Spear/Javelin Research

[Michael Thomas]

Hi, long time lurker, newly registered to these forums. I'm attempting to find information on post-migration era(by which I mean maybe 700->1000 C.E.) Scandinavian spears and earlier javelins. I'm mostly looking for physical dimensions, museum pieces, or accurate reproductions. Explorations of cultural significance would be very much valued as well, but not exactly expecting to find that.

What I've found has been either dubious or poorly documented. The few academic articles I've found are much too narrow in scope and thin in content.

I'm aware that this is a little outside ARMA's normal field of research(considering the relatively narrow, early focus, which precludes much reconstruction), but as interests often overlap, I'm posting in hopes that someone will be able to point me in the right direction.

Scholarship ahoy,
MT

[Benjamin Smith]

Unfortunately the difficulties you describe I also find to be the case. The only semi-decent information would be extrapolations from pictures (tapestries and such) and surviving examples from later periods. As far as I can tell, they just didn't document their weapons' dimensions in the Early-High Middle ages, because people already knew what they were supposed to be like. Most of the findings from that time have lost their hafts and give us a poor picture of what they were actually like. I'd reccomend looking up museum sites and seeing if they display their pieces.

[Nathan Dexter]

I know that there are some spear and javelin heads in museums out there, but I dont know about any shafts. there might be something in the sagas. but I dont know about the kind of wood or size. but I think most javelins are very similar.