Details

LOT 0297

Saxon Sacrificed Iron Spatha with Bronze Chape

5TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.

30 3/4 in. (630 grams total, 78 cm long).

Double-edged long sword (spatha) of type Osterburken-Kemathen; the blade with squared shoulders, broken into two parts for sacrificial reasons, tapering towards the point; sturdy tang partially preserved; wooden traces of the scabbard and hilt still visible; accompanied by a bronze outer rim of a scabbard; restored. [3]

Provenance

From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.

Literature

Cf. Herzog, R. & Koller, A., Die Alamannen, Stuttgart, 1997, items 162,166 (spathae von GroB-Karben und Wiesbaden), for type; for the chape see Strassmeir, A., Das Fränkische Heer der Merowingerzeit, Teil 2 : Schild und Schwert, Berlin, 2019, p.46 lett.A.

Footnotes

The deliberate fragmentation of a sword, often into three pieces, was a symbolic act of ‘killing’ the weapon, which was then placed as a grave good or offered in a ceremonial context. This was a Germanic custom already visible in the Vandal Przeworsk culture around the 3rd or 4th century A.D., which continued in Northern European areas until the 5th and the 6th centuries A.D.