Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the national museum of archaeology in Cividale, Friuli, Italy, and found something slightly unexpected: of the numerous langobard sword findings shown only the smallest number had the H form hilt that I had known as typical for the period (late 6th century, Northern italy) Most have a pommel of bronze (pyramidal for example), but apparently no guard. Now, that doesn't seem to make sense, but I can't find anything that would indicate that there was anything left out from the exhibits, or lost in reconstruction. My question therefor is: are hilts conceivable with guards made of perishable material? Or is this deemed an artifact or an exception? Or do the finds really indicate that there were no guards (comparable to the long-saxes, which had none either).
Without seeing examples of what the museum had on display it is difficult to explain with certainty what you may or may not have seen as a representative of Longobard age spathae. There is one example shown on their facebook page which may explain your phenomena, so we will use that as a basis for discussion.
In this example, there are almost no hilt elements remaining. Absent are all elements of what is called 'sword furniture': the handle material, the grip, the guard, and most of pommel elements are all gone, regardless of if they were made of a perishable organic material (wood, leather, textile etc), precious metals and gems, or common metals.
What is remaining is the tang, which runs through the grip, the pommel, all the way to the end, which has a cap serving as a peen block on a small portion of the pommel. This decorative pyramid fits over the tip of this tang, and and is hammered in place, then the rest of the pommel plate will be riveted to the lower face.
Other examples of Langobard swords are more complete and show a more classic hilt form. That said there are a variety of designs in migration era spathae, and the Behmer classification is worth reviewing.
