Details

LOT 0505

Viking Sword with Orb Mark

MID-10TH CENTURY AD

36 1/2" (627 grams, 92.5cm).

A hand-forged iron sword with three-lobe pommel and decorated guard; the blade 45mm (1 3/4") wide at the upper end, gently tapering with fuller to both faces, rounded tip, indented ring to one face with silver(?) inlay, scaphoid-section lower guard with two rows of shallow pellets to each face gilt(?) inlay; flat tapering tang; pommel of Petersen's Type S with traces of vertical inlaid wire.

Provenance

From the family collection of a London gentleman; formed in the late 1940s-1950s; thence by descent. Accompanied by metallurgic analytical report number 114366/569, written by Metallurgist Dr. Brian Gilmour of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford.

Literature

See Peirce, I. Swords of the Viking Age, Woodbridge, 2002, p.106-7 for type.

CONDITION