tdbcelts.org

Does anyone have a good image of a period sword. I want to try making one, but I don't want to spend all that time and effort making something that is either too early or too late for our time period.

See this discussion at myarmoury.com. This page should probably be archived as PDF in case this site ever goes belly up - there is a wealth of museum images and good banter on the topic.

I'm actually in the process of writing a research paper on Celtic swords for the myArmoury.com board. But, it probably won't be completed until late this year, given my current schedule.

Anyway, I can't get the "img" tags to work but I've got some pics of Irish swords. The first set of pics is from "Pagan Celtic Ireland" by Barry Raftery. It should be noted that this book covers most of the Iron Age and LaTene period in Ireland, so the dates on these blades could be quite broad. I suspect that the swords shown with some semblance of a midrib are very early Iron Age since they resemble Irish bronze swords; it was common place for the early blacksmiths to mimic the earlier bronze styles.

First Pic

The second pic comes from "The Archeology of Late Cetic Britain & Ireland" by Lloyd Laing. This book deal specifically with Late Iron Age and Early Christian Era. Note that some of these swords are single edged (as evidenced by the cross section).

Second Pic

note: the images are no longer available as linked as of 170114