Hod Hill sword

[Caballo]

As some of you know, I have been working to create a replica of the Hod Hill sword.

The Hod Hill sword has been identified as a crossover sword having both Roman and Celtic traditions, and as such is believed to have been evidence of auxillary troops keeping native weapons while in service in the Roman army (Bishop & Coulston, Stead, Miks).

The original is held in the British Museum (pic below). The copper alloy hilt end is described by Stead in British Iron Age Swords and Scabbards and is a "cocked hat" (type viii in Stead's methodology). Five type viii hilt ends have been found in the south, four of them from sites with a Roman military presence. This further strengthens the case for these being used by auxillaries or other soldiers serving in the Roman army.




As I re-enact a Batavian auxillary, I have been interested for years in re-creating this sword, and am very pleased that Suhel of Al- Hamdd in India agreed to work with me on this.

The base we used to work off was the drawing reconstruction in Miks ( Studien zur romischen Schwertbewaffnung in der Kaiserzeit)- see below.



Miks chose rounded wooden sections for his drawing. A strong case can be put for the Celtic hilt design these being flush with the "washers", but I decided to go down this route to reflect the mixed Romano-native tradition of this sword. I also prefer it!

Here (on the Vicus site) is an alternative reconstruction with a straight handle http://www.vicus.org.uk/images/swordhandles2.jpg

Also, Miks shows clearly more "washers" than shown on the BM exhibit. This number of washers was also replicated in the Manning replica. I decided to follow Miks here and continue to look for the original archeological report- did some fall off in retrieval/ conservation?

Next reconstruction.[/img]