Shiny spearheads?

[Robert]

Salvete Omnes!

There is question bugging me and I hope someone on this great forum can shed light.

As many of you will know I forge replica's of Roman spearheads. I have studied the odd few to get things right, but one thing eludes me. How were these finished?
I have seen several originals in good condition with forgemarks and filemarks clearly visible, most often those with a folded socket, open at the top. Attached a picture to show the type. These are not ground and polished, are forge blackened and just have the edges sharpened. Then there are the ones with a fully closed neck, which are made in a different manner (working on that technique now) and would seem to have different degrees of finishing. So I would really appreciate some thoughts on this subject, if at all possible backed by references to actual finds.

[Tarbicus]

Haven't some spearheads been found recently with inlaid bronze around the throats? Seems a bit odd to me to go to all that trouble, only to leave the iron blackened and tarnished.

[Caballo]

I'd support the forge blackened look.

I have a replica of the Newstead spearhead, onto which I copied the original punched inscription ( from a Tungrian ala).

The spearhead was burnt onto the ash shaft , leaving it blackened. When I cleaned the spearhead with wire wool recently to take off some rust from Hadrians Wall, I was surprised to see the punched dot inscriptions standing out as silver dots against the blackened background. So it means that the name/unit tag could stand out. Not proof, but hopefully an indication through rebuilding the original?

Cheers

Caballo

[jvrjenivs]

I have a replica of the Newstead spearhead, onto which I copied the original punched inscription ( from a Tungrian ala).

Do you have pictures of that one? (original and your replica). I'm searching for cavalry spearheads, so that would be very welcome

[Robert]

Which Jurjen will then probably send on to me as I promised to make him one :lol:

[jvrjenivs]

Which Jurjen will then probably send on to me as I promised to make him one :lol:

No, I just wanted to compare them with local finds. (as I want it based on local originals as much as possible)

[Matt Lukes]

Jim has it- if there was additional decoration, clearly the pieces were ground. Spearheads weren't disposable weapons, and there are even arrow and bolt heads with clear grind/file marks on them so surely a spearhead would be as well. I actually now believe pila were too and pretty much everything else iron. I can't say I agree with Jurjen's idea- it's pretty clear from the haphazard way most markings are done that they weren't considered particularly important beyond being able to show who an object belonged to when examined, so that it looks 'good' punched on scale doesn't really seem reasonable to me. If looking good were important, letters would be properly formed, straight, etc. and most of the time they are not even easy to read. Practically-speaking, it's always seemed to me to be rather easier to clean a ground object- the surface is already smoothish, so it's not difficult to rub with a bit of cloth and a mild abrasive, whereas scale is a glassy material, that's often rough because repeated heatings and hammering during forging breaks bits off in some places and builds more up in others- so it's not as easy to get into places that do require attention; not to mention that such attention removes more around the area so the piece is even more 'cruddy'-looking. There's also the matter of hammermarks- well-preserved artifacts are often relatively smooth, which either means time was spent forging them smooth or they were ground- and a smith's time is valuable, but an unskilled grinder's isn't so much. Clearly swords and daggers were ground, so it was considered a necessary step in production. And given how generally well-made Roman stuff was, it's hard to believe they just dropped the ball with hastae, lanceae and pila...

[Caballo]

Hi,

Here are a couple of pics. The spearhead is from Newstead (Trimontium)- length 270 mm found in 1906 with four others in pit XVI (Flavian date)- see Curle 188, fig 20. The blackened part is a bit counteracted by the camera flash. The inscription reads ..TIVN TBA- possibly T(urma) Iun(i) Ba(ssi), though there may be two superimposed inscriptions.



Original

More pictures http://www.curlesnewstead.org.uk/platexxxvi.htm and description here http://www.curlesnewstead.org.uk/188.htm . Portions of the shaft recovered in excavations indicated that the wood was hazel, but I 've here used ash- largely because I hadn't spotted the hazel reference!

I also reinforced the shaft/ spearhead join with rawhide (as used by Zulus) as this was a relatively vulnerable spot- and actually broke at Corbridge during on event - away from the spectators, and while throwing it javelin like..... :oops:

[jvrjenivs]

Most welcome, Paul. This is interesting. Seems I got some homework to do this sunday .