Rather than have them spread all over the place, I thought it might be useful to have them collected in one thread.

This one recently released:

http://www.academia.edu/3572087/Sword_parts_a...al_society

Quote:

A key feature of swords from the Migration and Merovingian Period is that they consist of many different parts, as recently highlighted by the discovery of the Staffordshire hoard. This paper seeks to order sword parts and their depositional contexts, by interpreting them as symbols of kleptocracy and animated by their object biographies in the Migration and Merovingian Period martial society.

The link to this one was lost in 'the great crash of ought thirteen'

http://www.academia.edu/2649664/A_group_of_Vi...f_the_time

Quote:

During the 1998 excavations on the Garrison site at Birka, Uppland, Sweden, a spectacular deposit was found in a post pit belonging to the Warrior’s House, one of the finds in which was a bronze sword chape of a type not previously found in Birka. The scarcity of this type of chape and its distribution pattern aroused a series of questions concerning its function, iconographic symbols and whether or not the pattern of distribution of a materialculture through diplomatic and political contacts can reflect a political landscape? An iconographic study, partly based on a surface structure analysis, is made of the newly found chape.

and I just found this while looking for the last one:

http://www.academia.edu/1102223/The_Ljudota_S...Viking_Age

I'll add more as they come to light, please do likewise.

Enjoy.

Makes me wish I could read Slovak, but the pic.s alone make this worth while: http://www.academia.edu/4526468/Swords_from_t..._Territory
Cheers.

Good stuff!
Thank you for posting!

The Typochronology of Sword Pommels from the Staffordshire Hoard

http://finds.org.uk/staffshoardsymposium/pape...jeansoulat

Another excellent article from the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Enjoy.

More from the Czech Republic, Dussacks with broad blades:

https://www.academia.edu/5369387/Dussacks_with_broad_blades_and_a_probable_method_of_their_manufacturing

An Experimental Investigation of the Functional Hypothesis and Evolutionary Advantage of Stone-Tipped Spears.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F1...ne.0104514

Sword and Dagger Pommels Associated with the Crusades - Donald LaRocca
Metropolitan Museum Journal Vol.46/2011

https://www.academia.edu/8267728/Sword_and_Dagger_Pommels_Associated_with_the_Crusades

Afonso ‘the African’ and his Army: The Pastrana Tapestries as a Visual Encyclopedia for the Study of Arms and Armor - Donald LaRocca

https://www.academia.edu/8267811/Afonso_the_African_and_his_Army_The_Pastrana_Tapestries_as_a_Visual_Encyclopedia_for_the_Study_of_Arms_and_Armor

An English Armor for the King of Portugal - Donald J. LaRocca

https://www.academia.edu/8351544/An_English_Armor_for_the_King_of_Portugal

Monsters, Heroes and Fools: a Survey of Embossed Armor in Germany and Austria, ca. 1475-ca. 1575 - Donald J. LaRocca

https://www.academia.edu/8504927/Monsters_Heroes_and_Fools_a_Survey_of_Embossed_Armor_in_Germany_and_Austria_ca._1475-ca._1575

The Mysterious Geometry of Swordsmanship, Gorgeously Illustrated

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/09/...bault.html

King Tut’s Dagger Is Out of This World

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/king-tut-rsquo-s-dagger-is-out-of-this-world/

New study shows that meteorites rather than terrestrial ore were the sources of Bronze-Age iron.

As I already said, we have blades that we know were made from meteroritic iron that contain almost no nickel at all.

1. There's plenty of point in measuring the nickel content. It doesn't automatically give a yes/no result for whether the iron is meteoric in origin, but there is still plenty of point in such analysis. In this case, the dagger is over 10% nickel, which by itself is enough to say it's almost certainly of meteoric origin. As a rule of thumb, above 8% means meteoric.

2. The cobalt content was measured as well, since the cobalt:nickel ratio is important when trying to identify whether iron is of meteoric origin. Without knowing the nickel content, the cobalt content is of little use - it's the cobalt:nickel ratio that's most useful.

3. Naturally-occurring telluric nickel-iron alloys are distinguishable from Tutankhamun's dagger, just on the basis of their nickel content (typically under 4%). More generally, it can be difficult to identify iron as telluric native iron rather than meteoric in origin, since as well as some meteorites having similarly low nickel content, telluric iron can show Widmanstätten patterns (a Widmanstätten pattern does identify iron as non-smelted, but doesn't distinguish between telluric and meteoric). I haven't seen the range of cobalt:nickel ratios for high-nickel telluric iron (Jambon only compares high-nickel smelted alloys), but perhaps these would help distinguish between such telluric alloys and low-nickel meteoric iron.

4. It's very common for pop science web articles to not give the full details. It's often useful to read the actual scientific paper describing the work before dismissing the results. Sometimes even to find out what the results are, since the pop article doesn't always get it right.

Jambon doesn't analyse the dagger; he uses the measurements by Comelli et al. 2016, (10.8% Ni, 0.58% Co, and also quotes the measurement given by Ströbele et al. 2016 (ref below), 12.9% Ni.

Comelli et al. 2016: https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12664

Jambon: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2017.09.008

Ströbele et al., 2016:
F. Ströbele, K. Broschat, C. Koeberl, J. Zipfel, H. Hassan, Ch Eckmann
The iron objects of tutanchamun. Metalla
Archäometrie und Denkmalpflege 2016, Göttingen
Sonderheft, 8 (2016), pp. 186-189

A new Byzantine type of swords (7th – 11th centuries)

https://www.academia.edu/16719873/A_new_Byzantine_type_of_swords_7th_11th_centuries_

First tentative steps at developing a typology of Byzantine swords despite dearth of artefacts.