From the Norse sagas or the Arthurian cycles, we are used to the concept that the
warrior's weapon has an identity, a name. In this article I shall ask whether some
prehistoric weapons also had an identity. Using case studies of La Tène swords, early
Iron Age central and southern Italian spearheads and middle and late Bronze Age type
Boiu and type Sauerbrunn swords, I shall argue that prehistoric weapons could indeed
have an identity and that this has important implications for their biographies,
suggesting that they may have been conserved as heirlooms or exchanged as prestige
gifts for much longer than is generally assumed, which in turn impacts our
understanding of the deposition of weapons in tombs, where they may have had a
‘guardian spirit’ function.