A GERMAN BACKSWORD, CIRCA 1500-20, PROBABLY LOW GERMAN in excavated condition, with tapering blade double-edged and of flattened-diamond section for the last quarter, steel hilt comprising a pair of slightly down-curved moulded quillons with flattened mushroom-shaped terminals, outer ring-guard, moulded knuckle-guard, and pommel en suite with the quillons, and retaining some early gilding throughout 76.5cm; 30 1/8in blade The form of the pommel and the style of decoration are reminiscent of German "Landsknecht" swords and daggers of the first half of the sixteenth century. The pommel is similar to the dagger of Duke Heinrich the Younger of Brunswick, now preserved in the Historisches Museum, Dresden. See H. Seitz 1965 p. 370, fig. 276 and pl. IX.