Decorated Weapons of the La Tene Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin.

Decorated Weapons of the La Tene Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin. These two books, one largely by the Czech founder-secretary of theUISPP UISPP Union Internationale des Sciences Pr��historiques et Protohistoriques (French: International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences )Comite pour la Siderurgie Ancienne, the other emanating fromHungary, both in English, and on the subject of Celtic swords, are verydifferent from each other, yet both exhibit signs of the social andeconomic times. Both have been long-awaited, both have been considerablydelayed by the search for a publisher and by the financial constraintsof post-socialist central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, Northern, Southern and Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe. . The Szabo-Petres volume reunites between soft covers the decoratedweapons of the whole eastern La Tene La T��ne?adj.Of or relating to a late Iron Age Celtic civilization dating from the fifth to the first century b.c. zone, not only those from Hungaryitself. There is an extremely valuable catalogue of these finds, listingassociations where known. This is accompanied by 130 pages of drawingsand seven half-tone plates, the latter largely demonstrating all tooclearly the problems of reproducing such pieces. The drawings ofsurviving Hungarian swords have been done from the originals, thenon-Hungarian objects largely re-drawn from already published sources.The incised decoration on these (generally iron) artefacts isnotoriously tricky to reproduce accurately, even where corrosion has notmade the design unreadable, as the authors themselves point outfollowing Paul-Marie Duval on the subject. The problem, however, appliesto the reproduction of any three-dimensional object by conventionalmeans and it is perhaps a pity that more good-quality photographs couldnot have been included for comparison. Nonetheless, this volume providesa remarkably useful and carefully researched source-book for others. The introductory essay provides a discussion of the origins,historiography and chronology of the scabbard and spear designs. TheWaldalgesheim or `vegetal' phase of the 4th to early 3rd century BCis treated as experimental, and the evolution of the dragon-pairscabbards and the designs of the Sword style then are more fullydiscussed. The claim that the term `Hungarian Sword Style' isgeneric and that no real sub-style can or should be recognized, seemsoverstated o��ver��state?tr.v. o��ver��stat��ed, o��ver��stat��ing, o��ver��statesTo state in exaggerated terms. See Synonyms at exaggerate.o to say the least. Most of this discussion addresses issuesraised in literature from Jacobsthal onward, some areas being more fullytreated than others. It would have been useful, for example, if thediscussion of the Irish Scabbard Style, proposed in 1984 by BarryRaftery, had been accompanied by a discussion of the `English ScabbardStyle' as it has emerged over the last decade and a half fromresearch on material old and new from the `Arras culture' of theEast Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire is a local government district with unitary authority status, and a ceremonial county of England. It is named after the historic East Riding of Yorkshire (one of three ridings alongside the North Riding and West Riding), which also constituted a . While there are a few minor infelicities inEnglish expression (which do not however affect meaning), the book is anadmirable example of in-house publication by the Hungarian NationalMuseum HistoryThe Hungarian National Museum is said to have been founded in 1802 when Count Ferenc Sz��ch��nyi set up the National Sz��ch��nyi Library. This would then be followed a year later by the donating of a mineral collection by Sz��ch��nyi’s wife. in an attempt to keep costs down and it is only to be hoped thatthis study gets the wide distribution it deserves. In the March 1993 issue of Antiquity Henry Cleere's reviewarticle `Archaeometallurgy comes of age' (Cleere 1993) came outjust too soon to allow him to comment on his friend Radu Pleiner'smajor study. The core of Pleiner's book is formed by theexperimental forging of sword blades at the Archaeological Institute ofthe Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague followed by an examination oftheir ability to inflict blows and subsequent study of the damage doneto the blades and by a series of metallographic analyses of 27 swordblades from sites in the former Czechoslovakia. These are supplementedby a study of published results of metallurgical analyses of a further177 swords from other parts of La Tene Europe; only 92 yielded enoughcomparable material to be included. The book brings together in oneplace some valuable information otherwise scattered throughout theliterature. The technological superiority of the La Tene smiths andtheir development of hardening processes and the use of carbon steelsare clear. The forging experiments demonstrate that it is possible tocreate a sword out of a typical iron ingot ingotMass of metal cast into a size and shape such as a bar, plate, or sheet convenient to store, transport, and work into a semifinished or finished product. The term also refers to a mold in which metal is so cast. or `currency bar', thusstrengthening the possibility that these were indeed blanks for furtherworking rather than primarily a form of exchange or wealth system. The metallographic results are not unfortunately accompanied by thekind of exposition of ironworking techniques and their reflection in thetechnical results which would make the results really accessible to thenon-specialist and which occupy, for example, the introduction to BrianScott's own Early Irish ironworking (n.d.). Such an expositioncould perhaps have partially supplemented the first 70 pages of thetext. These are taken up by chapters on the origin and typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. of thesword and the nature of warfare in Europe in the period of Celticexpansion -- as derived from archaeology and from written sources inantiquity -- as well as the role of the Celtic long sword which is seenas a drawback in massed hand-to-hand fighting such as that practised byHellenistic Greeks or the armies of the expanding Roman empire. Thesword is considered as more suited to an archaic form of hand-to-handcombat between individual heroes or leaders such as that described byHomer. Though some of this more general material is useful, it clearlyshows the influence of Pleiner's own theories of prehistoricsociety as expressed in his Otazka statu ve stare Galii (1979) which mayconfuse some readers who don't think that patriarchy stopped in theEarly La Tene era. It must be said that there is some repetition and a series ofmissed errors, mostly in proper names; for example, it seems unfortunatethat the Clarendon Press which published Jacobsthal's Early Celticart Celtic art(kĕl`tĭk, sĕl`–). The earliest clearly Celtic style in art was developed in S Germany and E France by tribal artisans of the mid- to late 5th cent. B.C. in 1944, should choose his name as one of the more frequentmis-spellings. Some of the unevenness may be due to the long-delayedpublication of Pleiner's original text, which has been in search ofa publisher for almost a decade; certainly one looks in vain for morethan a passing reference to the work of Andre Rapin and his colleaguesand the Institut de Restauration et de Recherches Archeologiques etPaleometallurgiques at Compiegne. In brief, while a fascinatingcompendium of archaeological, textual and technical information, this isa disappointment for many of us who had hoped for that full treatment ofhis many years of research which Pleiner could surely have presented toa wide readership. RUTH & VINCENT MEGAW Visual Arts & Archaeology The FlindersUniversity The university has established a reputation as a leading research institution with a devotion to innovation. It is a member of Innovative Research Universities Australia and ranks among the leading universities in Australia. of South Australia South Australia,state (1991 pop. 1,236,623), 380,070 sq mi (984,381 sq km), S central Australia. It is bounded on the S by the Indian Ocean. Kangaroo Island and many smaller islands off the south coast are included in the state. References CLEERE, H. 1993. Archaeometallurgy comes of age, Antiquity 67:175--8. PLEINER, R. 1979. Otazka statu ve stare Galii. Prague: Academia. SCOTT, B. N.d. (1991.) Early Irish ironworking. Belfast: UlsterMuseum.