. Flanged grip and part of blade of knife
or dagger, Middle-Late Bronze Age (pl. 26:51).
H
Siana, Rhodes, Copenhagen Museum no. 5668. According to the catalogue "found in a Mycenaean
tomb near Siana together with a spear and a knife,
and bought in Rhodes in 1904 from a dealer." L.
o.345m., no rivet holes, pommel projection L. 3cm.,
flanged grip, horns horizontal with slight downward

1963]

LATER AEGEAN

BRONZE SWORDS

153

and projecting over the top of the blade, there is a

inclination, pointed dirk-like blade with three
distinct thickening of the blade in section, and four
grooved lines down centre, ca. 7mm. apart at top
and converging to the point. Found with a knife
grooves run down the middle 4-5cm. apart, dated
with similarly flanged grip and projection,also a
Schaeffer,UgariticaIII (1956) pl. x, pp.
1250-1200,
spear, with faceted thickening for socket within
277-78 (pl. 27:58).
the blade. I am deeply indebtedto Dr. Marie-Louise Atchana, Hatay, S. Turkey. At 36/4, from above a level
II floor, so could be Level I or II. L. ca. 0.50m.
Buhl, keeper of the Antiksamlingen,Copenhagen,
and to Mrs. Halle Salskov Robertsfor facilities to
(given as "half a metre"). There appear to be no
rivets, the grip is flanged, the broader curved flanges
study and permissionto publish the "Siana"finds
at top and bottom are like the Ras Shamra sword,
(pl. 27:53-55).
Evans
Ashmolean
Sir
there is a wide crescentic pommel which appears to
Museum,
J.
Pergamon, Mysia,
be solid metal and complete, the grip flanges end at
collection 1927-1385 (registration date 1904). L.
the base in an extension, similar to, though less proo.358m., no rivets, pommel projection of 3cm.,
nounced than, the Ras Shamra one; the blade thickflanged grip, slightly raised horns with seam in
ens in section at the centre and has either two
metal, pointed blade with three very fine ribs down
its length 5mm. apart at top and converging,
ridges or four grooves outlining the ribs for the
see A. Evans, ScriptaMinoa I (19o09)63, and Przelength of the blade which becomes very pointed
and dirk-like at the bottom. L. Woolley, Alalakh
worski, Die MetallindustrieAnatoliens (i939) pl.
and p. 276, where it is dated beI8, 5. XVIII, v. An element of doubt must exist as
(i955) pl. LXX,
to provenance.The agreement in the date when
tween 1275 and 1187. (Unlike the Ras Shamra
the two weapons came on the market is a link
sword I have not had the opportunity to handle this
with Siana, added to their striking similarity (pl.
weapon and the illustration and description leave
some uncertainties.)
27:52).
Ras Shamra Syria, R.S. 1954, Inv. 18.14, a single Egypt? Fragment of hilt? L. o.o6m. See "Egyptian
Bronzes in the Collection of John Evans," Archaefind from the Palace,Court V. L. 0o.46m.,no rivets,
flanged grip, the flanges curved and wider at both
ologia 53 (1892) 83-94, pl. I, fig. i, incorrectly
ends, pommel projectionof 4cm., there is a separate
joined to blade of alien type from which it has now
metal collar resting on the flanges at the base of
been separated, no details (Ashmolean Museum)
this projection,the collarhas doubleridge or mould(pl. 27:60).
ing, at the base of the grip is a slightly horned
extensioncast in one piece with the rest of the grip
ST. HUGH'S COLLEGE, OXFORD

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49: Ithaca? British Museum. 50: Siteia, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 51: Gezer, Archaeological
Museum, Jerusalem

SANDARS

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Adana. 6o: Egypt? Ashmolean Museum

PLATE

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SANDARS

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68

61

63

64

65

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69

61-62: Perushtitsa. 63: Krasno-Gradiste.64-65: Dolnolevski. 66: Doktor-Iosifovo. 67: Kritchim. 68:
DessueriT. 44. 69: PantalicaN. 48. 68-69 not to scale