En sværdskede fra ældre bronzealder

Resumé

A Scabbard from the Early Bronze Age

One of a belt of tumuli in the neighbourhood of Nim on the road from Horsens to Brædstrup, in a damaged condition and scheduled for removal, was recently excavated by Horsens Museum. The tumulus had a diameter of 12 meters, and was surrounded by an edge-ring of cobbles. Remains of four secondary graves were found, one a damaged urn from the Late Bronze Age, and the other three stone settings in which urns had originally stood.

The central grave consisted of a stone setting 3 by 1 meters, lying east-west with a trough-like depression in the centre (fig. 1). In the trough lay sooty stripes and remains of wood as evidence of an oak-trunk coffin, and the left humerus only of the skeleton, which had lain with its head to the west. Grave furnishings comprised a tutulus, a badly preserved fibula, a bronze dagger in a wooden sheath and, above it, a well-preserved sword in a wooden scabbard (fig. 2). In the scabbard lay also a flint dagger which had clearly been used as a fire-stone, and a little bronze knife. In addition three small pieces of woollen cloth, of two-shaft weave and dark colour, were preserved near the sword.

The most important of the objects discovered is the wooden scabbard (figs. 2 b & 3). It was made of two flat wooden battens, glued together at the edges, with a rounded lip and a pointed end. It probably originally possessed a chape of horn, bone or leather, as the sword projected from the end of the scabbard when found. It is decorated with a central rib and two fields of curved lines. The bronze objects must belong to Bronze Age Period 2, and the scabbard can therefore be compared with several other examples of that period ⁴, ⁵, ⁶, ⁷, ⁸).

Bent Sylvest