The spirit of the sword and spear
From the Norse sagas or the Arthurian cycles, we are used to the concept that the warrior’s weapon has an identity, a name. In this article I shall ask whether some prehistoric weapons also had an identity. Using case studies of La Tène swords, early Iron Age central and southern Italian spearheads...
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| Format: | Article |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2013
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3184/ |
| _version_ | 1848790972852338688 |
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| author | Pearce, Mark |
| author_facet | Pearce, Mark |
| author_sort | Pearce, Mark |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | From the Norse sagas or the Arthurian cycles, we are used to the concept that the warrior’s weapon has an identity, a name. In this article I shall ask whether some prehistoric weapons also had an identity. Using case studies of La Tène swords, early Iron Age central and southern Italian spearheads and middle and late Bronze Age type Boiu and type Sauerbrunn swords, I shall argue that prehistoric weapons could indeed have an identity and that this has important implications for their biographies, suggesting that they may have been conserved as heirlooms or exchanged as prestige gifts for much longer than is generally
assumed, which in turn impacts our understanding of the deposition of weapons in tombs, where they may have had a ‘guardian spirit’ function. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:21:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-3184 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:21:07Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-31842020-05-04T20:19:38Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3184/ The spirit of the sword and spear Pearce, Mark From the Norse sagas or the Arthurian cycles, we are used to the concept that the warrior’s weapon has an identity, a name. In this article I shall ask whether some prehistoric weapons also had an identity. Using case studies of La Tène swords, early Iron Age central and southern Italian spearheads and middle and late Bronze Age type Boiu and type Sauerbrunn swords, I shall argue that prehistoric weapons could indeed have an identity and that this has important implications for their biographies, suggesting that they may have been conserved as heirlooms or exchanged as prestige gifts for much longer than is generally assumed, which in turn impacts our understanding of the deposition of weapons in tombs, where they may have had a ‘guardian spirit’ function. Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2013-02 Article PeerReviewed Pearce, Mark (2013) The spirit of the sword and spear. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 23 (1). pp. 55-67. ISSN 0959-7743 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=8833113&jid=CAJ&volumeId=23&issueId=01&aid=8833112&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession= doi:10.1017/S0959774313000048 doi:10.1017/S0959774313000048 |
| spellingShingle | Pearce, Mark The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title | The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title_full | The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title_fullStr | The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title_full_unstemmed | The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title_short | The spirit of the sword and spear |
| title_sort | spirit of the sword and spear |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3184/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3184/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3184/ |