Xiphos blade shapes?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Most swords had a complex iron guard. The blade was one piece with the hilt,as you migh know,on which the wood or bone plates were riveted. However the wood or bone didn't extend on the guard. There,there were solid iron pieces riveted on either side of the guard. So in total there would be needed four solid pieces of iron. Between them the bone was secured and a thin iron plate was riveted on it,linking the two solid pieces of the guard.
Now,because i'm sure you didn't get anything of what i said,take a look on the Vergina sword:
http://www.tdpapazois.gr/images/sword.jpg
You have to replace the gold parts with iron. Also,here the gold is a thin sheet covering the real guard and the rivets are only indicated. You can see the three small circles.
Also the thin sheet linking the two solid parts of the gurd here is all one piece of gold. Now i know that this would make the life of any reconstructor much more difficult,but other swords i have seen on iron in good condition also seem to have been one piece! So there is actual change that the whole guard piece was casted together with the two solid pieces interlinked with a thinner one. The problem is that it has to bee too thin!
And a last thing that is unique in the above sword is that instead of wood or bone the grip was solid iron. I haven't seen this in any other sword of this type,but i have seen it on long kopides of about the same period that are presumed to have been cavalry swords. Indeed this xiphos is much longer than most others,considerably longer than the other two swords that have been found in the same tomb. So a heavier hilt might be needed to draw the point of balance a bit closer to the hilt.
Are you planning for a reconstruction?!
Khaire
Giannis

EDIT: Don't get confused with the rest of what you see under the guard. This is the throat of the scabbard,made of ivory. Some times it was covered by iron or less frequenty bronze. Usually it wasn't covered though.