So I had some very nice knives made and am looking for sheathes to go with them. I am not having any luck finding historical examples. Does anyong know of any statue or vase painting that depicts a knife sheath?
Edward
Edward Lindey
A horse is a thing of beauty... none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor. Xenophon
Well, there are some things that may help. It also depends on the kinds of knives and there use. As you are talking about sheaths, I suppose these are knives which are presumed to be carried on the person. The belt loop does not appear till well into the middle ages, the Roman and ironage sheaths I know of are fitted with a cord threaded through the upper portion of the sheath.
Given that there are so few sheaths recovered, a simple leather sheath without metal fittings (maybe a rivit here and there) could be chosen.
Have any knife scabbards or sheaths for La Tene Hiebmessers been found? These are two that are on my workbench now and they need to have their scabbards finished. Because these are very large knives, I decided to make wood scabbards instead of sheaths of thick leather. The wood will be covered in thin leather and I would like to add tooled La Tene artwork. I wonder if there may have been some metal fittings though.
Since the smith decided to make these out of pattern-welded steel, I think that they should be on the "showy" side.
Interestingly, I have made that exact same knife from Port, the Morel collection. Mine has the characteristic La Tene T shaped cross-section (which is a pain!), is made from mono-steel as I do not recall any pattern-welding (which may easily have been overlooked in an original, by the way) and I am also looking to make a good sheath for it.
[attachment=7978]LaTenefromPort.jpg[/attachment]
So far, however, I have not found any historical examples, so your choise of going for a wooden sheath with a leather covering makes perfect sense to me. If you are going to decorate the sheath, you may want to use a thicker type of leather and imprint the decorations when wet.
There seems to be evidence for daggers having similar fittings as the swords (the paralel with the pugio comes to mind) but none for the large Hiebmesser. So should you use metal/bronze fittings, best keep these small and functional.
I have also contemplated making the sheath from just wood, as that would allow for either elaborate carving or for a more spectacular choise of wood, like the holy taxus. That tree had great symbolical meaning. I may even try an all horn scabbard, made by flattening a large aurox horn. However, that is pure speculation and fantasy.
Hope to see the results of what you decided on, good luck!
