DAGGERS AND RAPIERS
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Stone celt, Bronze dagger with gold band,
and Urn found in Topped Mountain Cairn, Co. Fermanagh.]
As has been mentioned, as well as being parent to the spear-head, the
small weak knife-dagger frequently found in early Bronze-Age burials
also developed into the true dagger-blade, and in course of time into
the sword. Bronze daggers have often been found in Ireland; there are
about forty in the National Collection. Among the most interesting
finds of these early daggers may be mentioned that discovered in 1897
at an interment at Topped Mountain Cairn, County Fermanagh. This
dagger measures 5-5/8 inches, and is covered with a beautiful blue
patina. It is decorated with raised lines on each side of the blade,
and has two small rivets. It was discovered in a cist in the cairn
lying at the right side of the skull of an uncremated body, and in the
same place was a small band of gold which appears to have been half
of a band of that metal which was probably round the handle of the
dagger (fig. 55). Another interesting find is the small bronze dagger
discovered with urns and cremated bones in a cist at Annaghkeen Cairn,
County Galway, in 1908.
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Dagger and Rapier blades.]
In course of time the length of the dagger-blade was increased; and
later examples are wonderful specimens of casting. The earlier
daggers were either attached to the handle by rivets, or else notches
were left in the base of the blade for the attachment. The manner of
hafting them is quite clear, as a few hafted examples have been found.
Some had bronze handles cast separately (fig. 56); others had handles
of horn or wood (fig. 57); but the hilts for the most part were made
of some perishable substance, and they have consequently not been
recovered. The scolloped mark left by the hilt is often quite plainly
to be seen on the blade. In later times the handle was sometimes cast
in one piece with the blade; but the division between the handle and
the blade is always quite clearly marked. The decoration of the later
dagger-blades takes the form of a number of triangles at the base of
the blade, and the extreme similarity in decoration between the
Italian and the early northern and western daggers has led Montelius
to consider the latter as derived from the former; and this is
enforced in the case of the Irish examples by the series of small
hatched-triangles which have been found at the base of two well-known
Irish examples (fig. 56).
The rapiers were evolved quite naturally by lengthening the
dagger-blade; and this form was probably influenced also, as will be
mentioned later, by contemporary weapons in use in the Mediterranean
lands.
The longest rapier ever found in Western Europe is the splendid weapon
found at Lissane, Co. Derry, in 1867, which measures 30-1/4 inches in
length (fig. 59). Another very remarkable Irish example is the short
rapier found in Upper Lough Erne, and obtained by Mr. Thomas Plunkett,
M.R.I.A., from the finder. This weapon is a wonderfully fine piece of
casting. It measures 16-3/4 inches in length (fig. 58).
[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Dagger with horn handle found at Ballymoney,
Co. Antrim.]
[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Rapier found in Upper Lough Erne.]
[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Rapier found at Lissane, Co. Derry.]
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Rapiers and Daggers found in Ireland.]
The rapiers belong to the middle and later portions of the Bronze Age.
This type of weapon is common in France, and is described by M.
Dechelette as widely spread in the British Islands and the north of
France, and as having been introduced from there into South Germany
and the region of the Middle Rhine.[16] The rapiers of advanced
type he places in the third division of the Bronze Age, as they have
been found in Bronze-Age tumuli of that period, as at Staadorf, Haut
Palatinat (1600-1300 B.C.). Montelius places the rapiers in his fourth
period dated at the end of the fifteenth to the middle of the twelfth
century B.C.,[17] so that his dating of these objects practically
coincides with that of M. Dechelette. It is now well recognized that
the swords of the AEgean-Mycenaean area were developed on parallel lines
to those of Western Europe. We find that the long rapiers or thrusting
swords are developed from the tanged Cypriote dagger, and that the
true sword is a later evolution from the rapier. It is hardly to be
doubted that some of the western forms of daggers and rapiers were
influenced by Mycenaean types; and the discovery in Sicily of rapiers
of Mycenaean type with pottery dated as recent Minoan III, establishes
a direct bond between the AEgean and Western Europe.[18]
[16] "Manuel d'Archeologie," vol. ii, p. 208.
[17] "Archaeologia," vol. lxi, p. 162, and pl. xv.
[18] "Manuel d'Archeologie," vol. ii, p. 214.