Avar-age polearms and edged weapons : : classification, typology, chronology and technology / / by Gergely Csiky.

• Author: Csiky, Gergely, 1979-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2015]
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450 32.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (561 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In Avar-Age Polearms and Edged Weapons , Gergely Csiky offers a presentation of close combat weapons of a nomadic population that migrated from Inner Asia to East-Central Europe. During the late 6th – early 7th centuries, the Avars led successful military campaigns against the Balkan realms of the Byzantine Empire, facilitated by their cavalry’s use of stirrups for the first time in Europe. Besides the classification, manufacturing techniques, fittings, suspension, distribution, and chronology of polearms and edged weapons known from Avar-age burials, a special emphasis is laid on the origins and cultural contacts of these weapons, among them the first edged weapons with curved blades: the sabres. The social significance and, function of these artefacts is discussed in order to place them in nomadic warfare.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Polearms -- 3 Edged Weapons -- 4 Technology—Manufacturing Techniques -- 5 Chronology—Continuity and Discontinuity -- 6 Origins and Cultural Contacts -- 7 Armament and Society -- 8 Armament and Cavalry Warfare in the Aver-age Carpathian Basin -- 9 General Conclusions -- References -- Maps -- Index.