Beschreibung:

Viking Sword with Brazil Nut Pommel 9th century AD A double-edged sword of Petersen Type K, Sub Type 8, with broad tapering blade, shallow fullers, boat-shaped crossguard inlaid with copper and silver ringerike pattern, the large pommel bearing the same decoration. 1.3 kg, 86.5cm (34"). Fine condition. Provenance Property of an East Anglian collector; formerly acquired on the European art market in the 1990s; accompanied by an archaeological report by military specialist Dr Raffaele D'Amato Literature See Petersen, J., De Norske Vikingsverd, Oslo, 1919; see Peirce, I., Swords of the Viking Age, Suffolk, 2002; see Williams G. Weapons of the Viking Warriors, Oxford, 2019. Footnotes The sword finds very few parallels, the best one being the specimen from Loten, Hedmark, published by Petersen (1919, p.144, fig.92). Petersen regarded the type K typically characterised by its five and rarely seven lobed pommel, and ascribed its origin to the workmanship of the Frankish lands. He supported the thesis that the type came to Norway in the first half of the 9th century, as a consequence of Viking raids (Peirce, 2002, p. 20). However, the find locations of type K are thoroughly distributed across Europe, having been found from as far south as the Balkans. The presence of two distinct upper hilt components is the most typical feature of this type, and in the later examples the upper guard and pommel may have been fused into a single piece, with only incised lines recalling the former boundary. In Norway, the type continued to evolve into the second half of the ninth century, originating the type O in the late ninth-early tenth century.