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Details
LOT 0247
Iron Age Celtic La Tene III Sword
1ST CENTURY B.C.
34 1/4 in. (1.5 kg total, 87 cm).
Accompanied by a scabbard with fragments of the slider; the sword with lentoid-section two-edged iron blade, tapering gently to a broad point; slightly bent square-section tang; the fragments of the scabbard show a broad, slender sheath with stepped lower end, the obverse face rolled over the edges to clasp the reverse plate; the suspension elements comprising a fragment of the transverse bars clasping the front and back plates connected to vertical flared straps with a stepped slider-loop to the centre, once framed by two more similar bars with vertical straps forming a hollow square in which the slider-loop sits; mounted on a wall display mount.
Provenance
Private collection, Munich, Germany, 1970s.
Private collection, London, UK, 2014, acquired from the above.
Literature
Cf. similar specimens in Tasic, N., Scordisci, and the native population in the Middle Danube Region, Belgrade, 1992, nos.56-59, and especially no.59.
Footnotes
Celtic swords of this period were longer, reaching one meter in length, with the tip having the tendency to be rounded, while the scabbards were less decorated or more simply ornamented than the swords of the previous period.
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