Large Pictures - Chapter 11.2

The Celts and other major powers between about 600 BC and 300 BC.


Link to text	Source: Wiki common; Alexikoua.

Here is a collection of swords found in La Tène. This picture was originally assembled by Kirk Spencer
from the Sword Forum Family. I have it slightly modified.
The pictures themselves come from the Book of J. M: De Navarro:
"The finds from the site of La Tène" (Oxford 1972).
Thanks, Kirk!


Link to text 1	Link to text 2

A black-and-white version of the large color table in Meyers Konversations-Lexikon from 1885. The original is in
color, one of the first examples of "chromo lithography".
Most of the objects shown are bronze, and most are from Halstatt as indicated. (Red dot = iron, Green dots = bronze)
The large "Mindelheim type" sword with its characteristic Mexican-hat pommel as well as the Gündlingen
type next to it are rather prominent. The third on features what is know as an "antenna hilt".
A real antenna hilt sword is shown right below.


Source: Internet; open access.

Antenna hilt bronze swords, Hallstatt B period, ca. 1000 BC. The swords were found near Lake Neuchâtel,
i.e. not far from the village of La Tène.
One sword is pretty much identical to the one in the drawing above, which supposedly was found in Hallstatt.


Link to text	Source: Sorry. Forgot.

The watercolor of Isidor Engel showing the Hallstatt graves dug up for His Majesty, the Emperor Franz Josef of
Austria, his wife Elisabeth (known as Sissi) plus assorted princes and so on.
Note that two Mindelheim swords with "Mexican-hat" pommels are shown.


Link to text	Source:Book to the "Special Exhibition dedicated to the Celts of the First Millennium BC", Stuttgart, Germany, 2012 /13

Here you see the (reconstructed) Hochberg tumulus, a sizeable grave for a big guy.
Below is the reconstruction of the burial chamber of this Celtic "Fürst von Hochdorf" (around 530 BC).
It was well below ground level and therefore survived (the hill had more or less disappeared)
The "kline" (sofa) was his major prestige item. There is no sword just an iron dagger with an antenna-type bronze hilt and gold plating.



Link to text 1	Link to text 2	Source: Hochdorf museum

Some of the things found in La Tène besides swords. There are scythes! It would be interesting to compare the technology for making scythes to that for swords. There are even more things - for examples bones skulls and skeletons of (very) dead people that might have been victims of some natural disaster or the subjects of sacrifice.


Link to text	Source: La Tène museum

The Lindholmgård sword was found during peat digging in 1880. The pommel is a hollow silver sphere, the scabbard is iron, too.
The style is late La Tène. The sword is dated to the 1st - 2nd century BC and might have belonged to a Germanic
cavalry chieftain. The blade is double-fullered, and does not have a point. Swords without pointed ends were popular among
the continental Celtic and Germanic tribes in the late 1st century BC.
A similar one is reported from Switzerland and the Lindholmgård sword might have been an expensive import from the South


Link to text	Source: Photographed in the Copenhagen museum

Roman soldiers doing the turtle formation. It's only a very small turtle but you get the idea.


Link to text	Source: Photographed at Sagnlandet Lejre in Denmark, an outdoor museum where Danes like to play Romans and Barbarians on weekends.

The Roman Empire (colors) around 31 AD form Wikipedia. Plus Stuttgart and Kiel for some reasons.


Link to text	Source: Wiki

With frame

Sword Types

Fire Welding

11.2.2 Metallurgy of Celtic Swords

Critical Museum Guide: Landesmuseum Württemberg; Württemberg State Museum, Stuttgart, Germany

Critical Museum Guide: Museums in Copenhagen

11.2.1 Background to Celtic Swords

11.2.3 Roman Swords

11.4.2 Blades of Viking Era Swords

"Damascene" Patterns

11.1.2 The Bronze Sword

12.2.6 Experimental Tests of Old Steel and Swords

Sword Places

Sword Places: La Tène

Additional Pictures - Chapter 11.1

Mythology of Wootz Swords: Cutting a Stone