The graves at Hallstatt yielded in addition to these important swords a much larger number of spears. Of these two only were of bronze, the head of the larger being 7-1/2 in. long. The much more numerous iron heads range up to as much as 2 ft. in length, and are all fastened to the shaft by rivets. All the arrow-heads found are of bronze, while of the axes the great majority are of iron; a few have iron edges fitted in a bed of bronze. These examples are sufficient to show that the transition from bronze to iron was very slow. The fact that they were found in a district which is known to have been directly in the line of march pursued by invaders from the north tends to confirm the theory that the introduction of iron was the work of such invaders. See Sir John Evans, _Ancient Stone Implements_ (2nd. ed., 1897), _Bronze Implements_; W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_; and works quoted under ARCHAEOLOGY. Mycenaean and Homeric. 3. _Early Greek Weapons._--The character of the weapons used by the early peoples of the Aegean in the periods known as Minoan, Mycenaean and Homeric is a problem which has given rise of recent years to much discussion. The controversy is an important part of the Homeric question as a whole, and the various theories of the weapons used in the Trojan War hinge on wider theories as to the date and authorship of the Homeric poems. One widely accepted hypothesis, based on the important monograph by Dr Wolfgang Reichel, _Uber homerische Waffen. Archaologische Untersuchungen_ (Vienna, 1894), is that the Homeric heroes, like those who created the civilization known as Mycenaean, had no defensive armour except the Mycenaean shield, and used weapons of bronze. This view is derived to a great extent from the Homeric poems themselves, in which the metal most frequently mentioned is [Greek: chalkos] (bronze), and involves the assumption that all passages which describe the use of corslets, breastplates, small shields and greaves are later interpolations. It is maintained on the other hand (e.g. by Prof. W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, i. chap. 3), that the Homeric Achaeans (whom he regards as the descendants of the central European peoples, the makers of the Hallstatt iron swords) were far advanced into the Iron Age, and that the use of bronze weapons is merely another instance of the fact that the introduction of a new element does not necessarily banish the older. This theory would separate the Homeric from the Mycenaean altogether, and is part of a much more comprehensive ethnological hypothesis. According to another hypothesis, the Homeric poems are true descriptions of a single age, or, in other words, the weapons of the Homeric age were far more diverse and elaborate than is supposed by Reichel.