Archive of Transactions
A model sword from Bucklersbury House, London
Stephen Greep
The sword, from the Bucklersbury House site, Queen Victoria Street, and now in the Museum of London (accession number: 19637), has an iron blade and bone guard. The only complete example known, from Cologne, suggests that originally it would have had a bone handle, pommel and sheath also. The function of such model gladii – parts of which have been found on several sites on the Continent and in Britain – is uncertain, but a 1st or 2nd-century date can be proposed.
[Transactions 32 (1981), pp 103 – 6; abstract by Francis Grew, 11-Dec-1997