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
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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
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f)190x30mm, point missing $45.00 sold
 

g) 170x40mm, point missing $45.00 sold
 
 

h) 127x60mm, nice shape $50.00 sold
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