Spears from the Imperium Romanum

[Crispianus]

I'm going to have to eat my words non of the modern books have details of spear shafts that I can see, though "Der Thorsberger Moorfund" katalogue, K Raddatz, contains fragments with measurements, which look like mostly ends for the spear heads, but no complete example and no wood identification even though other wood is sometimes identified.

Ivor, I want to make sure I understand.  Are you telling me that the two giant volumes on spears and lances from Ilerup Aadal do not publish the spears, just the spear-heads and lance-points?

And that Klaus Raddatz' Der Thorsberger Moorfund Katalog, Offa-Bücher band 65 1987 does not publish the spears and lances just the heads or points?

And that Andreas Rau with titles like Nydam Mose 1-2: Die personengebundenen Gegenstände. Grabungen 1989-1999 does not publish the spears, just the spear-heads and spear-points?  Because the wood is the interesting sophisticated bit, any apprentice can bang a piece of iron into a socketed spearhead!  And the wood is the rare part, there are hundreds of thousands of surviving spearheads from the ancient world but having the whole spear is much more informative.

I think I really lucked out with East Anglian Archaeology 118!  Which was available and affordable from Oxbow Books when I bought it.

Sadly Yes... as far as I can see there is no spearshaft detail in Illerup vol 1 & 2 though there are occasionally spear shafts in photos of the dig, however there are many complete or near complete spears in drawings of the dig in vol 8 basically a slip file of detailed plans of high class groupings, which takes up four volumes of the series.
The Thorsberg Katalogue is just that a catalogue, items 427-480 are pieces of spear shaft (maximum length about 26cm ish) mostly from the business end but there are a few from the center indicated by nails (Engelhardt), I assume this is all that survived. 
All these volumes have much woodwork but spearshafts definatly take a back seat.

The quality of the actual finds is superb as is the publication... except for this one thing.