Velsen pugio help

[Doc]

Does anyone have excellent photos of the Velsen pugio sheath. I would like some really close up good resolution photos of the sheath details. The reason is because I would like to compare the motifs on it with another dagger. I have a hunch.

[jvrjenivs]

Just check the online catalogue of the museum the thing is shown now
http://www.rmo.nl/collectie/zoeken?objec...1977-zn17a

[Titus Marius Secundus]

...are you seriously gonna attempt this? lol...please update us!

[PhilusEstilius]

Doc.

I have sent you an Email with pic's of one of the many I have made.

[PhilusEstilius]

Jurjen.

In looking at the link you have given the drawing of the Dagger shows what is I think an assumption that it had a possible metal handle.
From having made this dagger about 10 times I do now think that the hand grip may simply have only been wood, for the only piece of the grip ever found is the deer horn tip with it's silver rivets had there been a metal grip it should have survived.

[Crispvs]

You might be right Brian, that it may have had organic grip plates, but then you might also have to argue that it had a wooden tang as well! It must have had a tang but none of it survived, suggesting that something acidic was at work in that part of the well, which destroyed the tang and the grip plates as well. If the grip plates were of the thin embossed type they might well have lacked silver decoration and would be easily destroyed by acidic action, leaving little trace. It is worth remembering that the front plate of the sheath has a number of small holes and the lower portion is missing altogether. There may have been small pieces of iron which were missed in the excavation. Don't forget that the terminal, the top plate and part of one of the suspension rings only turned up when some of the filling material from the well was sieved. Smaller fragments might have fallen through or been missed from the sieving. The absence of the tang and the lower portion of the sheath are indicative of the possible destruction of other iron parts.

It may be that the grip plates were organic but for me the balance of probability suggests they were not. It is true that the (probably) antler top plate with its three decorative silver nails did survive, but iron and antler are different substances and clearly survived differently under the prevailing conditions.

Crispvs

[PhilusEstilius]

Crispvs.

I cannot entirely agree with this acidic theory for if the majority of the scabbard front plate can survive with it's inlays along with the dagger blade, then I would also think that some part or parts of metal hand grips should be there or are they still in the well.
Then there are of course the two other clenched silver rivets ( 1.83cm long ) that may have held a handle together, but then their length does not allow much room for organic material and metal grip plates therefore might the handle only have been wood.

[Crispvs]

The two silver rivets are unlikely to have been intended as more than decoration. Silver is too soft for use as a constructional material. It was very common for either plain or decorative nails to be hammered into pugio handles which had no constructional role, unlike the actual iron rivets which were often hidden. The length, at 1.83cm, incidentally, hardly makes them too short either, as most known handles were not as thick as many today would expect and they typically became thinner towards the guard and pommel expansion.

I only proposed the idea of acidic content in the filling material as a way of rationally explaining the missing parts, working on the idea that corrosive 'veins' may have run through the compacted material. It is possible that the missing parts may have shifted due to ground movement to lie away for the rest of the dagger. We know this happened, as one of the soldier's shoes was found some way from his body, and the two pots which were probably intended as grave goods also appear to have shifted around within the filling material of the well.
However, the well was excavated to the level of the bottom of the third barrel and it would have been remiss on the part of the excavators not to sieve material from below the burial. It is possible then that pieces may have been missed but it seems unlikely, aside from anything which had disintegrated so fully that it passed through the sieve.

We have here some of Donald Rumsfeld's 'known unknowns'. We know that when the dagger was buried with its owner it had a handle - the top plate and silver rivets tell us that. Similarly, we know that the bottom portion of the sheath plate was still present when it was deposited - the remains of the terminal prove that.

We must ask then, where is the lower part of the sheath and, perhaps more importantly for your idea, where is the tang? They were there when it was deposited and they are not there now.

I can be flexible about the idea of organic grip plates overlaying the normal organic layer, but I am afraid I must draw the line at the idea of a wooden tang. There is no indication from the shoulders of the blade that there was no tang, and I am sure that even your reconstructions must have required a tang in order to stay attached.

Crispvs

[PhilusEstilius]

I don't think there is anywhere that I have mentioned this dagger having a wood tang in fact it would indeed have had a metal tang, or it may even have had a tang similar to the Titelberg of only half a metal tang.
This is a point to consider about the deer horn tip with its three rivets and how indeed they could have been fitted into an expanded upper part of a tang.
In the military equipment sourses of evidence it has even been assumed that the plates of this dagger handle may have been wood.
I do have to admit that with my reproductions of this dagger I did have a metal tang but also used a little artistic licence in creating metal plates to the handles.

[PhilusEstilius]

Where Crispvs mentions that the front plate of the scabbard has small holes this is not the case, for when we look at Fig9b in the Roman Military Equipment the Sourses of Evidence. There is indeed damage to the inlays at the areas of zone 1 and zone 2 of the front decoration but no holes going through the scabbard plate itself.

This damage can also be seen on the picture in the link that Jurjen has provided, which does give us a very good insight into just how this kind of decoration may have been applied.
What is seen at Fig9b where parts of the inlay is missing in zone 1 there is a piece of the decoration that has shifted therefore it has moved its postion. This indicates that the silver inlays may have been set into the Nielo when moist, then other colour inlays could well have been put in later.