Between the Carpathians and the Caucasus - Some remarks on an unsual copper blade from Vienna-Essling [Zwischen Karpaten und Kaukasus - Anmerkungen zu einer ungewöhnlichen kupferklinge aus Wien-Essling]

In the year 1944, a copper dagger (?) blade was found together with a double burial near Vienna-Essling. The blade does not resemble any local blade type of the Late Neolithic. Instead, the blade represents a characteristic weapon form of the North Pontic-Caucasian steppes, the so-called »Manych type«. These blades can be dated in that region to the Middle Bronze Age (approx. 2,600 BC). Thanks to further Catacomb Grave finds with »Manych« blades from Moldavia and Hungary, one can trace the influence of the nomadic steppe cultures into Central Europe. The burial at Vienna-Essling is currently the most western findspot of these Pontic-Caucasian copper blades, and with other burials, such as Bleckendorf in eastern Germany, testifies to steppe nomadic elements in the Final Neolithic cultural setting of central Europe. Althoug conventionally identified as dagger blades, the unusual technical conception of the type, with an over-proportioned long and blunt tang, allows for an alternative explanation, that they might have been shafted as lance- or spearheads