- Museum number
- ML.2513
- Description
-
Iron dagger to which the iron band of a sheath is corroded. 288 mm long, lacking the tip of the blade, and 49 mm wide. The tang is rectangular in section, and its top is chipped but probably complete. A separate iron button, oval, 17 x 15 mm and about 8 mm deep in the middle, is now associated but not shown in the Register. The shoulders are only slightly inclined and the blade has a very slight median ridge, and its edges are badly damaged. The iron reinforcement from the mouth of the sheath is corroded onto the blade. It is a band about 54 mm wide, 28 to 30 mm deep and markedly curved in plan. The one side is solid, but the other has been open, with the broken ends of 7 mm deep strips top and bottom. The remains of the wooden sheath are particularly clear at the edges on the open side, with slighter traces on the other side obscured by the band.
- Dimensions
-
Depth: 28 - 30 millimetres (sheath band)
-
Length: 288 millimetres
-
Width: 54 millimetres (sheath band)
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Width: 49 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Stead and Rigby 1999
When registered there were two wire bands (presumably iron) lower down the sheath (their positions indicated by dashed lines in Stead and Rigby 1999, Fig. 142). In the Register the dagger is given as 11.9 in = 302 mm.
Context: Daggers and their sheaths; Hallstatt D.
Weapons with blades mainly between 200 and 280 mm long, and 30 to 55 mm wide at the top, found in both Hallstatt D and La Tène I graves.
Hallstatt D: 2. Organic sheath with metal binding. Several sheaths of this type are bound with bronze wires; Les Jogasses grave 87 (Hatt, J.-J., and Roualet, P., 1976, Le cimetière des Jogasses et les origines de la civilisation de la Tène, RAE (27) illustrates three wires, but Favret, P.-M., 1927, La nécropole hallstattienne des Jogasses à Chouilly (Marne), ‘Rev. Archéol.’ (26), 88, shows four and refers to five); Bouy 'les Varilles' (Nicaise, A., 1884a, ‘L’époque gauloise dans le Département de la Marne’ Paris, 41, but not illustrated); Bouzy (Favret 1927, 89); Poix grave 62; Ecury-sur-Coole, graves 42 and 55. For a rather more complex piece from Bouy 'les Varilles', utilizing narrow bronze bands, see Kruta, V., 1983, Deux fourreaux marniens décorés du Ve siècle avant notre ère, ‘Etudes Celtiques’ (20), 32-5 (=Bretz-Mahler, D., 1971, ‘La civilisation de La Tène en Champagne (Gallia, supplément, 23) , pl. 84, 3).
- Location
- Not on display
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- ML.2513