This must be the most important work done on finnish swords since the writings of Leppäaho. A quite thorough doctoral thesis on finnish iron age swords, "Marks of Fire, Value and Faith. Swords with Ferrous Inlays in Finland during the Late Iron Age (ca. 700–1200 AD)" by Mikko Moilanen. I have only yet skimmed through it and to me it's something that should have happened a long time ago. But now the world has been fixed.

Here's the first paragraph from the abstract:

Quote:

This study explores swords with ferrous inlays found in Finland and dating from the late Iron Age, ca. 700–1200 AD. These swords reflect profound changes not only in styles and fashion but also in the technology of hilts and blades. This study explores how many of these kinds of swords are known from Finland, how they were made and where, what their status was in Late Iron Age Finland, and where the Finnish finds stand in accordance with other areas of Europe.

What am I babbling, go read for your self!

http://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/119919

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe201601203194

Thanks for posting this Risto! It looks like a great resource, I have already found new (for me) details about a number of swords I was interested in. :)

Thank you very much for this highly valuable thesis. So much interesting !

Thanks for the link.
Very interesting!

Awesome! I've been wanting more info on Finnish arms and armor, especially from this era! :) I had no idea that type E swords were relatively common in this region, I had been lead to believe they were kind of a Norwegian specialty... might have to pick up an H/T Viking at some point. Another thing, I guess I always had a feeling that was the case but it really made clear that the dates linked to sword types are actually quite dependent on location and what may have been long obsolete in one area might have still been in common use in another. I do wish there were pics of the actual swords though, and especially the Koylio scabbard. For that matter I'm still a bit unclear on what the date on this scabbard is.

Does anybody know how to get ahold of a copy of Leppaho's work? English would be great but I'd settle for Finnish and hope there are good pictures. I'd be interested in other sources on the subject of Finnish arms and armor too, especially helmets. I've never heard of even a single Finnish helmet find from that 700-1200 period but I've seen shields as well as swords, spears and axes fine enough to suggest there certainly were plenty of people who would have had the resources and desire to own a helmet.

I've also tried to get hold of Leppäaho's work (though not really hard), but I guess even here in Finland you would have to visit some bigger universities' libraries to see them. And IIRC most if not all of them are written in german. It is really odd that there are no helmets found in Finland. At least from that period. It would make me think that maybe the active elements of the warrior's tools were considered somehow worthy of being buried. I really don't know. Or maybe they all considered themselves such a bad-ass heroes that that didn't need helmets. ;)

Antikmakler have one for sale:-

http://www.antikmakler.de/catalog/bv214295.html