Celtic Two-Handers

[Taliferno]

Off the top of my head, there was no "distinct" 2 handed sword that the Iron Age celts used, the same way that there was a claymore or Zweihander in the Medieval period. I no zip about the eastern Celts so I could be wrong.

BUT, it was entirely possible to use a "typical" Celtic longsword two handed if the user so wished, and they might have been more effective if used as such.

[HFox]

If you look at the top row

from the left sword 8 gives an idea of a single handed sword scale of the hilt to the pommel.

If you look four more along to the right, that handle is twice the size, IF to the same scale.

Now if all of these are to the same scale, then there are a number of '2' handed possibilities....

...or maybe hand and a half possibilities.

Does the blade 'need' to be longer?

[Reverend Joe]

Just to throw a little into the mix... is it possible that the swords in the above pic could have lost part of the metal support in the handle? It's a bit of a stretch, but if you consider that:
1) several of the shorter swords have noticeably longer handle supports,
2) the supports on the long swords are also rather straight and skinny, so it would be harder for someone to notice a piece missing, as opposed to the triangular-shaped supports and
3) again, they are rather long and skinny, so it would be easier for a piece to break off to begin with...
maybe they used to have longer metal supports. And again, we have no idea how long the wooden handles were.

Edit: the more I look at them, the more I am sure those swords used to have longer hilts. I will put up a pic in a moment showing you what I mean.

Edit 2:



Observe the swords I have pointed out; in particular, the ones on the right almost certainly have fully intact hilts, as indicated by the knob at the back. Observe that these hilts are longer than those of the three swords on the far left, especially scale-wise; while it is arguable that this is simply a different style, I simply can't see how this could be the case without those swords being totally unwieldy. True, they could have been specially wrought for champions, or possibly ceremonial, but I just think it's more likely that they at least had much longer wooden hilts.

[Redmeth]

lobf, I also posted the pic with the swords a few months back in another thread and it was Elmetiacos who brushed the picture off (like he usually did with everything that was not to his liking) by saying he doesn't see any scale and they're just a collage put together, I'm pretty sure you were around that thread too so stop beating around the bush and stop posting these bait questions, you either are really slow to understand things or just like to play with our nerves...

EDIT: Good points, Rev. Joe.