Flange-hilted swords of type Naue II with pommel-tang and the foreign relations of the Mycenaean warrior elite in the post-Palatial Period

Abstract

In this paper a specific group of pan-European flange-hilted swords of the shape Naue II will be investigated whose examples display in particular a tongue-like spur from the hilt to the attachment of the pommel. These swords of the type Stätzling or Allerona display a wide distribution area stretching from Zeeland in the north to the Alpine and Carpathian regions, as well as parts of Italy and Greece. Typological aspects indicate a development of this type of sword in the Mycenaean-Minoan cultural region. The symbiosis between the original Pannonian and north-eastern Italian flange-hilted sword of type Naue II (group A or type Reutlingen) and the original Mycenaean-Minoan pommel-tang construction could have occurred only here in the 12th century B. C. As a result of various supra regional comparative analyses into typology, chorology, contextual recording and the make-up of the sword inventories, as well as further find groups, this phenomenon can be interpreted as part of extensive exchange and trade connections which took place between the Late Mycenaean society in the north western Peloponnese and the communities of the western and eastern seaboards of the upper Adriatic during the 12th century B. C.