The Early Medieval Thrusting and Cutting Weapons From the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest. Their Background at the Time

The referred article is concerned with the theme of early medieval sabres, palashes, swords and their parts from the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest. They (eight pcs) originate from the territory of present-day Romania. All of them may be dated from the 6th to the 11th century, although some of them could belong to the turn of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages and others to the turn of the Early and High Middle Ages too. They do not just come from unknown archaeological contexts and stray finds, but also from burial sites and settlement layers. Therefore, the authors were able to associate some of these objects of museum collections to a specific archaeological context and not dated them only on the basis of their analogies. Most of the discussed weapons (five out of eight pcs) were already published. Unfortunately, they mostly miss the complete description, clear drawings and photographic documentation, complete measurements, relevant parallels, or their correct dating. The authors of this article have attempted to resolve these shortcomings. Moreover, they supplemented the article with radiographic and spectroscopic analyses of some studied objects

Ancient history · Archaeology · Romanian · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts · Philosophy