A Sword from afar

Abstract

More than 20 years ago a sword of the Early La Tène form was discovered in the river Cetina in Dalmatia in Croatia. The scabbard of the sword was decorated with a dragon pair and the chape clamps of the heart-shaped chape ends were decorated with triskeles ending in the form of dragon’s heads with widely open beaks. It was the first discovery of such a find in Croatia and the detailed discussion of its form and decoration demonstrated that that it was produced in the workshops of Northern Italy and most probably brought across the Adriatic by the Adriatic Celts – the Celtic mercenaries employed by the Sicilian Greeks.1 But the presented sword was not the only find…