VIII. Note on the Angon of Agathias

Extract

In my communication “On some of the Weapons of the Celtic and Teutonic Races” read to the Society some time since, I alluded to the fact of the weapon termed “angon” by Agathias never having been found in any of the numerous graves of the Frank and Anglo-Saxon period explored in France and in this country. The subject was thought not undeserving the attention of an active and observant Fellow of the Society, and accordingly Mr. Wylie on the 20th January, 1853, communicated some remarks on this weapon, which he illustrated by a sketch of a javelin, presumed by him to represent the angon so minutely described by Agathias. This example is preserved in the Museum of Artillery in Paris, and it is represented in Mr. Wylie's remarks in the 35th volume of the Archæologia, p. 51. At the same time Dr. Collingwood Bruce noticed incidentally in his account of the Roman Wall a weapon nearly identical in shape and character with that described and represented by Mr. Wylie.