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

I. EXPERIMENTATION - Geometric ornament - The Waidalgesheim Style

Fig. 2 Waldalgesheim, decoration of the gold tore (after Schwappach [1971] fig. 10:7) The elegantly executed main motif contrasts sharply with the clumsy tendril of figuresof-eight elements extending over the entire socket, with the already known lozenge frieze inbetween.

60 The zigzag pattern framing the spearhead is separated from the socket by a simplified palmette derivative. The engraving technique links this spearhead to the decorated weapons of the Carpathian Basin. The two principal motifs were apparently made using the same template, and the composition itself which derives from the double lyre motif is perhaps copied from precious metalwork design,

61 implying that it is certainly later than its closest parallels, the ornaments of the Waldalgesheim or the Filottrano tore. Unfortunately, only so much is known about the Budapest spearhead that it was found in Hungary, and thus, in the lack of find associations the former statement can at best be regarded as a terminus post quern for its dating.

62 The technique and the tendril pattern of the socket suggest a local engraver from the Carpathian Basin. We have not yet enough information to determine whether inspiration for the main motif (or its template) came from the Italo-Celtic world or from the Rhineland. We have now arrived at the most dynamic genre of Celtic art: engraved sword scabbards. The decoration on the reverse of the Liter scabbard (Liter 1: Cat.no. 39; Pis 43, 44) — incorporated into two triangular and one lozenge shaped field —, was for a long time considered indecipherable and, in consequence, as unfinished work.

63 However, it later proved possible to decipher the tendril ornament which was badly damaged by corrosion: a continuous tendril pattern in the Waldalgesheim Style or, to be more precise, a wave tendril or a triskeles "garland"

64 inviting comparison with the more elaborately decorated scabbard Fig. S Moscano di Fabriano, detail of the decoration on the bronze scabbard (after Frey [1971] fig. 1.) from the Moscano di Fabriano burial (Fig. 3): the tendril pattern fills the two border panels on each side.

65 The front plate of the Filottrano scabbard is ornamented with a more sophisticated but nonetheless genetically related pattern.

66 The tendrils incorporated into a triangle on the Larchant (Seine-et-Marne) scabbard (Fig. 4.) is the closest parallel to the designs of the Liter scabbard.

67 Fig. 4 Larchant, detail of the decoration on the lost scabbard (after Duval-Kruta [1976] fig. 4)