Unrivited javelin heads

[Peroni]

Christian wrote...

Hasta or Pilum head?

Neither - I am talking about small throwing javelins with small leaf-blade or pyramidal heads.

The Hasta is not a javelin or a disposable weapon.

[jkaler48]

[attachment=2016]heads.JPG[/attachment]
Here is the (3rd Cent) battlefield I was referring to;
There were hundreds of projectiles found. Arrowheads scorpion bolts and javelin heads
all not recovered after the battle for unknown reasons.
Here is a photo of javelin heads from the battlefield:

http://www.roemerschlachtamharzhorn.de/s...sh%29.html

It is hard to say whether there are rivet or nail holes.

[jkaler48]

Found another photo of finds from the site one javelin head has a hole visible.

They were found as if stuck in the ground after being thrown (by the Romans as they were intermingled with Scorpion bolts.) If they mostly were not attached with rivets or nails
it is possible they were not recovered right after the battle because the Germans tried to
pull them out and only succeeded in separating them from their shafts making them hard to find. The ones that stayed together were presumably tossed back at the Romans.

[Crispvs]

As I said above, I just don't buy the idea of weapons with heads which were so poorly secured to their shafts that the shafts would able to be pulled out of them. If that were to be the case, the weapons would stand hardly any chance of getting to the battle in a usable condition. They wouldn't have been transported in tissue paper and bubble wrap after all.
What I can accept though is the possibility of shafts cracking or breaking off completely if the projectiles struck rocks, due to the effect of shock passing through the heads to the wooden shafts. Added to that, if there had been rain on the days immediately prior to the battle, the effect of hundreds of men moving across wet ground, particularly if they were fighting, would quickly turn it to mud. In such circumstances, missiles which hit the ground with force might well bury themselves in that same ground so that the heads were totally submerged. If the ground was naturally stony (as the ground around mountain passes tends to be) I think there would be a good chance of a lot of them striking stones just beneath the ground surface, resulting in broken shafts which might then become separated from their buried heads as the surface mud was churned up by men and horses, which might possibly drive the heads of such weapons further into the ground.
As was noted above by Peronis, spears, being thrusting rather than throwing weapons, would be unlikely to have been thrown so any spearheads would have to have entered the ground by a slightly different means. I would suggest that some spearheads might have been struck off by the weapons of opponents (the reason mediaeval spears often had a pair of reinforcing bars running down from their heads). In the melee these heads might well be trampled into the mud and then missed in the cleanup after the battle.

I think you can be sure that the vast majority of weapons expended during the battle would have been recovered after it. Those that were not must have been hidden somehow and as I said, I think the most like explanation would be wet, stony ground which could cause shafts to crack and heads to be buried more deeply than otherwise. Added to this, if the dead of the losing side were left to rot on the field, as we know happened sometimes in the past, both local people and travellers might have been inclined to stay away from it for the next few years. Eventually, bones would either be carried off by animals or break down in acidic soils, while the broken wood remaining in the weapon ferrules would rot away, leaving just the iron heads and cart tyres to be found by modern archaeologists.

What do you think?

Crispvs

[PhilusEstilius]

John.

I have to ask if there is an excavation report that accompanies these photographs, for I do think they look so pristine in there condition that there may be room for some degree of scepticism about them.

[jkaler48]

John.

I have to ask if there is an excavation report that accompanies these photographs, for I do think they look so pristine in there condition that there may be room for some degree of scepticism about them.

It is apparently a well documented professionally excavated site:
http://www.roemerschlachtamharzhorn.de/s...sh%29.html

Google translated from the site:

"When in the summer of 2008, some badly rusted metal objects from a wooded area on Harzhorn been submitted for approval, it quickly became clear that we were dealing here with an extremely unusual find, because the findings were clearly of Roman origin," explains Kreisarchäologin Dr . Lönne Petra. Immediate investigation at the site near Kalefeld-Wiershausen brought the certainty, the scene of a battle between Romans and Germans had been discovered.

The greatest secrecy followed a months-long systematic exploration of the extensive and detailed documentation resin horn area. In close cooperation between the North buckets circle archeology, the Lower Saxony State Office of Historic Monuments (NLD) and experienced detectorists, members of the community of interest Ostfalensucher, it was particularly, to forestall any possible looting of the discovery by brazen looters.

More than 1,800 artifacts - often in remarkably good state of preservation - could then be found by the use of metal detectors and archaeological excavations, and in individual pieces painstakingly restored: iron spearheads, catapult floor bolts, "Hippo sandals" - a hoof for the entrained mules, oxen and horses - shoe nails and more. That even such a variety of artifacts could be found, is due to the fact that - unlike major battles of the ancient practice - was evacuated the battlefield after the fighting ended apparently not thorough. In addition, the area was never farmed agricultural, so that parts of weapons and equipment intact over the centuries in the forest floor remained."

[PhilusEstilius]

John.

I have to say thank so much for the information and your links, that helps a great deal to clear things up for me and indeed I'm sure for maybe others.
I do have to say that the condition of those artifacts is just fantastic indeed, and where you say that one shows it had a hole it looks to me there just might be another.

I do however think that most spearheads would have been well fixed to the shafts, indeed Crispvs relates just how he found such a situation with one he had.