Pluralité ethnique et culturelle à travers l’exemple de l’épée celtique dans l’Italie préromaine des IVe et IIIe s. av. J.-C.
Résumé
The straight La Tène type sword with an iron sheath was widely used across much of middle Europe during the second half of the first millennium BC. This emblematic weapon of the Celtic elites was used in central seventeenth-century Italy, in the most diverse cultural, linguistic and ethnic environments. The spread of these weapons in central Italy, outside the territories controlled by the newly established Celtic peoples, has often been invoked to illustrate the influence and expansion of the Celts across the Peninsula. These finds, ancient or recent, often listed and mapped but never really studied, deserve special attention, especially since the Sabellian peoples, such as the Venetians, the Ligurians, the Alpine populations or the Picts, do not seem to have known other types of armament for this period. We will focus our attention here on the examples from Tuscany and Abruzzo to show that they have not been simply borrowed from the northern alpine repertoire but that the craftsmen of the Peninsula, by adopting these models, have been able to adapt them to their needs while innovating.