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It’s a Pugio up for auction.
A Roman dagger (Pugio)
Southern Europe, 1st century A.D.
A broad double-edged blade with a narrow medial ridge on both sides. Iron grip scales with preserved rivets and remnants of grooved decoration. Uncleaned excavation discovery. Grip piece bent. Length 26.5 cm.
This is all they say about it, I’ve contacted the auction house and they don’t have anymore information such as where it came from or any other history.
Steve
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Thanks Crispvs for such an in-depth explanation.
Laudes to you.
Steve
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Steve,
I checked the pictures I have of the well known Augustan period dagger from Oberaden last night and noticed that it also appears to have an extra rivet on the handle, only this time in the position above the central expansion where the upper hidden rivet would generally be found on the later 1st century AD handle, rather than the lower position. The arrangement may have been common then. Obviously we need further examples to know.
Thank you for the information from the auction house. Can you tell me the name of the auction house? I would like to contact them myself to see if the fact that I need the information for a book might incline them to contact the seller to see if more can be found out about it.
Thanks again.
Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers. :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:
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Are you guys all sure it is a Roman dagger? -i.e. from a clear and only Roman context. Probably not, if it comes from an auction house -and certainly not if it comes from a well known German collection.
Anyway, you should probably also consider the possibility that it might actually be a Celtiberian dagger of the second half of the 2nd c BC -even one captured by a Roman, why not!
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That is a possibility. I admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Spanish ancestors of the Roman pugio. My identification as a 1st century BC dagger is based on the blade shape and shape of the pommel expansion. As you suggest, some Spanish daggers do indeed have similar round pommel expansions. However, this dagger does show strong similarities to the blade found by Stoffel in the 1860s at Alesia and the Oberaden dagger.
Your observation is a good one however, and this is one of the main reasons why I am keen to find out as much as possible about the context it came from, if it is known by anyone.
Crispvs
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The more I look at it the more it looks like a late Celtiberian dagger. There are many more examples like this one in cemeteries in the Meseta than in any purely Roman context.
As for the Oberaden pugio... it is IMHO a VERY odd piece. It could be maintained that it were in fact a product of Celtiberian manufacture, one of the earliest examples in Roman contexts. Even the decorative partern and the shape of the hilt find closer parallels in Iberia than in any other Roman dagger. For example, the closest parallel to the decoration of the pommel -the uppermost disc- is in la OSera, grave 1387, according to the recent reexamination of the Celtiberian dagger by one of my graduate students, Eduardo Kavanagh, and myself.
