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

II. DRAGON-PAIR SWORDS

scabbard from southern Transylvania (Cat.no. 100; Pl. 97,1) and the Jutas 5 scabbard (Cat.no. 25; PI. 24) whose zoomorphic design can only be reconstructed in part, can also be quoted in this respect. These pieces can either be linked to the evolution of the Hungarian Sword Style or belong to the context of the style.

148 The scabbard from Lovasberény, grave 1 (Cat.no. 41; PI. 46) shows that the Litertype solution did not disappear even after the emergence of the Hungarian Sword Style: the Sword Style ornament lies under a rather transitional Type II dragon-pair and is quite independent of it.

149 According to I. M. Stead's recent survey the distribution of Type II dragon-pairs is a pan-Celtic phenomenon, with an even scatter of finds from Battersea in the west to Transylvania and Serbia in the east. At the same time, its absence from the middle zone of the La Tène culture (Switzerland and the Rhineland) is highly conspicuous.

150 De Navarro's Type I dragon-pair and his Type III which evolved from the former differs markedly from the zoomorphic lyre (De Navarro's Type II).

161 Type I beasts have a concave body with an extension reminiscent of a foreleg which curves inward and upward forming an arc in front of the "lower jaw" without touching. Hanging from the very unnaturalistic band-shaped body is a highly abstract feature which could be interpreted as a hind-leg.

152 Type III, on the other hand, has the foreleg and the lower jaw touching to form a closed circle, which in turn led to the modification of the head (often reminiscent of a bird's head) and to the body receiving a stem.

153 The distribution of Type I appeared to have a clearly defined concentration in the "east" which led De Navarro to suggest that this type, inspired by Schythian models, had evolved on the territory of Hungary from whence it was diffused westward rather rapidly.

154 This suggestion can be supported by convincing arguments if Celtic dragon-pairs are compared to the 4th century B.C. documents of the heraldic feline pair motif of the steppe.

155 It must nonetheless be borne in mind that it is impossible to prove — using the presently known archaeological methods — that the earliest specimens from Transdanubia (ReziRezicser: Cat.no. 55; PL 57) and the east side of the Danube Bend (Kosd: Cat.no. 30; PL 29, 30; 111. VI,3) are indeed earlier than their Swiss counterparts such as the scabbard from grave 138 of the Münsingen cemetery (Fig. 17).

166 One can, at the most, merely note that Type I dragon-pairs make their appearance quasi simultaneously in various regions during the final phase of the early La Tène period (La Tène Ic in the west, and La Tène B2 in the Carpathian Basin).

157 Fig. 17 Münsingen, iron scabbard with Type I dragon-pair from grave 1S8 (after De Navarro [1972} fig. 19.1) The number of Type I dragon-pairs from the west has grown considerably as a result of recent investigations, and their distribution now shows a rather even scatter. Obviously this has not solved any of the chronological problems mostly because there are few weapon finds that have been recovered from well dated contexts.

158 Concurrently with the reconsideration of the origins of Type II dragon-pairs,

159 it has been tentatively suggested, following a revision of the history of the motif, that Type I can perhaps be derived from Type II. We must here primarily refer to A. Bulard's studies,

160 as well as Stead's basically similar proposition, namely that one crucial document of this transition is represented by scabbard 4 from the site of La Tène (Fig. 18).

161 Recent discoveries of transitional dragonpair swords have been reported from Italy;