[Danny Grigg]

Just a quick post about the knives at the following link:

http://www.antiek.net/bolkantiques/imgindex2....ame=Swords

Scroll down to the bottom and click the picture titled "A group of Celtic daggers. 200 before Christ"
(I have attached a pic below)

These look more like Greek Machaira or Dacian Sicas that celtic knives to me, however my knowledge is severely limited.

Does anyone care to comment on these knives?

There's a good pic of a Machaira at the following link (3/4's of the way down):

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...t=machaira

Dacian Sicas:

http://www.gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/ranistorum/site_eng/fierul.html
http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hhm52...at52_A.txt
http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hhm48...at48_1.txt
http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hhm48...at48_1.txt
http://www.stoa.org/trajan/buildtrajanpage.cgi?349
http://www.stoa.org/trajan/buildtrajanpage.cgi?359

Has anyone made a decent replica of the Machaira or Sica? If so please post pics.

I know of the Windlass Machaira, however it doesn't look like a very good replica to me when you look at the pics in the above links.

If anyone has any other pics of Machaira or Sicas can you please post them.

Thanks

Danny

[David McElrea]

Hi Danny,

Check this thread for more info on Celtic knives etc.

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...tic+knives

David

[Shane Allee]

There is a lot of grey area with this subject.

These could be considered celtic, but not what I would consider a native design or at least hilted like that. Without knowing the context in which these were found it would be hard to say if they were found in the area of mixed culture or not.

As far as what to call them, that can be a pretty grey area as well. Personally I'd probably consider all of them sica. Now the sword sized one I have seen called a sica as well, machaira, and even called a falx. In my opinion there could very well be a need for a specific name for the style. Most of the time the blades seem different enough for them to not be considered a machaira. Some people call all of the dacian/thracian blades that are bigger than knives falx. That seems odd to me in that there is a range from polearm type weapon, two handed sword, and single handed swords all under one name. Then there is also the issue of some different mounting/fitting styles under that one name as well.

Every so often for the last probably five years or so I keep hearing a rumor that there is going to be a book coming out on the subject of dacian and thracian arms that I would think might clear up a lot on the subject. I'd love to learn more about these kind of weapons since they do turn up in celtic graves from time to time. So hopefully one day we'll see something on the subject.

Seem to recall that Mark Morrow made one of the sword sized sica blades for a guy. He has also done a couple of falx blades as well.

Shane

[Peter Grassmann]

In my opinion, those are definitely from Eastern Europe, so maybe indeed dacian. Not the typical "celtic" knives and daggers from middle Europe, anyway. A lot of stuff from East Europe's ancient history is being sold as "celtic" and "roman". Look at all the Roman coins on ebay: nearly all of them from East Europe.

Peter