GERMANYY,"SOUTH,"which must mean
Bavaria, Celtic iron knives
The guy who
sold these to me told me he buys them on the open antiques market in Europe.
He rarely has decent site data, everything is from "old collection."
Latter seems reasonable for the most part, but who knows. These were
described as "Iron Age Celtic Druid knives, late 2nd century BC."
Let's examine the evidence and then make some suppositions.
The manufacturing
technique appears to be that they were puddled into rough shapes then beaten
and drawn, then sharpened. Primitive technique makes early iron age
reasonable. The tangs were meant to be covered with wooden handles.
I can imagine that the handles were split halves bound with leather.
A few of them have curved ends to their tangs, to keep them from slipping
out of the handle.
There seems
to be no reason to doubt their authenticity.
So were they
agricultural implements (sickles) or "Druid" (sacrificial) knives?
If they are indeed early iron age they would have been highly valued objects,
possessing a lot of magic as well. Celtic farmers were at the bottom
of the social scale, unlikely they would have iron implements. As
riffraff they would be stuck with bronze or stone. Prideful and pious
Celts would not waste iron on mere agriculture.
Let us assume
that this group came out of the ground as a group rather than coming to
me as a collection of isolated objects from all over wherever they came
from. Most likely explanation is that they were placed where they
were as a religious offering- a common Celtic practice. More likely
to have been dedicated if they had ritual use.
So my guess
is that these were used to cut the throats of the sacrifices the Celts
were so fond of, interred as a group for an offering or perhaps on the
death of the (priestly?) owner.
The alternative
explanation is obvious.
a)
245x115mm, $275.00
Click picture for enlargement.
b)215x70mm, $85.00 sold
c) 205x62mm, this one is the best preserved of the
batch $120.00 sold
d) 185x65mm, $145.00 sold
e) 174x70mm, $75.00 sold
Click picture for enlargement.
f)190x30mm,
point
missing $45.00 sold
g) 170x40mm, point missing $45.00
sold
h) 127x60mm, nice shape $50.00 sold
Click picture for enlargement.
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Bob Reis
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Raleigh NC 27611
USA
phone: (919) 787-0881
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fax: (919) 787-1882
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