588 



PALAFITTES, OE LACUSTKIA^ CONSTEtJCTIONS 



weapon more formidable, (Fig. 70 ;) others are open-worked, with salient out- 

 line, (Fig. 71;) fragments of the staff are also found, which was remarkably 

 slender, and shod at its exti*emitj with an iron point. Although 

 the socket is very small, and supposes consequently a slender staff, 

 the blade was too carefully wrought to admit the idea of any pur- 

 pose of exposing it to the hazard of being lost by launching it. It 

 was a weapon for thrusting, not for throwing.* 



The swords of the Teue merit particular 

 attention. The blade (Fig. 72) has a length 

 of from SO to 90 centimetres, is very flat, 

 being scarcely 3 millimetres in thickness, 

 with two edges carried regularly to a point ; 

 it has no guard, and of the hilt there remains 

 but the tongue, which, without being very 

 large, is yet calculated for the hand of an or- 

 dinary man, (13 to 15 centimetres.) The 

 transition from the tongue to the blade is 

 formed by a graceful curve provided with an 

 iron flange, which serves as a gitard and is 

 adapted to a corresponding projection of the 

 scabbard. We have not yet discovered the 

 square form, which is the most common at 

 Alise. A part of the swords are in their 

 sheaths, but as they have not been attacked 

 by rust, (the qualities of the peat having pre- 

 served them from oxidation,) we have suc- 

 ceeded in withdrawing several of them. They 

 are straight and two-edged, most of them so 

 sharp and uninjured that they might very well 

 be used to-day. On examination we discover 

 on their surface undulating lines, which some- 

 what remind us of damasked blades, as if 

 they were composed of strips and clippings 

 which had been welded together ; the borders 

 only are perfectly smooth, like the blades 

 found at Alise.t Several of them bear the 

 token of the workshop near the hilt, (Fig. 74.|) 

 We may here remark that almost all the swords 

 Figure 70. "^® possess have been collected within a very Figure 71. 



* We caunot concur in the opinion of M. Keller that these were only arms of parade ; the ' 

 median vidgo, which is prolonged, while alway.s diminishing to the extremity of the lance, 

 is a well known and constant expedient in the, art of forging. As the lance is hollow with- 

 in, it has been asked whether it be not formed of two plates soldered together. If this were 

 so, the soldering would have been effected with gi-eat skill, for there is no trace of it percep- 

 tible. M. Schwab has recently discovered at the Tene an iron lance 22 centimetres in length, 

 whose edges alternately re-enter and project like the teeth of a saw, so as to present in pro- 

 file an undulating line, the object of which, no doubt, was to aggravate the wound. M. 

 Keller is confident that it was to this form that Diodorus Siculus refers, (V. chap. 30,) in the 

 description he has left us of a formidable weapon of the Gauls. 



t M. de Reffye remarks as follows in regard to this type of sword, which is very frequent at 

 Alise, and which the Gauls may have borne from the time of Camillus : " In these weapons 

 the edge is not of the same iron as the body of the blade. The workman after having forged 

 that part of very tough iron, drawn out in the direction of its length, welded on each side small 

 strips of a softer hon to form the edges ; this iron was afterwards hardened by hammering. 

 In this way, the soldier, after combat, might repau*, by whetting, the gaps of his blade as tlie 

 mower does those of his scythe when it requu'os sharpening." {Revue ArckcBologique, Novem- 

 ber, 1864, p. 347.) 



t The mark of the sword here represented resembles slightly a leaf of trefoil. Tliere are 

 not less than ten of them in the collection of Col. Schwab, which we reproduce from the 



m 



