Weapons

The most abundant kind of evidence in Iron Age Europe for violence, real or implied, is weaponry. The main categories of offensive weapons are swords, spears, lances, axes, bows and arrows, and sling stones.

Weapons are recovered in three main kinds of contexts. By far the most are recovered in graves, typically placed next to the body of the individual buried or, in the case of cremation, set next to the cremated remains. Many weapons also occur in deposits, especially in bodies of water but sometimes in pits and ditches dug into the ground. Others were deposited in so-called ‘burnt offering places' (Brandopferplatze), especially in circum-Alpine regions of Europe. Fewer weapons are recovered on settlement sites and on battlefields.

Chariots and trumpets are not strictly weapons, but they were associated with weapons and with military activity. Caesar describes the war chariots used by the peoples of Britain at the time of his invasions in 55 and 54 bce.^[270] Chariots are often recovered in graves that also contain sets of weapons, especially in Yorkshire in northern England.^{[271] [272]} Trumpets, known as carnyxes, are described in the classical textual sources; according to those accounts, the horns were blown as warriors engaged in combat.

Horses were used in warfare as well. In his account of the wars he waged in Gaul, Caesar notes that he hired German cavalry troops because they were renowned as especially good at warfare on horseback.^{[273] [274] [275] [276]} Both the Hallstatt scabbard, from about 400 bce, and the Gundestrup cauldron, of around 100 bce, bear images of warriors on horseback (see below).

Weapons in Graves

The great majority of Iron Age graves that contain weapons are those of men, though a small number of women's weapon graves have been identified, especially in the Scythian region of eastern Europe.1³ The percentage of men’s graves in any cemetery that contains weapons is generally low, rarely above 20 per cent. Often the majority of weapon graves contain the remains of a spear or lance head, and sometimes a shield. Ordinarily, only the most richly outfitted graves include a sword, until the latter part of the Iron Age, when a larger proportion contain swords in some cemeteries.1⁴ Throughout the Iron Age, swords were special symbols of status for adult males. The most elaborately outfitted men’s burials include swords, and they are sometimes highly ornate, with hilts coated with ivory or gold and scabbards decorated with a variety of ornaments. During the latter part of the Early Iron Age, designated Hallstatt D (about 600-480 bce), the sword was replaced by a dagger in the well-outfitted men’s graves.1⁵ Both the hilt and the scabbard of most daggers are ornate. In the Hochdorf burial, the dagger and its scabbard are completely covered with highly decorated sheet gold.^[277] Finally, defensive weaponry - helmets and body armour - is rare in graves, and when it does occur, it is ordinarily only in the richest burials.

The weapons that archaeologists recover from graves are almost always in good condition and show little evidence of having been used. Thus it is clear that weapons played important symbolic roles even if they were rarely actually employed in battle. This symbolic significance to weapons is further emphasised in deposits and in representations. Two examples will illustrate some of the range of variation in the character of graves that contain weapons. At Grosseibstadt in northern Bavaria, Germany, in Mound 1 a 40- year-old man was buried with a four-wheeled wagon during the early part of the Early Iron Age, around 650 bce.^{[278] [279]} The man was laid flat on his back in an extended position, and an iron sword with a wooden scabbard was placed at his right side. Thirty-seven vessels were arranged in the burial chamber, including two bronze plates, a bronze amphora and thirty-four pottery containers, many of them highly ornate. Metal attachments for horse har­nesses and a yoke were also recovered, along with animal bones, including those of cattle and pigs.

Whereas at Grosseibstadt the body and accompanying grave goods were laid out on the floor of the burial chamber, at Mailleraye-sur-Seine, in northern France, a cremation burial from the first half of the second century bce was arranged vertically in a pit.1⁸ At the bottom were eight vessels, including one of glass that contained the cremated remains of the individual. Six iron tyres were placed on top of the vessels. Next to these were placed iron lance points, axes, brooches and a bronze vessel. On top of the tyres were set two andirons (firedogs), two more iron tyres and a large bronze vessel that had been set upside down. At the very top of the assemblage were three swords with scabbards. Nearby were arranged three shield bosses and three lance points.

At the site of Filippokva in European Russia, in a region occupied by the peoples whom the Greek writers called Scythians, a cemetery of twenty-five mounds, or kurgans, included important burials that contained weapons.

Weapons in Deposits

Many weapons, including many of the most ornate, have been recov­ered in bodies of water, especially rivers and lakes, and, particularly during the Late Iron Age, arranged at complex dry-land sanctuary sites. At Hjortspring in southern Denmark, swords, spears, shields and other implements were deposited, enough to outfit a military force of some eighty warriors, together with a wooden boat, in a small pond in about 350 bce.^[281] At the sites of La Tene and Port in Switzerland, hundreds of fine-quality iron swords were deposited, either thrown from the shore or dropped from a boat into the water. Many of the associated scabbards bear ornament at the top end. Each is decorated with a unique pattern.^[282] Similar sword deposits have been identified at the confluence of many of the rivers that flow into the Danube.^[283] Many ornate defensive weapons of bronze have been recovered from the Thames at London, including the Battersea Shield and the helmet from near Waterloo Bridge, and from the River Witham near Lincoln (see below).

Others were buried in pits in the ground. An outstanding example is at Tintignac in south-central France, where a number of swords and scabbards, ten bronze helmets and seven carnyxes were recovered in a pit over which subsequently was built a Roman sanctuary.^[284] The spectacular iron helmet, partially covered with gold and decorated with coral, from Agris in Charente, France, was found in a cave, while a similarly ornate helmet was recovered from a stream bed at Amfreville in northern France.^[285]

Weapons, especially swords, have also been recovered at sites that have been designated ‘sanctuaries' in the landscape.

Weapons in Representations

Pictorial representations are not abundant from Iron Age Europe, but a small number of important ones relate to weaponry and warfare. Several stone statues show weapons worn by warriors, the Hallstatt scabbard and the Gundestrup cauldron show scenes of warriors with their weapons, and some Iron Age coins bear representations of weapons. These representations can be especially valuable for our attempts to understand how the people of the Iron Age regarded the individuals who bore and presumably used weapons to defend their communities or to gain wealth or territory. More than any other source, representations enable us, in a sense, to ‘see' through the eyes of the creators of the images.

The life-size sandstone statue recovered next to a burial mound at Hirschlanden in northern Württemberg is represented wearing a dagger that is similar in shape to the daggers that occur in many Hallstatt D wealthy burials. At Vix in eastern France, one of the two seated stone statues at the ‘sanctuary' near the rich woman's grave is represented wearing a shortsword or dagger on his right side and with his left hand holding the top of a shield that rests on the ground in front ofhis calves.

The scabbard from Hallstatt grave 994 in Austria shows in its incised scene four horsemen wearing helmets and body armour and carrying lances.^[288] The second from the right wears a shortsword on his belt. The first is trampling a man and the second seems to be spearing him with his lance. To the left in the next register are three men marching, holding lances or spears and shields. At the far left end is a scene that seems to show two men fighting on the ground.

In the so-called ‘situla art' of the Iron Age, dating roughly to 600-400 bce and centred in north-eastern Italy, Austria and Slovenia, many scenes include representations of weapons and of people using them. The situla now at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, shows a line of fourteen marching soldiers all wearing helmets and carrying shields and either spears or lances. The Certosa situla from northern Italy also shows rows of marching troops, include some carrying battle-axes; on this situla two horsemen wearing helmets also have battle-axes over their shoulders. A bronze belt plate from Vace in Slovenia bears a scene of two horseback riders fighting with lances and battle-axes.^[289]

Inner plate E of the Gundestrup cauldron from a bog in northern Denmark shows four horseback-riding warriors at the top, all wearing helmets and two of them carrying lances.^[290] Below them are six infantry troops, all carrying shields and spears or lances. At the right are three figures holding and blowing trumpets, similar to the trumpets found in the Tintignac pit deposit.

From the end of the Iron Age and into the early Roman period a series of small (average height 12.5 cm) figurines carved from limestone have been recovered in Britain. The majority of the complete figurines show the presence of a sword, generally situated vertically on the back of the figure. Whatever these figurines may signify, they show that swords were important in the minds of the sculptors who fashioned them.^[291]

Many Iron Age coins bear images of persons with weapons.^[292] Horseback­riding warriors carry swords, spears and javelins, and they often wear helmets and some type of armour. Some on horseback carry carnyxes, similar to those represented on the Gundestrup cauldron and in the deposit at Tintignac.