The Origin and Development of British Middle Bronze Age Rapiers

Bridget A. V. Trump

doi:10.1017/S0079497X0001567X

The Origin and Development of British Middle Bronze Age Rapiers

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2014

Bridget A. V. Trump

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This is a subject to which scarcely any detailed attention has hitherto been paid. Parker Brewis pronounced the accepted theory when he said that the rapier ‘evolved by lengthening the dagger little by little, keeping step with the ever-growing command of metal and ability to make longer castings’. This general explanation has been accepted, since it conforms with the canon of technical evolution and is supported by the available evidence of associations. It is not, however, sufficient to explain the form taken by British rapiers, since comparison of the daggers of the Wessex and Food-vessel cultures with the daggers and dirks of the early part of the Middle Bronze Age reveals so great a difference between them that the latter cannot be considered simply to have evolved from the former. The Early Bronze Age daggers are much smaller and broader, they have three or more rivets, and ornamental hilts with separate pommels. Middle Bronze Age dirks are longer, stronger and almost invariably have two rivets in a simple hilt. Also, the distribution of weapons in the two periods differs: in the Early Bronze Age the chief concentration is in Wessex, but this area has produced hardly any rapiers.

Type: Research Article
Information: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 28 , December 1962 , pp. 80 - 102

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X0001567X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1962

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^{page 92 note 9} Ibid., p. 55.

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^{page 93 note 9} Ibid., p. 184.

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