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A New Bronze Sword from Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Hector Catling
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Extract

This new sword comes from the collection of Mr Evangelos Loizou of Famagusta, and has been brought to my attention by my former colleague Dr Vassos Karageorghis of the Cyprus Museum. The sword (PLATE XVI (a)) was given to Mr Loizou’s father by a villager of Enkomi some years ago, and almost certainly comes from the famous Late Bronze Age city and cemetery site a few hundred metres west of the village. It could well have come from a grave. The sword lacks the extreme tip; one edge is chipped. Apart from superficial corrosion it is in excellent condition.

The preserved length is 0.47 m.; the handguard is 0.05 m. wide, and the length of the hilt, 0.10 m. The greatest width of blade (below handguard) is 0.035 m. The rivets diminish in length from pommel to handguard in the range 0.023–0.018 m. There are two rivets in the handgrip and six in the handguard. The pommel ears are prominent, but there is no spur. The hiltplates were made of some perishable material, but, as often, their outline can be restored from the ‘shadow‘ left by the corrosion pattern on the handguard. The junction of blade and handguard is more angular than on any other Mediterranean example known to me; also unusual is the even taper of the blade from handguard to tip in place of edges normally either parallel, or even slightly swelling.

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 138 , June 1961 , pp. 115 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1961

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Footnotes

1

My earlier paper, ‘Bronze cut-and-thrust swords in the East Mediterranean’, was published in PPS, XXII, 1956, 102. During the preparation of this present paper I have received valuable help from Miss N. K. Sandars and Mr J. D. Cowen, particularly with regard to details of swords previously unknown to me. My wife has drawn the map, FIG. I.

References

2 My thanks are also due to Dr Karageorghis for the photographs, PLATE XVII (a) and (b). Dr Karageorghis has published a brief note on the sword in BCH LXXXIV, 277 ff.

3 There are many accounts of this famous site; see especially Murray, Smith and Walters, Excavations in Cyprus (1900), 1 ff. and C. F. A. Schaeffer, Enkomi-Alasia.

4 cf. PPS, XXII, pl. 9. Enkomi-Alasia, fig. 105.

5 cf. G. H. Gordon, ‘Swords, Rapiers and Horse Riders’, ANTIQUITY, XXVII, 67 ff.

6 PPS, XXII, 115, no. 16.

7 op. cit., 109f.

8 e.g. op. cit. 113, no. 10 from Orchomenos.

9 AJA, 64, 14

10 I owe this information to Mr. A. N. Snodgrass.

11 First brought to my attention by my colleague, Mr. H. J. Case.

12 BSA, 38, 117 and pl. XXIX.2, no. 500.

13 Mr R. V. Nicholls kindly provided details of the form and dimensions of this sword.

14 Montelius, La Grèce Préclassique, pl. 14, no. 8

15 Dr N. Platon, Ephor of Antiquities in Crete, has most kindly allowed me to mention this sword, and has supplied details.

16 Jahrbuch d.RGZ Mus. Mainz, 2 (1955), 159, Abb. 3. 21.

17 Miss Sandars has given me details of this find.

18 I am indebted to Mr V. R. Desborough for my first knowledge of this sword, and of 21. I am most grateful to the discoverer, Professor N. Kondoleon for providing details and allowing me to mention the weapon.

19 The fragment figured by J. Naue—Die vorrômischer Schwerter, Taf. VI:6 and p. 13—should be discounted. I also ignore the fragment figured in The Bronze Age and the Celtic World, pl. 12.11.

20 The length of 0.75 m. for this sword given in Gjerstad et al., Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1, 553 no. 70 seems to be a misprint for 0.65 m.

21 Miss Sandars has generously made available to me notes taken on this weapon in Istanbul.

22 This is the famous sword with the cartouche of Seti II; considerable doubt has been thrown on its identification as a Type II sword, particularly by V. Milojčič, Germania 30, 95 ff.

23 Tell-el-Mutsellim, 11, 45 f. and fig. 45.

24 I mistakenly said PPS, XXII, 117—that none of the Hama swords is illustrated; this sword is figured Hama, 120, fig. 136B.

25 ‘The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe,’ PPS, XIV, 177 ff.

26 PPS, XXII, 120 ff.

27 Bericht d. Röm. Germ. Komm., 1955, 52 ff.

28 op. cit., 63 ff.

29 op. cit., 64.

30 op. cit., 73 ff.

31 I owe this observation to Mr. M. R. Popham.

32 Cowen, op. cit., 73.

33 op. cit., 78 f.

34 op. cit., 64 ff.

35 op. cit., 73 and 79.

36 cf. the sketches of types published by S. I. Dakaris, Eph. Arch., 1956 (1959), 140, fig. 9.

37 H. L. Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments (1950), 87 and references.

38 cf. e.g. Furumark, Chronology of Mycenaean Potery (1941), 94, fig. 4, b1 and b3.

39 Lorimer, op. cit., pl. XIX:3.

40 Eph. Arch., 1932, pl. 16, left.

41 e.g. Furumark, loc. cit., no. C2, and a new one from Perati, Praktika 1954, 96, fig. 5.

42 Opuse. Athen., 11, 35 f.

43 Bericht d. Röm. Germ. Komm., 1956, 91 ff.

44 Dr Paul Åström, Director of the Swedish Archaeological Institute in Athens allows me to make this reference to his recent excavation in collaboration with Mr N. Verdelis of the Greek Archaeological Service.