Xiphos blade shapes?

[Virilis]

Khairete!

I was wondering if there is any evidence of Xiphos blade shapes with a diamond cross-section? Usually they have this strengthening ridge along the blade so can anybody help me here?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yes,there certainly were. Not all the blades had the ridge so pronounced and some didn't have it at all. There are swords from Olympia that have a lense shaped cross section. Even when there was a ridge,often it "faded out" in the portion towards the tip where the blade was wider.
Khaire
Giannis

[Virilis]

Thanks Giannis!

That`s what I thought too. Do you know if any of those swords had a guard plate like the gladiuses of the roman army or was the blade just sunk to the hilt made of wood / bone?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Most swords had a complex iron guard. The blade was one piece with the hilt,as you migh know,on which the wood or bone plates were riveted. However the wood or bone didn't extend on the guard. There,there were solid iron pieces riveted on either side of the guard. So in total there would be needed four solid pieces of iron. Between them the bone was secured and a thin iron plate was riveted on it,linking the two solid pieces of the guard.
Now,because i'm sure you didn't get anything of what i said,take a look on the Vergina sword:
http://www.tdpapazois.gr/images/sword.jpg
You have to replace the gold parts with iron. Also,here the gold is a thin sheet covering the real guard and the rivets are only indicated. You can see the three small circles.
Also the thin sheet linking the two solid parts of the gurd here is all one piece of gold. Now i know that this would make the life of any reconstructor much more difficult,but other swords i have seen on iron in good condition also seem to have been one piece! So there is actual change that the whole guard piece was casted together with the two solid pieces interlinked with a thinner one. The problem is that it has to bee too thin!
And a last thing that is unique in the above sword is that instead of wood or bone the grip was solid iron. I haven't seen this in any other sword of this type,but i have seen it on long kopides of about the same period that are presumed to have been cavalry swords. Indeed this xiphos is much longer than most others,considerably longer than the other two swords that have been found in the same tomb. So a heavier hilt might be needed to draw the point of balance a bit closer to the hilt.
Are you planning for a reconstruction?!
Khaire
Giannis

EDIT: Don't get confused with the rest of what you see under the guard. This is the throat of the scabbard,made of ivory. Some times it was covered by iron or less frequenty bronze. Usually it wasn't covered though.

[Virilis]

Thanks Giannis!

It seems that the xiphos-style swords are much more complex in construction than I thought :oops: . I have been toying with an idea of reconstruction but now I don`t know, I feel dizzy :wink: ...

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Another option is to go in the etruscan style hilts. They were a bit different and simpler. Matt Amt has made one such,and also Manning Imperial.
http://manningimperial.com/item.php?ite ... =1&c_id=14
They weren't frequent in mainland Greece. There are swords with the iron cover on the grip,but the guard still seems to gave the more pointy shape,not the square one like the Etruscan. Etruscan swords also had a bit different scabbard chape and throat.
Of utmost interest is this old thread on the sword forum by John Piscopo. http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=25289
He has a greek-style xiphos. He believes the solid pieces on the guard were one piece with the rest of the sword.Here is what he says on the other forum "My best observation is that the entire sword was forged to be one piece, including the bands on either side of the guard which would have secured the lower end of the placques for the hilt, the other end being secured by a pommel cap. The two strips would have been shaped on an anvil and then hammer welded to the blade at the ends."
This is what i believed too when i saw the two other swords at Vergina up close, no traces of rivets on them and they didn't look like separate pieces. There was only a nail still visible under the thin plate,but it wasn't extending over it.I guessed it just secured the bone on the tang. But then i noticed the "rivets" on the gold plate of the long xiphos and was convinced that they were indeed separate pieces.
Khaire
Giannis

[Virilis]

Thanks a lot Giannis, very good info !