New La Tène warrior burials from Gaul

[Duncan Head]

See http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2013/la-tene-warriors-unearthed-in-france, with some nice photos.

[Patrick Waterson]

The sword seems nicely preserved - and not ritually bent.  Were I a Greek author I would call this one a makhaira. 

[aligern]

Do I recall correctly that ritually bent swords are not deposited in graves but in sacred pools or groves where they are offerings of a defeated enemy's kit.  The dead man's burial goods are for use  in the afterlife so a bent sword would be a disadvantage?
Of course you can stick the appropriate count of perhaps and maybe into the above.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

Do I recall correctly that ritually bent swords are not deposited in graves but in sacred pools or groves where they are offerings of a defeated enemy's kit.  The dead man's burial goods are for use  in the afterlife so a bent sword would be a disadvantage?

Apparently not - but it may be regional? See http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/tag/bent-celtic-sword/ for bent swords in Balkan graves.

[Erpingham]

Apparently not - but it may be regional? See http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/tag/bent-celtic-sword/ for bent swords in Balkan graves.

Clearly not universal but see this article for the evolution of the practice in what is now Holland

http://www.academia.edu/1229644/The_emergence_of_Early_Iron_Age_chieftains_graves

[aligern]

So, looks like they DO put bent swords in graves!!

[Andreas Johansson]

I wonder if the idea might have been that a dead man needed a "dead" sword.

[Erpingham]

There is certainly a theory that the afterlife was a mirror image of this one, in the sense what was whole here was broken there and vice versa.  Another idea is that it was less dangerous than giving a ghost a functional weapon (though if you are afraid of armed ghosts, why put weapons in graves?).  A third is that you broke a weapon to release its spirit, so that the grave dweller would have a spirit weapon for the spirit world.  The first and third would tie in with broken weapons in ritual deposits - you want the gods to have something they can use.  Or maybe it is for a reason like breaking the Pope's ring - that the weapon could only belong to one person and, when that person dies, it is symbolically put beyond use.

Alas, fascinating though it is, its all speculation.