Under The Surface Of The Solid-Hilted Swords Of The Iron Age Dolenjska Group

The contribution discusses the results of the X-ray spectroscopy analyses performed on four solid-hilted bronze swords of the Early Iron Age Dolenjska group from south-eastern Slovenia. One of them is the antennae sword from Podzemelj (8th century BC), which was found to be repaired at least twice before being placed into the grave of a prominent warrior. It originally had a rod tang that broke at some point and the blade was replaced. In contrast, the projection at the hilt terminal of the antennae sword from Vinji vrh (8th century BC) was cast together with the rest of the hilt and is not the tip of a rod tang. The sword from the River Sava at Kriko is similar to the antennae swords from south-eastern Europe of the 9th and 8th centuries in its bimetal composition. Its X-ray image indicates that the bronze hilt was cast onto the rod tang of the iron blade. The blade of the sword from Vir pri Sticni (7th century BC) terminates at the lower part of the hilt, where it is attached with a pair of rivets to the handguard, while the three rivet holes in the grip section are empty, suggesting that the original blade was replaced with another one inserted only a few centimetres into the hilt. Such a sword was no longer suitable for chopping; it could rather be used for thrusting.