LOT 0277

Viking Peterson Type X Sword with Inlaid Hilt

CIRCA 10TH-11TH CENTURY A.D.

37 in. (1.25 kg, 94 cm).

With pattern-welded double-edged blade, showing well-defined shallow fullers and wide cutting edges, the fullers occupying not less than one third of the entire width and running to a point about 19 cm from the tip; massive, simply decorated hilt; the pommel, as well as the cross-guard, with visible zig-zag patterns; the pommel of solid tea-cosy type, divided into two sections by a well marked groove, the bottom being the larger, the curved top portion of the pommel further divided into three lobes; traces of inlay visible on the pommel and on the cross-guard.

Acquired on the European art market in the 1990s.
From the property of a Suffolk collector.

See Petersen, J., De Norske Vikingesverd, Oslo, 1919; Oakeshott, R.E., The Archaeology of the weapons, London,1960; Jakobsson, Krigarideologi och vikingatida svardstypologi, Stockholm, 1992; Peirce, I., Swords of the Viking Age, Suffolk, 2002; this sword finds good parallels in various similar Viking age specimens. A very similar sword can be found in the Musée de l'Armée, Paris (inv. no. JPO 2253, s. Peirce, 2002, pp.118-119); another has been sold at Christie's London, Antique Arms and Armour, 16 December 2002, lot 46; another similar specimen can be seen at the Museum of Cluny.

The blade shows in its central section, and on both cutting edges, the blodiձa style pattern-welding through the central portion of the blade (Oakeshott, 1960, fig.70). The fine pattern-welded blade patterns of Viking swords are the blodiձa (Blood-Eddy) and 'ann' (rows of mown hay) known from Norse poetry.