374 



PALAFITTES, OR LACUSTRIAN CONSTRUCTIONS 



ARMS. 



These, for the epoch under review, are swords, poniards, lances, 

 and arrows. The first are not numerous in our lake. The most re- 

 markable one we possess was discovered nearly forty years ago, in 

 the midst of the station of Concise, by Captain Pillichody, and was 

 deposited in the museum of xSeuchutel, where it attracted the atten- 

 tion of numbers of the curious, but without stimulating new 

 investigations, until the day when a happy intution of the savant of 

 Zurich kindled the torch which guides us to-day. The sword in 

 question is not one of the largest ; it measures fifty-nine centimetres, 

 (Fig. 48.) The blade, but little contracted above the hilt,* is en- 

 larged in the middle, and furnished with four grooves nearly parallel. 

 The hilt, terminated by a double volute, is composed of a metal red- 

 der than the blade and softer. But what is most significant is the 

 smallness of the hilt, which measures only seven centimetres, and 

 supposes a hand much smaller than an ordinary one ; hilts of such 

 dimensions are scarcely even found in the sabres of India. 



Neither are the poniards numerous. One has been found at the 

 lake of Bienne, the figure of which we borrow from the work of 

 M. Keller, (Fig. 49.) The blade was fixed to the hilt by means of 

 riveted nails. These arms appear to have been more abundant in the 

 stations of the lakes of Italy, and might, probably enough, have 

 pertained to the early age of iron. Of the lances, the points are 

 skilfully wrought, (Fig. 50,) and measure from ten to seventeen centi- 



Figure 43. 



Fi<ruro 50. 



Figure 51. 



* In other specimens this contraction i.s considerable. The swords and poniards of bronze 

 luive, like the hatchets, been made the subjects of classification by the Commission of Topo- 

 graphy of fiaules. In this eleven types of the poniard are distinguished ; that whose figure 

 wo give (Fig. 49) approaches a form quite conmion in Givece, Italy, and Gaul, and recalls 

 the blade ^\ith ■which the priest of Mithra slaughters his victim in most of the known bas- 

 reliefs." Of the sword the types are fourteen; the specimen hero represented pertains to sec- 

 tion L, being the sword shaped like a sage leaf, whose hilt is furnished with autennjc curved 

 after the manner of the horns of Amniuu. {Recue ArcJiaulogique, l8(iG, p. 180, pi. VI.) 



