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 influence of the Hungarian Sword Style — Connections with the Irish Scabbard Style

Fig. 28 Conflans (Marne), bronze brooch: "fibula B" (after Kruta [l

975J fig. 2) The importance of the links with Marne area is underlined by fibula "B" from Conflans (Fig. 28). It has recently been suggested that this brooch was decorated using a matrix. Three short-beaked bird heads with stylised plumage linked by an S-tendril can be seen on the knob the bent-back foot. A triskeles spirals across the ring attaching the foot to the both with a bird's head inbetween. The bow is also adorned by two similar bird heads. The spring mechanism is covered with a round plate on the side bearing a triskeles within a symmetric tendril motif. The most striking element of this design is the recurring bird head motif whose most obvious counterpart can be quoted from the Cernon-sur-Coole scabbard and its Slovakian parallel. V. Kruta has convincingly shown that the decoration of the Conflans " B" fibula cannot be derived from local Marnian tradition, and an origin in the Danube region, in the Carpathian Basin, seems more plausible.

364 M. Jope had noted in 1958 the stylistic links between the ornaments of the early phase of insular Celtic art and Cernon type designs.

365 This observation was further elaborated by De Navarro, Megaw and others, whilst Kruta cited new evidence from the continent in its support.

366 In his comprehensive study on the Irish Scabbard Style B. Raftery threw fresh light on this problem.

367 It is primarily the decorated scabbards from Lisnacrogher and the river Bann which invite comparison with the scabbard ornaments of the Carpathian Basin. Raftery emphasized the importance of the "tripledot design" on the scabbards from Bölcske, Cernon and the Irish scabbards,

368 and there are also evident links between the structure of the compositions, the basic ornament (such