4th-5th century AD. An iron two-edged sword with parallel-sided blade with pointed tip, battle nicks to both cutting edges; the tang retaining one of the rivets from the wooden handle (now absent); gold sheet with punched decoration from the scabbard wrapped around the tang; a separate gold discoid pommel cap with almandine stones and granulation, another small gold mount with almandine stone with a tang to the reverse for attaching to a lace hanging from the pommel. See I Goti, Milano, 1994; Lebedinsky, I., Armes et guerriers barbares au temps des grandes invasions, Paris, 2001, p.116, for similar swords.690 grams total, sword: 88.5cm, pommel cap: 31mm (34 3/4 - 1 1/4"). Ex private collection of Mr M. B., Mainz, Germany, since the 1980s; accompanied by an archaeological report by military specialist Dr. Raffaele D’Amato; this lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and by AIAD certificate number no. 10392-169241. Wonderful examples of these swords have been found in Panticapea/Kertsch, possibly produced in the Imperial Ateliers in Constantinople (Various, 1994, pp.118-119"). Specimens without guards existed, but the Late Roman workshops produced examples with guards, including examples with cloisonné decoration; it is highly possible that other examples were produced with stone guards in a Chinese style. Comparable elements were discovered in Chersonesus and Altlussheim (Lebedinski, 2001, p.123 fig.2"). Sometimes, like in our case, a stone pendant mount in gold and almandine was attached to the pommel. This sword was a current type in Crimea and in the Ukrainian-Russian Steppes in the 4th-5th centuries. Such examples were not widespread in the Western world, although the sword depicted on the Stilicho Diptych could belong to this type, and some scholars have identified the same typology on the sword worn by the Emperor Constantius II in the famous silver dish from Kertch, today at the Hermitage. [4]