HOW WERE THEY BENT? THE ART OF DISTORTING A HALLSTATT C PERIOD IRON SWORD: A NEUTRON DIFFRACTION STUDY

In the Netherlands, a few bent iron swords from the Early Iron Age Hallstatt C period were discovered. The most famous bent sword was a Mindleheim-type sword found ‘curled-up’ inside a bronze situla in the Chieftain’s burial in Oss in 1933. In addition to the sword from Oss, several other bent swords dating to the Hallstatt C period have been found in the Netherlands, for example, the sword-grave of Heythuizen and the wagon-grave of Wijchen. The question remains, how were these swords bent, by brute force or by heating and hammering? Could this have been done at the place of burial or was it necessary to bring the sword to a smithy? Knowing how the swords were bent, implies the knowledge, skills and equipment of people in this period and thus adds to the archaeological framework around the Hallstatt culture and burials found in the Netherlands. The aim of this research is to study the bending process on the basis of the microstructure of the swords, preferably by non-invasive methods. Therefore, the structure and composition of the metal (and the corrosion) will be studied through neutron imaging and diffraction. Fortunately, we could sample one of the swords which enables us to perform a complementary method, SEM-EBSD. The results of neutron imaging will be compared to the metal structure seen in the cross-sections.