dagger;
dagger-sheath
- Museum number
- ML.2601
- Description
-
An iron dagger corroded into an iron sheath that has been deliberately bent at right-angles before deposition. The whole is about 270 mm long. Only the lower part of the tang survives; one shoulder is straight and slightly inclined, the other is broken. The blade would have been about 220 mm long and 48 mm wide. Both plates of the sheath are of iron, with the front overlapping the back down to the bottom. The sheath is about 228 mm long and 53 mm wide at the top. The central part of the mouth is high (12 mm) and rounded, its edges flat and 10 mm wide. The midrib is more pronounced on the front than on the back. The suspension loop is long and narrow, 41 x 7 mm, and it lacks loop plates: it seems that the ends of the loop pass through the back plate. The chape end is open and the lower part of a chape frame survives (up to 44 mm from the bottom) but with no hint of a bridge or clamps.
- Production date
- 600 BC - 450 BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 200 millimetres (as bent)
-
Length: 220 millimetres (blade)
-
Length: 228 millimetres (sheath)
-
Length: 270 millimetres (total)
-
Weight: 255 grammes
-
Thickness: 22.30 millimetres (scabbard, max)
-
Width: 48 millimetres (blade)
-
Width: 53.90 millimetres (top of sheath)
- Curator's comments
- Stead and Rigby 1999
For other daggers that have been deliberately bent see Hauviné 'la Motelle' I, grave 5; Bouy 'les Varilles' grave 1880.1 (Nicaise, A., 1884a, ‘L’époque gauloise dans le Département de la Marne’ Paris, 31); Warmériville 'la Motelle' grave 26; Baffet Collection (Charpy, J.-J., and Roualet, P., 1991, ‘Les Celtes en Champagne’ (exh. cat., Epernay, 23/6 - 3/11/1991), fig. 11b, no. 1).
Context: Daggers and their sheaths; La Tène I.
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.
La Tène I: The sheath is made of two plates linked by a separate chape at the bottom. In one of the Morel examples (ML.2401) the chape is merely the rounded end piece, and there has never been a frame above it; another (ML.2601) has the remains of a frame but no hint of a bridge or clamps.
- Location
- On display (G50/dc13)
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- ML.2601