Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

S.Workman · 21st May 2015, 10:19 PM

This is a quite common type for the Late Bronze Age in Central Europe. The holes are to run a cross tie of wood or bronze through to affix the socket to the spear shaft. The basic form of this spear was used over a very large area and for a very long time, up through the early iron age. I think it would be hard to pin it down either geographically or historically. You should register with academia.edu and download this very well written and informative paper:

https://www.academia.edu/1217073/Lat...eastern_Europe

You can learn a great deal more about this spear type from the paper. Thats a wonderful point to have btw. You should inspect it very carefully with a glass for marks of rotary tools. This will help to find out if its a modern forgery; some are sadly. Thats not to impugn the auction house, its just a fact.
Scads of just this kind of point were sacrificed in bogs, or are found in what are called metalworkers hoards, but which may be a subterranean sacrifice.
As far as the holes go, Bronze Age metalworkers were able to cast and work metal in all kinds of ways. They were actually very skilled. They may have, for instance, softened the bronze by heating it red, then letting it cool. Then the hole is drilled, with a bow drill tipped with a flint or quartzite bit, then reheated and quenched to harden it. You can't treat bronze like iron of course, but that is a technique I have used on bronze. There is a whole community of people who make bronze items, this fellow:
http://www.bronze-age-swords.com
and this guy:
http://www.bronsereplika.no
Its amazing what they can get up to.

21st May 2015, 10:19 PM	#6
S.Workman Member Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 116	This is a quite common type for the Late Bronze Age in Central Europe. The holes are to run a cross tie of wood or bronze through to affix the socket to the spear shaft. The basic form of this spear was used over a very large area and for a very long time, up through the early iron age. I think it would be hard to pin it down either geographically or historically. You should register with academia.edu and download this very well written and informative paper: https://www.academia.edu/1217073/Lat...eastern_Europe You can learn a great deal more about this spear type from the paper. Thats a wonderful point to have btw. You should inspect it very carefully with a glass for marks of rotary tools. This will help to find out if its a modern forgery; some are sadly. Thats not to impugn the auction house, its just a fact. Scads of just this kind of point were sacrificed in bogs, or are found in what are called metalworkers hoards, but which may be a subterranean sacrifice. As far as the holes go, Bronze Age metalworkers were able to cast and work metal in all kinds of ways. They were actually very skilled. They may have, for instance, softened the bronze by heating it red, then letting it cool. Then the hole is drilled, with a bow drill tipped with a flint or quartzite bit, then reheated and quenched to harden it. You can't treat bronze like iron of course, but that is a technique I have used on bronze. There is a whole community of people who make bronze items, this fellow: http://www.bronze-age-swords.com and this guy: http://www.bronsereplika.no Its amazing what they can get up to.