Celtic La Tène Sword

Origins

The La Tène culture takes its name from a site at the edge of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where in the 1850s and later huge numbers of Iron Age weapons, many of them swords, were found in the old lake bed. The culture flourished from the fifth century BC to the Roman conquest, across a region stretching from Britain and Gaul to Bohemia, the Danube and, through Celtic migrations, into Italy, Greece and Asia Minor. The first La Tène swords were short, pointed weapons for thrusting, descended from the swords of the Hallstatt period, but by the third century BC Celtic smiths were making longer and longer blades for slashing, especially for warriors fighting on horseback. This is the period of the Iron Age when the Celts were the most feared warriors in Europe.

Design & Construction

A La Tène sword has a straight, double-edged iron blade with a lens-shaped or low-ridged section, a rounded or blunt tip on later examples, and no real crossguard. The hilt was made of organic materials, wood, bone or horn, attached to a tang, with a bell-shaped guard and sometimes an "anthropoid" pommel shaped like a small human figure. The quality of Celtic iron varied greatly: some swords were well made of layered steel, others were soft iron. Scabbards were among the finest products of Celtic art, made of iron or bronze sheet engraved with flowing designs of tendrils, dragon pairs and spirals, and hung from the waist by a chain or belt so that the sword could be drawn quickly.

Combat Use

Celtic warriors fought in loose, fast-moving bands, relying on the first charge and on long, powerful cuts, and the Romans learned to fear them. In 390 BC a Gallic army sacked Rome itself. The Greek historian Polybius, describing the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, claimed that Gallic swords bent after the first blow and had to be straightened underfoot, while Roman legionaries thrust with their shorter blades; archaeologists doubt this was generally true, but it reflects a real difference in fighting style. The Romans met the long Celtic sword with the Roman Gladius, the Roman Pilum and the Roman Scutum, and the Roman army in Gaul under Caesar, which culminated at Alesia in 52 BC, destroyed the independent Celtic world. Many Celtic warriors then served as Roman auxiliaries, and the Roman cavalry spatha probably owes something to the Celtic long sword.

Legacy

La Tène swords come to us mostly from graves and ritual deposits in lakes and rivers, where the Celts offered weapons to their gods, often deliberately bent or broken. The Kirkburn Sword from Yorkshire, now in the British Museum, with its decorated hilt and scabbard, is one of the finest. These swords and their scabbards are among the most important objects of European prehistoric art, and collectors and museums value decorated examples very highly. See also Celtic & Gaulish Arms & Weapons.