Ancient Greek xiphos(?) Bronze age sword antique sword, 1700 BC - 200 BC

Ancient Greek xiphos(?) Bronze age sword antique sword, 1700 BC - 200 BC
Bronze age sword antique sword, 1700-200 BC. A large, finely made ancient bronze sword composed of a long blade, integral guard, and columnar grip with a double disc pommel. Length: 600 mm = 60 cm; Width: 62 mm = 6.2 cm; Weight: 755 g; Provenance: Private UK collection; from an old Oxford collection formed in the 1990's. Reference: The xiphos (Ancient Greek: ξίφος [ksípʰos]; plural xiphe, Ancient Greek: ξίφη [ksípʰɛː])[1] is a double-edged, one-handed Iron Age straight shortsword used by the ancient Greeks. It was a secondary battlefield weapon for the Greek armies after the dory or javelin. The classic blade was generally about 45–60 cm (18–24 in) long, although the Spartans supposedly preferred to use blades as short as 30 cm (12 in) around the era of the Greco-Persian Wars. Reference: Bronze Age swords appeared from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, as a further development of the dagger. They were replaced by iron swords during the early part of the 1st millennium BC. From an early time the swords reached lengths in excess of 100 cm. The technology to produce blades of such lengths appears to have been developed in the Aegean, using alloys of copper and tin or arsenic, around 1700 BC. Bronze Age swords were typically not longer than 80 cm; weapons significantly shorter than 60 cm are variously categorized as short swords or daggers. Before about 1400 BC swords remained mostly limited to the Aegean and southeastern Europe, but they became more widespread in the final centuries of the 2nd millennium BC, to Central Europe and Britain, to the Near East, Central Asia, Northern India and to China. Aegean: The Minoan and Mycenaean (Middle to Late Aegean Bronze Age) swords are classified in types labeled A to H following Sandars (1961, 1963), the "Sandars typology". Types A and B ("tab-tang") are the earliest from about the 17th to 16th centuries, types C ("horned" swords) and D ("cross" swords) from the 15th century, types E and F ("T-hilt" swords) from the 13th and 12th. The 13th to 12th centuries also see a revival of the "horned" type, classified as types G and H.[7] Type H swords are associated with the Sea Peoples and were found in Anatolia (Pergamon[8]) and Greece. Contemporary with types E to H is the so-called "Naue II" type, imported from south-eastern. Europe: One of the most important, and longest-lasting, types of prehistoric European swords was the "Naue II" type, named for Julius Naue who first described them and also known as "Griffzungenschwert" or "grip-tongue sword". It first appears in c. the 13th century BC in Northern Italy (or a general Urnfield background), and survived well into the Iron Age, with a life-span of about seven centuries, until the 6th century BC. During its lifetime the basic design was maintained, although the material changed from bronze to iron. Naue II swords were exported from Europe to the Aegean, and as far afield as Ugarit, beginning about 1200 BC, i.e. just a few decades before the final collapse of the palace cultures in the Bronze Age collapse.[11] Naue II swords could be as long as 85 cm, but most specimens fall into the 60 to 70 cm range. Swords from the Nordic Bronze Age appear from ca. the 17th century BC, often showing characteristic spiral patterns. The early Nordic swords are also comparatively short; a specimen discovered in 1912 near Bragby, Uppland, Sweden, dated to about 1800 to 1500 BC, was just over 60 cm long. This sword was, however, classified as of the Hajdúsámson-Apa type, and was presumably imported. The Vreta Kloster sword discovered in 1897 (dated 1600 to 1500 BC) has a blade length (the hilt is missing) of 46 cm.[12] A typical variant for European swords is the "leaf shaped" blade, which was most common in North-west Europe at the end of the Bronze Age, on the British Isles in particular. The "carp's tongue sword" is a type of bronze sword that was common to Western Europe during ca. the 9th to 8th centuries BC. The blade of the carp's tongue sword was wide and parallel for most of its length but the final third narrowed into a thin tip intended for thrusting. The design was probably developed in north-western France, and combined the broad blade useful for slashing with a thinner, elongated tip suitable for thrusting. Its advantages saw its adoption across Atlantic Europe. In Britain, the metalwork in the south east derived its name from this sword: the Carp's Tongue complex. Notable examples of this type were part of the Isleham Hoard. The Bronze Age-style sword and construction methods died out at the end of the early Iron Age (Hallstatt D), around 600-500 BC, when swords were once again replaced by daggers in most of Europe. An exception is the xiphos from Greece, the development of which continued for several more centuries.