03-18-2013, 05:25 PM
I must disagree with Agrimensor on the handles of swords. They were either completely made of wood or completly made of bone (or ivory) or a wood-bone-wood combination. Very few bronze handles have been found, these are excremely rare, but do exist. The wood-bone-wood is however NOT the standard, as we have come to believe. That is a bit of a re-enactorisme. Darker hardwoods were not often used, but cherry is known. Almost all wooden parts recovered were of the light coloured varieties, like holly and boxwood, recently a complete 2de cent. spatha was found in The Netherlands (De Meern, Utrecht) which had a full linden wood handle. I am presently making a replica of that find :-) In the third century, we start seeing a lot of combinations of materials and fully metal clad wooden cores.