DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0254
ARMS AND WAR 203
mounted hilt with a knob at the end. It is, substantially,
a solid bronze sword. The latest Mycenaean swords are
comparatively short, with a hilt differing but little from the
earlier type save in the matter of the guard, which is occa-
sionally met with. Iron swords of the same type are found
in parts of Greece, showing that the fashion outlasted the
Mycenaean age.
The sword was sheathed in a scabbard of wood, leather,
or even linen, but this was richly overlaid with gold,1 —
sometimes studded from end to end with embossed The 3^^
gold disks, as we may infer from finding one of baid
these still adhering to the fragment of a sword in Grave V.,
with some 240 similar disks strewn around. The baldric
or sword-belt was naturally of leather;2 but this, at least,
when worn by princes, was plated with gold. Indeed Dr.
Schliemann found a shoulder-belt of pure gold — 4 feet
long and If inches wide — with the fragment of a sword
above mentioned still attached to it. Three more of these
golden baldrics were found in Grave IV., two of them
ornamented with a continuous row of rosettes. One is
unusually thick and solid, — 4 ft. long and 1| in. broad,
with a small border on each side produced by turning down
the gold plate. Though we must regard these golden bal-
drics as funeral trappings rather than as belts for actual
service, they still have unique illustrative value as the trans-
lation into imperishable material of a type otherwise lost.
1 Dr. Schliemann mentions several blades with remnants of the wooden
sheath still clinging to them ; and remarks {Mycenae, p. 283) : " With many
of the swords I found traces of well-woven linen still attached to the blades ;
and there can consequently be no doubt that many swords had linen sheaths."
In Homer, Agamemnon alone has a silver scabbard {Iliad, xi. 31). The peace-
offering of Euryalos to Odysseus {Odyssey, viii. 403 ff.) is a sword of solid
bronze, with a silver hilt, and a sheath of new-sawn ivory.
2 Cf. Iliad, vii. 304 : evrfi^rtfi TsXapSivi.
mounted hilt with a knob at the end. It is, substantially,
a solid bronze sword. The latest Mycenaean swords are
comparatively short, with a hilt differing but little from the
earlier type save in the matter of the guard, which is occa-
sionally met with. Iron swords of the same type are found
in parts of Greece, showing that the fashion outlasted the
Mycenaean age.
The sword was sheathed in a scabbard of wood, leather,
or even linen, but this was richly overlaid with gold,1 —
sometimes studded from end to end with embossed The 3^^
gold disks, as we may infer from finding one of baid
these still adhering to the fragment of a sword in Grave V.,
with some 240 similar disks strewn around. The baldric
or sword-belt was naturally of leather;2 but this, at least,
when worn by princes, was plated with gold. Indeed Dr.
Schliemann found a shoulder-belt of pure gold — 4 feet
long and If inches wide — with the fragment of a sword
above mentioned still attached to it. Three more of these
golden baldrics were found in Grave IV., two of them
ornamented with a continuous row of rosettes. One is
unusually thick and solid, — 4 ft. long and 1| in. broad,
with a small border on each side produced by turning down
the gold plate. Though we must regard these golden bal-
drics as funeral trappings rather than as belts for actual
service, they still have unique illustrative value as the trans-
lation into imperishable material of a type otherwise lost.
1 Dr. Schliemann mentions several blades with remnants of the wooden
sheath still clinging to them ; and remarks {Mycenae, p. 283) : " With many
of the swords I found traces of well-woven linen still attached to the blades ;
and there can consequently be no doubt that many swords had linen sheaths."
In Homer, Agamemnon alone has a silver scabbard {Iliad, xi. 31). The peace-
offering of Euryalos to Odysseus {Odyssey, viii. 403 ff.) is a sword of solid
bronze, with a silver hilt, and a sheath of new-sawn ivory.
2 Cf. Iliad, vii. 304 : evrfi^rtfi TsXapSivi.