Szabó Miklós, Petres F. Éva: Decorated weapons on the La Tene Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 5; Budapest, 1992)

III. THE HUNGARIAN SWORD STYLE - The development of the style

III. THE HUNGARIAN SWORD STYLE The early 3rd century B. C. has been defined as a critical period in Eastern Celtic art by recent research. The period after the abortive Balkanic campaigns saw the wholesome Celtisation of the territory and the emergence of an eastern Celtic cultural and artistic koine with strong Danubian and Balkanic affinities whose most outstanding artistic achievements emerged in the course of the 3rd century. These can in part be fitted into a pan-La Tène context, whilst in part they can be considered regional, reflecting the distinctive features of the koine itself.

206 The development of the style The term "Hungarian Sword Style" was introduced by Paul Jacobsthal; the vigorous debates over the aptness of this term have been reviewed already in the Introduction.

207 In his Early Celtic Art Jacobsthal offers a concise and clear definition of the genesis of this style: "The style is a development of the Waldalgesheim Style and presupposes its existence."

208 This definition has since become an opinio communis and recent investigations in this field have mostly centred around filling the gaps of the framework proposed by Jacobsthal.

209 One very significant advance was the elaboration of the Swiss Sword Style by De Navarro

210 and, more recently, the outline given by the B. Raftery of the Irish Scabbard Style.

211 Among the proliferation of studies on this issue

212 one which must definitely be mentioned is a paper by O.-H. Frey

213 suggesting that the origin of the Hungarian Sword Style can be explained not only as an isolated development from the Waldalgesheim Style, but also by influences from the Mediterranean. This noteworthy proposal 214 however, does in no way contradict Jacobsthal's concept,

215 which is not at all dogmatic. Consequently, we must first investigate, in the light of the above, to what extent the distinctive compositions of the Hungarian Sword Style are related to the eastern Celtic documents of the Waldalgesheim Style and to what extent they can be derived from that style. The publication of the above analysed iron spearhead (Cat.no. 75; PL 78) with engraved vegetal decoration from the collection of the Hungarian National Museum has proved not only the presence of works of art attaining the highest standard of the Waldalgesheim Style in the Carpathian Basin, but also that the similar compositions can be regarded as a possible model for the symmetric design, which also appears on the "Hungarian" scabbards.

216 An even more important document is the Liter 1 scabbard (Cat.no. 39; Pis 43, 44) with its tendril pattern incorporated into three consecutive diagonal fields on its reverse, for this vegetal ornament definitely anticipates the ingenious compositions of the Hungarian Sword Style.

217 It has also been proposed that these weapons engraved with patterns following the artistic conventions of the Waldalgesheim Style can be regarded as products of a group of armourers active in the Middle Danube region who adopted an ornamental style that had not evolved in the local "eastern" centres of La Tène art.

218 While the master of the Liter scabbard had not yet achieved the synthesis of the zoomorphic lyre and the tendril design, a scabbard from the Voivodina region (Mitrovica) (Cat.no. 127; PL 119,1) shows a conscious effort to this effect: the "dragon-lyre" has became fully integrated into the profusion of peltas, double-pet ailed lotuses and fan motifs drawn from the repertory of the Waldalgesheim Style. Noteworthy is the formulation of the lotus motif: the petals and the stem curl into a spiral. The suspension loop of the scabbard carries a design of linked lotus flowers comparable to the carved ornament of the Waldenbuch stele which had probably been inspired by metalwork.

219 The solution t;o the problem of the association of motifs on the Voivodina scabbard can be regarded as Middle Danubian even if this particular piece is not to be considered typical of the Hungarian Sword Style. A similar ornamental concept is echoed by the scabbard fragment from Dvorodi kod Bijeljine (Cat.no. 117; PL 117,1) in Bosnia: a dragon-pair of De Navarro's Type II is combined with triskeles and intricate S-tendrils. The motif, incorporated into the circle formed by the "lower jaw" and the body, is a consequence of the abstract transformation of the Waldalgesheim lotus motif: the originally floral pattern becomes a schematized spiralling tendril.

220 Seen together, these two compositions indicate the preoccupation of eastern Celtic craftsmen with creating a complex, intricate tendril design which, however, involved a gradual departure from the harmonious, clear-cut vegetal patterns of the Waldalgesheim tradition. In these two cases this experimentation did not af-