Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved
newsingermany.com
newsingermany.com
Which is why bronze and other copper-alloy artefacts are extremely resilient, unless they come in contact with chlorides and get bronze disease.
In 1990 I was visiting Edinburgh on business for Sun, and I wanted a Claymore in celebration of my Scottish ancestry. At the Haymarket, I met an antique salesperson who let me in on the sad truth that a "real" one would set me back $40,000+ in 1990 dollars. But he mentioned that the British Museum sometimes sold "extras", swords which weren't particularly significant or not something they were going to add to the collection but selling them raised funds to cover costs. And he gave me the number of a curator of the Arms and Armor section of the museum.
I called and spoke to the curator who told me that no, they didn't have, nor would they sell me a sword from their collection, but they did do business with a swordsmith in Whitburn who they sometimes used to make copies of swords in their collection so that they could display the copy and preserve the original. This smith had worked with them for years and made a point about re-creating the original process as closely as possible. The curator gave me contact information for the swordsmith[1].
I called the swordsmith and explained to him what I was trying to accomplish and he understood right away but explained that it would be expensive. Making these copies often took months to make. I told him that was okay and asked what he would charge me, his answer was 1,500 pounds[2], 750 up front and 750 on completion. He had a sword he was making for the museum and it would make a good template for the one he would make me. I agreed to his terms and across a bunch of timezones on two different continents managed to arrange a wire transfer to his account for the 750 pounds.
I returned from Scotland and told my wife the whole thing and she was skeptical and thought I had burned up $2,000 on a silly idea. About five and a half months letter I get a telegram (yes, honest to goodness "YOUR SWORD IS READY STOP SEND BALANCE STOP ..." etc kind of thing. I called him on the phone and he agreed to make a crate for it and to ship it via counter to counter service of British Airlines (they had a couple of different non-stop flights to SFO). We had a discussion about customs and duties and whether or not I wanted the sword tempered as it would have been in the 15th century, or not. The plan was to not temper it, making it somewhat useless as a "real" sword, and declaring it as a "Work of art, made of metal" (no duty required). He gave me the flight number they would ship it on and I wired him the rest of the funds.
A few days later I went to SFO to pick it up, inquired at the BA desk and they redirected me to customs. I went to customs and they said, "This isn't a work of art, this is a sword. You owe 10% duty on it." I tried to explain to them that the Venus de Milo was just some pottery with no arms but they were having none of it. They stuck firm and asked what I paid for it. I told them "1,500" so they charged me $150 duty.He didn't ask the units, and I didn't offer :-).
A bit less than a year later, the smith called me and explained that he had thrown out his rotator cup (shoulder injury) which made it impossible for him to make swords. He had someone looking for a Claymore and they would pay 5,000 pounds for it, would I be interested in selling mine. And I said "No, this is something I want my kids to inherit."
[1] A place called Whitburn Arms.
[2] The exchange rate at the time made this somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000 USD.
I am acutely aware that one never knows what is going on in the other person's head in a conversation, so I have to accept the possibility that he was hoping to generate another sale to me, but I feel pretty strongly that if that was what he was hoping for he would have mentioned it.
True.
So due to that, different people can have different reactions to the same situation.
Side note, I read this domain as “New Singer Many.com” at first :P
The sword is bronze, blacksmiths work with iron. Bronze is usually cast, iron is usually forged (heated and hit with a hammer).
How many "primitives" could pass a 8year olds Spelling Bee?
For example I try to sound out words with my kids as they learn to read. But it's not that simple. So many words are pronounced "incorrectly". It makes it very frustrating for all parties involved.
So.. is mass memorizing how to spell complicated words truly a sign of intelligence or just applied memorization to a field.
I would simply say I hate spelling but I loathe it so I can seem smarter even though they mean the same thing. English...
There's advancement in several fields of study and industry that need to happen before you can make the thing, especially circa 3000. Geography, Mining, Manpower, Logistics, Science... to name a few!
This post covers it quite well.
https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
Here is a map of the distribution of octagonal-hilted swords in Europe:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-showing-the-distribu...
As you can easily see, there are two clearly separated areas where these swords were found.
The following article (PDF, in German, including an English abstract and some nice photos) explores the possible (dis-)connection between the two areas:
https://goedoc.uni-goettingen.de/bitstream/handle/1/8646/pz....
What a cynical comment. The title doesn't even say rare, and there's only a few dozen found in "all of Europe", ever. What could possibly be seen as sensationalist here? Thanks for your excellent sources, however.
I know it's trendy to say sensationalist, and it's often true. Just seems like a lazy thing to write in this case.
Whether the usage was reasonable I don't feel qualified to comment on.
I wrote "somewhat" on purpose, meaning something in the middle between "really sensationalistic" and "quite interesting". The sensationalist aspect of the article is that it gives the uninformed reader the impression that it is something like the find of the year, which it really isn't. Yes, it is a nice find and well-preserved, but in the end, everything is rare if one only narrows down the area enough. Instead, the author should have informed the reader that bronze swords are often quite well-preserved and why this is the case, and that "rare" does not mean "one or two others", but "about 200 others of this specific type and thousands of others considering all types".
> The sword and the burial still need to be examined, said Conservator General Mathias Pfeil, head of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. “But we can already say: the state of preservation is exceptional!”
This article has more photos and compared to the sources mentioned here does seem much better preserved. The entire sword doesn't even look corroded https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article245860994/Archaeologie...
Iron is extremely common and cheap, but requires much much higher temperatures to work with than bronze. Once the furnace technology was out there to make smelting iron and creation of steel feasible, poorer / less complicated civilizations were able to make iron weaponry and go up against their richer neighbors.
It's not quite like the D&D "this metal is higher ranking and does more damage".
Swords were generally not used in battle. But if used, a bronze sword was a bit more likely to crack than an iron sword. Bronze weapons were resistant to corrosion though. So that meant they did a better job in their secondary role: that of provider of status. A warrior with shiny armor, shield and sword is much more imposing and frightening than one with a rusty armor, shield and sword. Of course, in the bronze age, war was more ritualistic than war during the Roman empire, when war was much more like an industrial operation. For the purposes of the Roman empire, iron was probably doing a better job than bronze.
In combat though, spears were much, much more effective.
With one exception. As far as I can tell only one exception, but a big one. The Romans have figured out that all other people are quite bad at close quarters combat. Since soldiers were used to using spears, very few soldiers knew what to do if someone got in a close range than the length of a spear. The Romans then would bull-rush the enemy using their shield, and when close they would use their (quite short) swords. Without training, their opponents didn't stand a chance. Of course, this type of battle tactic required an enormous amount of training. The Romans did that because they were a very war-oriented society. Others couldn't match their level of training.
Even for the Romans though, who were regularly using swords, the choice of bronze versus iron would have made little difference. Although bronze is a bit more brittle than iron, and a bronze sword is more likely to break when it strikes a hard object, the Romans were trained to thrust the sword, not to use slashing moves. Thrusting is much more deadly, but less instinctive. It's another thing that requires extensive training, which the Romans were great at. For thrusting, I think a bronze and an iron sword do equally well.
I base this only on finding the trope of "precursor civilisation/society with the best tech" in literature from across the globe.
For several centuries after the Western empire fell apart, Europeans lacked the capability to build settlements or structures anywhere close to the size typical of classical Roman civilization. Populations were depressed by pestilence, social order had declined, and most Europeans were within a short distance from a former Roman settlement of a size larger than they'd ever seen populated in their lives. The Eastern empire was a little different, but Western Europe was pretty much fubar in the early middle ages.
Although technology steadily progressed throughout the middle ages, it took centuries for population and social organization to return to anywhere near classical levels. If you lived during the early middle age, it was an unmistakable fact that a great "precursor civilization" capable of wonders far beyond what your own civilization was capable of had lived and fallen long before you were born. With colossal roman ruins scattered across Europe, there was no need to look to the bronze age for a fallen civilization.
Compare to what Xenophon saw at Nineveh: A city wall 7.5 miles circumference, made of stone and brick, 55' tall and up to 50' thick. The most impressive structures he would have ever seen - just out in the middle of nowhere, absolutely abandoned.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Landmark-Xenophons-Anabasis-Shane-B...
Beautiful book with lots of maps and illustrations covering the journey mentioned above, if that’s anyone’s bag.
TLDR; people considered themselves "Roman", or something adjacent to it, long after the western empire officially disintegrated, and of course in the east it didn't really die.
Even on the outskirts (e.g. Romano-British) people held onto Roman, Christian, and Latin culture at a very deep level. And even when the Anglo-Saxons invaded they were extremely aware of who and what the Roman ruins etc. were, even if they chose not to settle in them in many cases.
Three of the 10 most common languages on Earth boil down to "Latin with a bad accent".
I don't think there's a real timeline where Europeans were wandering around the ruins of the suddenly collapsed empire wondering who these people were. They knew fully, but the economic and political (and physical! plague!) situation meant they were unable to reconstruct the Pax Romana.
But they certainly tried, even when they were former "outsiders" like the Franks (who, in the west half of their realm, even dropped their native tongue to speak a form of Latin!).
In fact I feel it's possible that actual "progress" wasn't possible in Europe until philosophical thought moved beyond late-Roman neo-Platonic & neo-Aristotelian boundaries, and into new radical enlightenment era concepts.
Eventually we did remake the Pax Romana, but it took two utterly ruinous wars, humanism, and a working knowledge of free trade to recreate the system that Rome had managed to create almost by accident.
I'd posit that today's world is what it is because it is partially on built enlightenment values that stepped away from the old Roman model, not back to it.
Reproducing the previous society is the mistake, because it wasn’t just the society. It was the free trade and lack of Mediterranean piracy that brought prosperity. The relatively increased civil rights that brought stability, and Senate that brought legitimacy. They had a model that produced the best economy and civil rights for their era, but looking backwards to past glories can’t replicate that.
https://brill.com/view/journals/joah/4/1-2/article-p28_4.xml
Putin simply sees himself as the new Tzar, and by extension master of the lands of the Third Rome, i.e. the Baltics, Ukraine, et al.
I don't think people realize how far ahead of everyone else Rome was at that time.
Like most people know that Rome had aqueducts bringing in water to the city, but they probably don't know that water was supplied to different buildings directly, and you could pay to get a line installed straight to your house. Running water in your house, 2000 years ago!
When Roman power in the West collapsed, and, for example, the remaining population of Arles retreated into the amphitheater of their previously much greater and more prosperous city, building a fortification in the middle and from the ruins of what used to be before, there were almost certainly people among them who could recite Hesiod. I just for some reason find this so trippy.
https://www.amazon.com/History-World-100-Objects/dp/06700227...
it looks like the pommel of a rondel dagger which is as stabby as it gets
This kind of sword would not have been used like a hammer.
The wavy pattern on the bronze handle would have ensured a firm grip even with a sweaty or wet hand. I have some Japanese Tojiro kitchen knives, which have stainless steel handles with a similar pattern on the handle, and they are more comfortable than most of the knife handles made of wood or plastic, especially when used with a dirty hand.
So based on this experience, I do not believe that such a bronze handle would have been a serious disadvantage, even if it is possible that the sword was purely ceremonial.
However you have a valid point that anyone wielding a sword had to resist the shock of a successful parry with the shield done by the opponent.
For thrusting movements, I do not believe that such a bronze handle would have been worse than any other handle, because it is unlikely to have been more slippery.
Only for cutting movements you are right that a handle wrapped in leather or cords should have been better at absorbing shocks.
That said, the craftsmanship of the sword I used was nothing like the one in the TFA and it didn't have a handle cast onto the blade, nor such an intricate design. I don't know how accurate the shield were to the time period (one was leather bound, the tower shield was not) but they didn't have metal rims and shield bosses.
Here you can see a selection of Danish swords of both types alongside each other from the same period: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Images-of-Danish-swords-...
The blade seems thick, so even with a bronze handle the sword might have been balanced well enough to be usable.
Just from the pictures it cannot be guessed whether the sword was too heavy to be easily handled by a normal human.
Am I wrong? Can you really not sharpen bronze?
But other damage was limited. Bends and dents andd the like can only be repaired so often before the metal becomes brittle. Work Hardening is sort of the application of this process just to the surface/edge.
Another advantage of bronze weapons is they could be cast in a mold instead of forged.
Iron was much more plentiful than copper and tin however (especially as they were mined out), which was the main reason bronze fell out of use.
Good steel was superior to both, but much harder to make.
Is there any technical reason why this is needed, or they just did it that way?
Asking for a friend.
This whole "Don't blame me! Boss told me to do it" attitude is rampant in software.
Your comment is a good reminder that a median HN opinion has no idea what they are talking about.
This reads almost word for word what one of our execs might have expressed at us 6 years ago when we started doing GDPR compliance.
Is that what they're saying? Because that must be a lie. It's probably more that if you're subscribed and log in, they don't have to ask to set a cookie.
Meanwhile trash clickbait advertising is semantic and psychological pollution that actively makes the internet (and by extension the world) a much worse place for profit. Your priorities need recalibration.
So third parties specialize in it, and we buy the banner have the company behind them trawl our sites and pull in the info about all the cookies we don't even keep taps on.
And when we've installed them, we all try not to get involved with them again. Because it is the least fun and rewarding area of any web dev day and tinkering with them just might get you invited to a whole series of GDPR review meetings.
It’s not some hobby site you’re visiting and a web dev likely isn’t the decision maker…. and I doubt a web dev had much to do with the legislation for all these stupid banners.
I was once working on a website, we had everything fine, but then a committee of various people from various departments spent days coming up with everything that they thought the cookie banner should conform to.
And then the ad revenue people come in, and say that it should be easiest to just accept all. They quickly backtracked when the EU or France fined one of the big parties; suddenly, the (legally required) reject all button was back on all the cookie banners, which is a good example on how fining large companies large sums bubbles down quickly to smaller companies doing the same thing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36341702.
GDPR made a lot of headlines when it was announced and a lot of American companies confused that with the cookie requirements, because that is the time I started seeing a lot of American companies install them, including my own clients asking for them. Despite the cookie requirements being around long before that. It's quite clear that, without enforcement, nobody will ever take these things seriously. The best way to handle it would be something that requires browsers to implement and which cannot be skirted. Maybe we should do away with cookies altogether and come up with something else.
Yeah, real puzzler that one
All articles are translated from the original source. We run a translation service to help English speakers in Germany understand what's happening across Germany.
But yeah, it has strong freebooting energy.
The FAZ and Zeit articles are just copy pasted from the dpa, which is why they are identical. I am sure they payed for them, but I can't say I am particularly sorry for them.
Welt was the one article I saw which included some more info and a few more pictures.
But what a beautiful sword!