6th August 2017, 01:38 PM | #1 |
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Weapons of the Iberian Iron Age
For those who care for these things and didn't have a chance to appreciate them as they were dispersed in 'less topic' threads and posts, i thought i would upload here a series of images on these Iberian swords, scanned from a catalogue held in 2003 by Hermann Historica for the special auction of the impressive Axel Guttman collection; with an introduction included. The collection in auction was a vast one from this period; i am just concentrating on swords... so far.
Note that Falcata #064 has its blade intentionally bent, a ritual used to bury the deceased weapons in his tomb.. . . Last edited by fernando; 7th August 2017 at 10:58 AM. |
6th August 2017, 10:30 PM | #2 |
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Hispania celtibérica
Thank you, Fernando, for starting this thread. Such magnificent objects. Most people readily notice the Roman and Moorish input on Iberian civilizations, but the Celtic roots are not so familiar. Unless, perhaps, they have journeyed through Galicia and Trás-os-montes and have heard tunes played on the gaita, or have seen the large cult figures of boars carved in stone that grace the praças and courtyards of many a village and town (like the famous Porco do Pelourinho in Bragança).
If, as historians say, the ancestral homeland of the Celts is somewhere in Eurasia, can we look at the falcata and also see the prototype of the yataghan that we associate with a much later time in Asia Minor and the Balkans? |
7th August 2017, 12:24 AM | #3 |
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The aparition of the falcata doesn't seem to have followed a Celtic immigration. How could a prototype of the yataghan have arrived to the Mediterranean area of the Iberic Peninsula? Is there a prototype of the yataghan from this period? The aparition of the falcata corresponds to about the 5th-4th centuries BC., long after the arrival of the Celts. The first thing we have to do is to establish where the falcatas came from. Did they emerge first more to the east of the Peninsula, on actual Spain? Where are located the older findings? Is there a Celtic weapon which can be pointed as ancestor of the falcata, or the prototype came from elsewhere? How this prototype was carried, by land or by sea? If the Celts were not the origin of the prototype, who was? It must be noted that the falcatas and the rest of the armament produced in the same context, involved sophisticated techniques of production. And we have to see if the rest of this armament produced in the same historical context, is aboriginal the the Peninsula, or if the prototypes came from elsewhere, how and from where. Giving answers to this questions is not a simple task, given the lack of sources and the scarcity of remains from this period.
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7th August 2017, 08:28 AM | #4 | |
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The article seems to imply a Greek origin for the falcata/yataghan. I was always of the opinion that the falcata was derrived from the Greek Kopis which has a strikingly similar form. |
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7th August 2017, 08:57 AM | #5 |
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I would speculate that the falcata came from the ancient Greek kopis. It's been suggested that kopis originated with the Etruscans. The kopis may have reached Iberia with Carthage whose troops were equipped with Greek style arms and armour. Carthage also generally used foreign mercenaries and was allied with the Etruscans.
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7th August 2017, 10:03 AM | #6 | |
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For some strange reason, almost all the non-Spanish or non-Portuguese speaking people has been more interested in the origin of the falcata than in other, more important aspects of this weapon: morphology, mode of fencing, type of army corps that used them, manufacture and metallographical analysis, ritual uses, social context, etc. This was precisely the direction of the earlier studies made on this weapon by non-spanish and non-Protuguese authors, like J. Cartailhac (1886), P. Paris (1904) and H. Sandars (1913), according with Fernando Quesada Sanz, the most important researcher on the falcata to this day, though there are other good authors, like Leandro Miguel Lourenço Saudan Tristão, to whom I was acquainted by Fernando, the moderator of this sub-forum, and who began this thread. It is impossible to give space to the many aspects involved in the origin, production and uses of the falcata, but we can make an intent to resume the more important, leaving aside the common -and fecuently wrong or imprecise- notions we can find on the web. The first element was already approached here: its origins. It seems that the Victorian education has left its imprint everywhere. In its proclivity for the so-called "classics" (Roman and Greeks), they seem to view the influence of the Greeks or the Romans, or both, everywhere. In this way, Burton stated that the kukuri was probably a some sort of derivation of the machaira, based on the implausible idea that, if Alexander the Great went as far as the Indus river, then probably the kukuri was the result of a Macedon influence...hight in the Himalayas. In the case of the falcata, it is more understandable the idea. But probably its origins are elsewhere...and probably the kopis-machaira even is not originally a Greek weapon. We can discuss this. Regards Last edited by Gonzalo G; 7th August 2017 at 02:21 PM. |
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7th August 2017, 05:28 PM | #7 | |||||
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Talking nonsense ...
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Then perhaps we should also consider that the Iberian smiths, themselves owners of great imagination, improved, adjusted, decorated and put up their own sword versions. So, freely speaking, we are simultaneously discussing late Hallstatt and la Tene antena swords (Gladius Hispaniensis), and Falcatas, either of imported infuence or actual Iberian, for the matter; don't you agree ? . Quote:
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7th August 2017, 11:09 PM | #8 | ||||
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Thank you Bye |
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8th August 2017, 03:48 PM | #9 | |||
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On the other hand, i would i reflect some perplexity about this whole issue. I recall a question often posed (also here) on where the Falcata came from, which implicates that such weapon was not purely invented by Iberians as from zero square. What an amalgama of races and tribes, Romans having one idea of how they mixed and were based in the territory and current academics having diverted perspectives. Iberians and Celts were a different people yes, to a certain extent and timeline. Isn't it said that the Celts not only coexisted but also mixed with the Iberos in the Central Meseta, reason for the appearing of Celtiberos, a thing different from Iberian Celts. But ...didn't all these peoples miscigenate ? No surprise if the Iberians (also) handled swords of Celtic Hallstatt tradition while the Celtiberos (also) had falcatized swords ? While not a surprise that the ratio of falcatas found in the Southern part of the Peninsula versus other swords is overwhelming (98%) it is nevertheless symptomatic that in the (now Portuguese) West Coast, necropolis findings denoted a slightly majority of falcatas versus La Tene antena swords. I think of the Celts confederating with the Lusitanians of Viriato; which swords would then be in this so called 'Roman Terror' general's panoplia to push back the Romans; only La Tene type sword or also the Falcata ? Still lots of ink shall be spent about this issue. Quote:
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