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Comment by leafmeal | Hacker News Reader

It's impressive to see the difference between the dagger as it was discovered and as it's been restored, but I'm really curious to see what it would look like in "like-new" condition.

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Here is another one restored to a better shape [1], close-up [2]. I must admit it doesn't look as perfect as replicas (e.g. in movies), obviously we have much better and precise technology/craftsmanship these days. Probably "as new" may not differ that much from what we restore to.

1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeology-intern...

2. https://www.archaeology.org/news/8493-200302-germany-roman-d...

I can never get over how real sword (or dagger) handles look so painful to wield. Maybe it's that most of them have lost some leather wrapping or else were just ornamental...but I've seen several that just looked guaranteed to hurt the wielder with each swing.

That's because most of them had leather wrapped hilts and after all these years the leather is long gone leaving just the tang and any decorative embellishments that it had.

You should see the other guy.

Still looks pretty impressive, especially considering what they had to work with!

The quality of metalwork back then was incredible.

Every so often I stumble on images of various hoards, and the gold work in particular is just awesome. Gold ages well, so there is that, but the workmanship is just incredible. The Great Torc from Snettisham is a good example.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Torc_from_Snettisham

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