Celtic Two-Handers

[Elmetiacos]

At last the question gets answered! The longest blades are from Port Nidau in Switzerland. Reading the rest of the Swordforum thread, though, two-handed use is only one possibility; others posters suggest their use in executions, from horseback (hmm... too early for Celtic cavalry?) from chariots (hmm once again) or simply as great big swords to be used as ornaments or thrown into lakes as offerings. Perhaps most importantly, the possible two-handers all come from before the EB timeframe. That, incidentally would be before the Celts invented mail which makes two-hander use on the battlefield even less likely: unless you need to cut through heavy armour, discarding your shield is not going to be worth it.

To set the record straight, I never said that all Celtic swords were short and blunt, what I said was that during the La Tene period, there was a tendency for swords to get shorter and for more to be made with blunt ends. You start off, c.700BC with the classic Celtic Longsword, leaf shaped and long and you end up with little machete-like weapons. Doesn't that make you wonder how Celtic warfare was developing...?

Calling the British "sword masters" a fantasy unit is still valid, since no swords anything like the Port Nidau models have turned up in Britain or Ireland. The continental equivalent, if not fantasy, is still both conjecture and anachronistic even if real (much more so than the lorica segmentata everyone gets so annoyed about)

Thank you and goodnight.

[blitzkrieg80]

Calling the British "sword masters" a fantasy unit is still valid, since no swords anything like the Port Nidau models have turned up in Britain or Ireland. The continental equivalent, if not fantasy, is still both conjecture and anachronistic even if real (much more so than the lorica segmentata everyone gets so annoyed about)

Speaking of fantasy, what would you call suggesting authority based on random internet postings? oh, sorry... was there ever a single legitimate academic citation? Maybe I missed when you bothered with that. EB does use citations in our internal forum. We don't have to prove it to you. We might have a collection of such available for the public in the future to dismiss the rag of some harpies, but we certainly don't need internet evidence held to your subjective standards. When you see anything posted concerning the internet by EB members, that's called a treat. Treat for you (us too)- it is no authority. Much more fun and interesting than nothing.


Concerning swords, so, what is the argument? That the small amount of evidence we have for the exact EB starting time period does not hold completely convincing evidence? and that somehow the technology was lost, since later there are no examples even though it was available earlier? Atlanteans! I suppose axes are similarly a lost technology... thus the Germanic tribes became adept at felling trees with clubs, since the Battle Axe culture was gone and there are no examples of axes... now we can come back to 'Celts Don't Know Axe' topic. What fun the internet is.

[lobf]

Speaking of fantasy, what would you call suggesting authority based on random internet postings? oh, sorry... was there ever a single legitimate academic citation? Maybe I missed when you bothered with that. EB does use citations in our internal forum. We don't have to prove it to you. We might have a collection of such available for the public in the future to dismiss the rag of some harpies, but we certainly don't need internet evidence held to your subjective standards.

Let's please not let this turn into a flame war. All the mean-spiritedness could be avoided by just posting contrasting evidence.

[blitzkrieg80]

Let's please not let this turn into a flame war. All the mean-spiritedness could be avoided by just posting contrasting evidence.

Ditto.

[Foot]

We have literally said a million times that at the moment we do not have the resources to respond to your concerns at this time. While we are developing EBII we will revisit these sources and make new conclusions. Until that time we really cannot waste our time responding to your endless and repeative questions. Tempting us to respond these questions by either directly or indirectly bringing the EB name into disrupute is not helpful at all.

If you are concerned with celtic swords in the La Tene period perhaps you should try at a forum that specialises in that area. We cannot help you at this time.

Foot

[russia almighty]

Wasn't some of the stuff from a uni data base? I don't know about you but I could get in deep shit from letting people not at uni see material on it (cause it's a form of piracy if I were to just copy-pasta a page and photobucket it)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Wasn't there a thread recently where some of the same folks were saying we shouldn't have any Celtic units with swords at all? That they were just used when a spear broke or when they wanted to cut the head off dead enemies? That one got quiet suddenly. Oh well, all of it is "fantasy" I guess.

[Elmetiacos]

Wasn't there a thread recently where some of the same folks were saying we shouldn't have any Celtic units with swords at all? That they were just used when a spear broke or when they wanted to cut the head off dead enemies? That one got quiet suddenly. Oh well, all of it is "fantasy" I guess.

It suggested that there may well not have been any formations in a Celtic army entirely armed with swords as primary weapons in the EB period, because the sword seemed to have declined in functionality and importance as a primary weapon. This applied only to Gauls and Britons, by the way; the Galatians apparently carried on using swords. It got quiet because nobody else posted anything on the topic. That's what happens when nobody else posts: the thread goes quiet.

[Elmetiacos]

Let's please not let this turn into a flame war. All the mean-spiritedness could be avoided by just posting contrasting evidence.

All the evidence is in that well-known academic work "La Tene Gaul" published by the University of Prague - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=502 in the chapter "There Were No Two Handed Swords"...

[blitzkrieg80]

Elmetiacos, linking to Frostwulf's post, who took the time to make citations- that is not the same thing at all as making a citation yourself. Or is your argument that the 'Celts are overpowered'?

[Frostwulf]

Blitz I believe he is referring to the fictitious citation made by Psycho:

(‘Indo-European History’, ‘La Tene Gaul’, XVI, 5.63, Univerzita Karlova v Praze)

He is insinuating that the 'Celtic' two handed sword would find a place in that fake citation.

I'm curious about the 'Celtic' two handed sword thing myself, has there been any professional opinion on the subject or classical texts which speak of such things?
On another similar subject:

They precisely confirmed attestations of Sassanian cavalry wielding swords as "large as a man", and depictions of "Kushano-Hephtalite" cavalry in cave paintings and bowls found in Afghanistan. I am not making this up. You read it correctly, a sword measuring six feet in length.

Is there classical writings of these swords being used from horseback or were they ceremonial? The same question holds true of the cave paintings and bowls, were the swords represented being used in battle or just accompanying the warrior? Also since they didn't have stirrups, did they have some kind of saddle like that of the 'Celts'?

[Ibrahim]

about the records in Persia, I dunno, but judging from the Arabs fear of the Savaran's sword and bow play, the answer is yes, they probably did exist (dhi qar I gathered was a huge upset in Arabia, since the Aras actually defeated the persians). and aren't those photos enough? and the Archeological dig (I'm confirming atm). as for saddle, the sassanid era was famed for the introduction of the high saddle (ancestral to a knight's saddle. its possible to wield good sized swiords on horsvback sine stirrups: knights are ofetn depicted fighting with a straight posture, and with their feet off the stirrup

and for all those who are flamin around about history, open the spoiler (the moderaters might want to read the first sentance in particular)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and before this goes out of hand, please close this thread. Its not right to be flaming each other over historical info like so. this can be settled elsewhere, like a debate room (or the back room)...and its not right for Elmetiacos to insult a person's intelligence (if you rellly reffered to the blatently false info from this psycho fellow), or Blitz to retort like that. I've learned my lesson about these things, and think you all need it too as well. If poeple want to ask questions, they got The assorted historical questions thread-its there for a purpose (I'm using it nowadays), namely for poeple to answer questions with out distracting the EB members, who need to focus on EB 2 at the moment. and please read the thread from khelvan about the mod. its solves so may problems.

this team has put up with many a harsh critiques before, and they are probably fed up, but I say this: they have put their time and effort into this (I gather 3 years now), to realize this project, and to make this more historically accurate. they have had to put up with lack of sources (for the languages in Europe), lack of readily available good info on equipment, and a need to rummage through practicaly ever library they have access to these morsels of information (judging from the bibliography). they have also gone through several changes in crew (some leaving, others quieting, or even god forbid-dying), further adding to the trouble they have to go through. for all I know, the info they got this stuff from was lost with the dissappearence of these members. no one can claim to know everything about any period of time in the past (hear me Elmetiacos?), and even though some may come very very close (like TPC), no one has all the answers. thus they have to rely on their judgement, and weigh it against the evidence already presented. thus have they come up with what they did. I believe that they have come up with the most historically detailed mod that they can humanly make, without having the power of a 'arraf (a person who can literally see the past using magic, and is Islamically prohibited). if you want 100% accuracy, I suggest a time machine for your purposes. in the meantime, EB has come as close as humanly possible to the ideal of a ultra-realistic mod, and thus we must be thankful poeple like the EB team, or the RTR team, exist.

lastly: who's psycho? (ok that came out wrong) (PM if you want to tell me)

sorry for this lecture on ethics, but it had to come out. my 2cents

[HFox]

The continental equivalent, if not fantasy, is still both conjecture and anachronistic even if real

This statement confuses me.....is there a point to it. Or is it just fantasy to?

(much more so than the lorica segmentata everyone gets so annoyed about)

no......everyone does not get annoyed about it. I don't, I know he doesn't, so that's two of us, so the statement is a bit....glib

Thank you and goodnight.

Good point

Most of us just enjoy what has been given to us on a plate by a bunch of people working their asses off.

[Geoffrey S]

Good to know that the most substantial source posted thus far is an image cobbled together on swordforum.com. Class act.