=Early Greek Bronze Age.=--The first class consists of arms which belong to the Early Bronze Age in Greece, a period preceding the mature and extensive civilisation to which the name of Mycenaean is commonly applied. The general date of 3000 to 2000 B.C., which is assigned to the weapons of this period, serves rather to indicate their chronological relations than to give their precise age. In any case they stand as a definite beginning of the history of arms in Europe. In these early times the sword had not been invented, and short daggers or spear-heads only were produced by workmen with a still imperfect mastery of metallurgy. The most ancient form was a short thick blade, with rivets in the base, where it was fastened to the hilt or shaft. A more secure attachment was contrived by prolonging the broad base of the blade into a tang, which was let into the handle and held by a rivet through the end. But the greatest advance was the discovery that if a rib were left up the middle of the blade, the edges could be fined down and tapered to a sharp point without loss of strength. In the final development the stiffening rib and the tang were connected, so that the strongest part of the blade was continued down into the handle. Yet in spite of progress and improvements in design, the old patterns remained in use to the end of the Bronze Age, and even later, so that a chronological classification based on the forms of early Weapons is untrustworthy. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--PRIMITIVE BRONZE SPEAR- AND DAGGER-BLADES, FROM GREECE AND CYPRUS (NOS. 241-4). 1:4.] All the stages in the development are shown in these examples. The most primitive types are represented by a series of blades from Cyprus (No. =241=; fig. 94_a_), which, from material and technique, might be placed at a very early period; but they were excavated from Mycenaean tombs of the end of the Bronze Age. To the same island belong the narrow blades with long tangs, which are turned round at the end in a hook to hold the handle (No. =242=; fig. 94_b_). This type is said to have been found in graves of 3000 B.C. It is certainly a primitive shape, and peculiar to the pre-Mycenaean civilisation of Cyprus. Another local variety is known in the leaf-shaped blade with a sharp tang and two slits, one on each side of the midrib, through which the shaft was lashed in place (No. =243=; fig. 94_c_). The pattern is characteristic of the contemporary civilisation of the Cycladic Islands. Two pointed blades with no tang belong to the same early period. The smaller of the two was found at Athens (No. =244=; fig. 94_d_). [Illustration: FIG. 95.--BRONZE SWORDS OF THE MYCENAEAN PERIOD (NOS. 245, 247-8). 1:4.] [Illustration: FIG. 96.--BRONZE SWORDS OF LATE MYCENAEAN TYPE (NOS. 249-50). 1:4.]