North Grimston sword | |
---|---|
Material | Iron blade and copper alloy hilt |
Created | 2nd century BC |
Period/culture | Iron Age |
Discovered | 1902 North Grimston, North Yorkshire |
Present location | Hull and East Riding Museum, Hull. |
The North Grimston Sword is a sword dating to the Iron Age found at North Grimston in 1902. [1] It is in the collection of the Hull and East Riding Museum.
The sword was found in 1902 and first reported by John Robert Mortimer in 1905 who thought it dated to the Roman period. [2] It was found with another, large, sword, bronze rings, and fragmentary remains of a shield. [1]
The sword has an iron blade with a copper alloy guard, grip, and hilt in the form of a stylised anthropomorphic figure. Stuart Piggott classified it as an 'anthropoid-hilted dagger' and a variant of his broader Group II of Iron Age swords, dating from the second and first centuries BC. [3]
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region.
John Robert Mortimer was an English corn-merchant and archaeologist who lived in Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire.
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