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LOT 1455
Iron Age Celtic La Tene Ritually Bent Sword
CIRCA 450 B.C.-50 A.D.
16 in. (620 grams total, 40.6 cm).
An iron long sword of Stead's Type III with two-edged, parallel-sided flat-section blade, rounded shoulders, long lenticular-section tang.
ProvenanceAcquired on the German art market.
Private collection, Germany.
Kept in the UK from 2016.
See Stead, I.M., British Iron Age Swords and Scabbards, London, 2006, for discussion.
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AUCTIONS:
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Edged weapons with tangs are among the simplest forms of weapons from this culture. This basic type was hardly altered in the period when bronze was the most important material in weapon production. The retention of this basic type with so few alterations makes precise dating challenging. Bronze daggers, dirks and swords exist today only as bronze blades, having lost their perishable handles over the course of time.