Does somebody have more information on celtic LaTene scabbard construction? I mean specially authentic iron or bronze scabbards. I am happy for any hints how the sheet metal is fixed together and how the chape/crest is made.
Thanks and greetings from Switzerland
Joachim

Hi Joachim;
Here is a drawing from a book I have that (I think) explainse best...
Also look at these postings:
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=3478&highlight=
And also look here:
http://www.myArmoury.com/review_tmpl_celt.html

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Thanks Folkert! Great diagram.

You quys are more then welcome Russ and Joachim

Especialy profesional scabbard builders like you Russ, because I would love to see someone produce such a scabbard... ;)

Thanx alot Folkert. Was away for more than an week!
I still have a question concerning the chape! Is it cast? or is it forged? How is the groove made?
Is it maybe bent fron a thicker piece of sheetmetal with some additional soldering and shaping?
Thanks for any comments

Best wishes
Joachim[/img]

Thirts of all, I am no expert in this, so please if anyone could gif more detailes or have any corrections, please do...

Considering the Chape: I think that both metods would have bin used, especialy the Bronze and early chapes seme to have bin cast the later and or iron ones could have bin hammerd to shape, i quess this pretty much depents on the kind op shape you want. The kind that is showen in the drawing would have bin hammerd if you ask me...

Considering the soldering I don't know but I also would like to know that to.
My question in general would be: From what time period did they start to solder things..?
Ore is this just a modern infention??

Folkert...

The best book to explain and show LaTene scabbards is:

"Finds from the Site of La Tene: Scabbards and the Swords Found in Them" Volumes 1 & 2
by JM de Navarro
Oxford University Press: London 1972
ISBN: 019725909

After reading this book I was STUNNED to learn that the MAJORITY of scabbards were iron NOT a non-ferrous metal. Also, the level of decorative detail was INCREADABLE.

Why would they have chosen metal instead of wood?

I'm not sure.

Let alone, why would they have choosen iron and not copper or bronze?

If the current thinking, that iron was rare (because of ore availability and smelting technology) is true, is this simply another example of those weathy enough to own a sword flaunting their prestige?

Dan, I have the book, at least the first part at the moment from a library, but there is little information on potential chape construction. I think I will forge it out of an iron band, ca 3mm thick.
Why iron?
At that time, iron had the image of being novel and innovative. Even fibulae were of iron at least for men! There were few scabbards out of bronze and some of mixed construction: iron/bronce, but clearly the vast majority was iron with beautiful ornaments and we guess nicely polished. See the beautiful reconstruction example below. Source: The review section of this website
Regards
Joachim

[ Linked Image ]

The vast bulk of celtic scabbards are iron, and while I don't know about how novel it was across the time span, I think there it may be a fair assumption to say that iron was something of a prestige metal.

Construction, clearlt the chape stock was forged, but the fine details and volumes you see on these pieces would indicate fine filework, tiny cold chisels, burnishers, and high degrees of polishing (tools for this sort of fine work have been found in a number of celtic sites). These chapes are too precise and delicate, as well as crisply executed to be "straight from the forge" IMO

Perhaps the use of iron in places where it seems unusual to us might coincide with the current fad surrounding the use of titanium and such things? Could a future archaeologist examine a pocketknife and spend time fretting and formulating theories to explain the seemingly purposeless titanium coating on the blade?

Thanks Nathan. You are confirming what I imagined. However I didn't mean "novel" in absolute form, but with respect to bronze.. Today we may think that bronze and brass are colourwise more handsome as iron, bat as David wrote, it might have had kind of a masculine hightech flavour as nowadays titanium or maybe magnesium alloys have....!?
best wishes

joachim

It might also be simply for practical reasons. Working with bronze is a completely different skill then forging iron. Especially bronze sheet metal working is a very difficult skill to master. So there might have been very few people who could do it. Iron lends itself much better for turning into sheet AFAIK. Bronze has to be cast first in a solid blank. Any shrinkage porosity, pits or other irregularities will make it unusable to turn into sheet. Then it needs to be hammered down cold, as it's brittle when hot. Bronze workhardens quickly, so it's very easy to overdo it and hit a crack. Then you have to start allover again. The bronze has to be annealed regularly as well, which gets more and more difficult as the sheet becomes thinner and larger. When at brought to the temperature necessary to anneal it, it will fall apart at the slightest touch. Iron is a lot more forgiving in that respect. Bronze with a smaller quantity of tin will be easier to work with though, but it will give a less attractive colored bronze, which will turn dull brown quickly. Also to be kept in mind that most bronze probably wouldn't have been suitable for sheet metal working in the first place, due to lead contents. Another reason could be that iron just happened to be more available. Iron was needed for the swordblades, and lots of other tools, so the smith would have a good supply of iron to work with. So a smith would have iron, and the skill to work it. Whether he had the bronze and the skill to turn it into sheet and eventually scabbards is not necessarily the case.

I don't think that it was lack of skill with bronze which kept it from being used for scabbards in the La Tene era. Thropughout the La Tene phases the celts are still using sheet bronze to make a marvelous range of artictic items, from cauldrons to bucket fittings to repousse panels and bands, to helmets, all the way up to the Roman era. Sheet bronze items can be found in the same grave sites as swords in iron scabbards.

I'm not sure why not so much bronze (with exceptions like many North British sword scabbards and the Irish Lisnacrogher/Bann scabbards), but it may well have been either status of some kind, the old technology v. new technology", or simply it was not the artistic convention that was used any more.