Arheologia Moldovei, XXXVII, 2014, p. 261–271 A 16 th CENTURY “STYRIAN” RIDING SWORD IN THE COLLECTIONS OF THE HISTORY MUSEUM OF MOLDAVIA IN IASI BY CĂTĂLIN HRIBAN *  One of the exhibits of Moldavia’s History Museum is an Early Modern/Late Medieval sword that has been until recently known and labeled as “Prince Vasile Lupu’s Sword”. Our investigation demonstrates, by means of typology analysis and analogy, that the item is an ordonance weapon in the category of “riding swords” dated at the end of 16 th or the in the beginning of the 17 th century, used to equipp the light cavalry or to be worn as side,weapon by travelers. The type of weapon is known as Styrian Sword, as the largest group of preserved items is located in the Styrian Arsenal Museum in Graz, Austria. : riding sword, Graz Arsenal, Danner family, Nuremberg, the Thirteen Years War. The Early Modern Module of the History Museum of Moldavia in Iasi has exhibited since 1960 a sword described, at least in one early instance, as having “the pommel in the shape of a two;headed eagle” 1 . One understands why with such reference the piece was linked to Prince Vasile Lupu (1634–1653), a voivode with dreams of Imperial restoration, and placed in the exhibition directly beneath the plaster copy of this prince’s foundational inscription of the Trei Ierarhi Monastery. In fact, the institutional oral wisdom often describes the piece as the “Vasile Lupu’s sword”. In an earlier paper we tried to clear as much as possible this connection with the Moldavian prince, or any member of the ruling family, for that matter 2 . Thanks to the more recently published catalogues and the huge amount of data readily available on the Internet, we can clear a bit more the typology, classification and Early Modern origin of a very geographically and chronologically specific type of sword, explaining thus some of the reasons of such of weapon being present in this European “Far;East”. The registration data (inventory number 1073) indicate neither the origin nor the identification and only a vague indication as inherited from the collections of the Museum of Antiquities, a didactic museum founded in 1925 within the University of Iasi by Orest Tafrali, which was dismembered after WWII, its collections being transferred to various institutions, the largest part representing the core of the actual History Museum of Moldavia. The data;sheet of the piece do not justify by themselves neither the chronology (the 17 th century) nor the attribution of this sword to any real historical character. This paper attempts to bring forth the largest possible amount of accurate historical and typological data in order to fill this void. The research used a large number of web pages and communications with various knowledgeable persons, through forums and emails. The information from these sources was verified by means of published ones, mainly monographs dedicated to Renaissance weaponry, as well as collection and exhibition catalogues. * Institute of Archaeology, Romanian Academy – Iași Branch; catalin.hriban@gmail.com. 1 Al. Andronic, M. Petrescu;Dîmbovița, Muzeul de Istorie a Moldovei, Ed. Meridiane, București, 1966, p. 77. 2 C. Hriban, „Sabia lui Vasile Lupu de la Ia7i”, in Ioan Neculce. Buletinul Muzeului de Istorie a Moldovei (Serie Nouă), X–XII (2004–2006), pp. 201–210.