1st century sword sheath from Porto Novo

[Martin Moser]

An interesting sword sheath was found in the Porto Novo - ((funnily) also known as Porto Vecchio) wreck - check out this article, page 8!

[Virilis]

Thanks Martin, really interesting! I would love to see more finds documented like this, with photos and reconstruction pictures and all! The sword seems to have been a quite "shortish" mainz style gladius...

[Tarbicus]

Nice, thanks. Martin, when is the wreck and scabbard dated to? The chape looks very similar to this one, supposed to be from Xanten?

http://www.replik-online.de/de/shop/bil ... _rmg6c.jpg
Repro by Erik Konig.

Unless Erik used the Porto Novo chape to complement the upper part from Xanten, it's interesting to see almost identical chapes in different parts of Europe of such a particular style. The scabbard also looks very wide for a Pompeii type, so is it a Mainz type scabbard?

[Martin Moser]

Nice, thanks. Martin, when is the wreck and scabbard dated to? The chape looks very similar to this one, supposed to be from Xanten?

According to the article, the sheath/sword might represent a transitional style between the Mainz and Pompeii types. This is based on the fact that the chape is angled at 20.5 degrees and thus right in the middle between the angles of Mainz type sheaths on the on hand and Pompeii type sheaths on the other. The sheath measures 483 mm in length, btw.
The chape from Erik certainly looks as though he took the design from this one to complete another.

[Et tu brute]

Could someone PM me the relevant page, for some reason my adobe isn't working :?