has a high ogee outline, and is curved on the lower edge as though to allow the corresponding outline of the sheath to fit into it. In this respect it forms a connecting link between these British swords and the swords of the Swiss lake-dwellers. Many of the latter have, at the base of the hilt, a guard formed of a thin strip of bronze with a similar high ogee curve, into which the sheath was fitted. The same feature may be noted further south on an early sword from Introbobbio, Como.[1]

Sheaths

Another interesting object which is illustrated in Plate LXXVII., Fig. 4, must have formed part of a sword-sheath. It was found at a considerable depth on the south side of Block XIV, and is of bronze, being 378 inches long. Apparently it had been affixed to the upper part of the sheath, thus forming a loop through which the belt would pass. No doubt a piece corresponding to the terminal on the lower side, but of shorter length, originally projected on the upper side of the loop.[2] Similar loops are to be seen at Novaesium,5 and also in a variety of shapes on scabbards from Thorsbjerg.' There remain to be noted a few mountings which must have belonged to sheaths. Plate XXXV. shows a number of pieces of thin bronze (Figs. 1–7), several of which also came from Pit LVIII. These were probably edgings, while Figs. 13, 15, 16, 17 and 18 provide good specimens of the chape. Fig 14, a neatly looped object of brass wire from Pit LIV, seems designed to hold a sheath together.

Three objects from Pit LVIII (Plate LXXXIV., Figs. 4, 10 and 13) may have formed part of the mountings of hilts of swords or of daggers Fig. 4 is semicircular in shape and consists of two pieces of bone held together by bronze pins, two on each side. It is 2½ inches wide at the base, 178 inches high, and ¾ of an inch thick. Between the two plates there has been cut a hole sufficiently large for a thin metal tang to pass through. Fig. 10 is an imperfect specimen of the same class. These latter might very well have served as the bases of hilts. The method of construction–two plates of hone pinned together with metal studs–may be seen in the pommel of a sword hilt, found at York and now in the Museum there. Fig. 13, which is of heavy brass, resembles the bone objects in shape and is of much the same dimensions. Its weight, however, makes one hesitate to

1 Bulletino di Paletnologia Italiana, vol. xii plate X. 29.

2 For the interpretation of these objects see Der Obergermanische-Raetische Limes, Lief. 32, Kastell Zugmantel, p 64.17.

3 Bonner Jahrbücher, Heft 111/112, Taf. xxxiii A. 36.

4 Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, pl. 10.

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