Hello All,

I have long wanted the seax sold by by ArmArt http://www.armart.antiquanova.com/short_blades.htm

Does anyone have any evidence of broken swords being turned into a seax? It only makes sense, but I would really like some input if anyone has photos or museum links.
Thanks
Robetrt

I have never heard of a seax made from a broken sword blade. On the other hand, lots of sword blades were broken and then forge-welded back together. The ArmArt seax shown is purely fantasy.

I thing in a war everything is imaginable, the goal is to kill your enemy and if you have no time to repair your broken sword it is the best idea to "recycle" it somehow like this blade. Or if you are someone who is not wealthy enough to repair it or just found its a good idea to make something like that out of it. Better to make something from it than to leave it rust.

For starters, ther is the sword found in a burial mound at Hoff (or Hov,) Oslo and currently housed at the British Museum, London. Also, there is NM 1840:1 found at Peltorinne, Hame, Finland. With a little time, I could probably find another dozen examples. Both of these have breaks near the COP that were forge-welded in antiquiity. A few blades have been found that exhibit repairs to iron inlays that popped out in use, leaving a weak spot in the blade. On the other hand, I have never seen a single example of a seax that was just ground out of a double edged sword.

Never seen any seaxes that were made that way, but I've made one myself from an old sword and it's pretty easy.
So are there finds -probably none, but plausible to manufacture in that era -Hell yes!

Also note that thick made and wide bladed two edged swords with no fuller or a thin fuller could have been used to re-make into any number of seax finds we see today and we'd never know. Though it'd have to be pretty thick blades. Perhaps thicker than any found so far.

i dunno about seax but there are however, examples of rus and polish daggers which have what seem to be sword hilts suggesting the sword broke. like the sword of fellow reenactor quarf who broke his sword at ironfest on the helmet of another member of our group (i wasnt there to witness it unfortunately)

but as a result he is consdering regrinding whats left of the blade to be a dagger and showd me examples of the examples hes basing the idea off. and indeed its a pair of daggers with unusually large hilts.

Would we even be able to tell is a seax was a sword originally? The likely fracture would be at the top and this likely would have been cut down for the new upper part of the seax. I know of no direct evidence this was done but it seems like physical remains would be hard to use for evidence.

RPM

On the subject of re-using swords.

Any iron or steel tool or weapon could of course be re-used as metal raw material for making something new. It's unlikely you'd just throw it on a garbage pile like we do today. The point here I expect was more if a broken sword could be cold worked into a seax or if they'd usually end up as something else instead. Like plowshares... ;)

Cold working is much easier today with high powered angle grinders, even heavy machines like mills and such and that tends to affect how we work today with som many knives and other blades being done with stock removal. Especially re-making blades into different shapes is made easy. You could have used an historical grinding wheel to similar effect, foot pedal driven or even water wheel driven, though the former is more likely for viking age of course the other isn't impossible either for caftsmen having at some point visited Constantinople. But I still think most work was done hot. While this affects tempering it isn't impossible to re-temper a blade again if you have the skill and the edge material still retains enough carbon content to be tempered. Or even box carburize it to make up for lost carbon.

In the sagas ( I forget which one) there's mention of re-smithing a sword point into a spearhead. Both of which were said to have the same excellent quality. These are tales of dream and wonder, but it might indicate it was done. If it was a tanged slotted spear rather than a socket type it would have retained it's edge tempering, still keeping it the same quality so to speak. This could mean it was cold work ground to have a tang.
So then cold grinding to this degree where a seax could be made from a broken sword could be plausible? At least worth discussing.

I don't think it likely because seaxes tended to be quite thick compared to swords of the same period, to the best of my knowledge. I will not completely rule it out, but I think it very unlikely.

Hello,
I have some photos on my computer of Viking era pattern welded swords forgewelded to repair a fracture. It will have to wait though as my computer is currently undergoing repair. I believe there is a fixed broken sword in Swords of the Viking Age (Ian Pierce) but I'll have to check.

There are images of medieval swords being re-forged into other items, and ample re-hilting and re-use of swords throughout history. The concept of a sword being transformed into a seax is not out of the question at all. The reality is proving a theory such as this is nearly impossible. Predicting the original use of the metal in a seax is in general not possible. Even strong indicators that may suggest such a scenario are basically unprovable. If we take the ArmArt piece, for example, and pretend it is real, we would still have difficulty proving it was indeed a broken sword and not a purpose built completely new, unprecedented style of seax.

Cheers!

Visiting the Viking exhibit at Historiska museet here in in stockholm I examined the thin but fairly long Seax in the display. It's blade width of about 2.5 cm would have allowed it to be a part cut from a broken broad bladed thick type X sword outside the fuller. On the other hand we'll never really be able to say either way for sure.

Sorry, couldn't get a decent picture with my crappy camera in my phone, but I might get one off the vritual DVD I bought of the exhibit.

Saxes and swords have very different profiles, which don't lend a sword being turned into a sax as already mentioned. If swords were turned into single edged sax like weapons, you'd have to look for odd ones, which don't really fit within the standard sax types. There's one example that is described as being a modified double edged sword into a sax like weapon:

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It indeed has a broad fuller and thin blade that clearly shows this used to be a sword. The blade is also also very unlike normal saxes. The hilt is also unique, and looks like a sword grip, rather then a sax hilt. It's made from bone, and short, two things you don't see on standard sax types.

There's one other odd sax (the one with a bird shaped hilt) which is said to be a cut down (single edged?) sword. But this is information from hearsay, so don't put too much value in that.