myArmoury.com - Pictures of Swedish Bronze swords

Posts: 46 Location: Borås Sweden

Tue 11 Oct, 2011 1:26 pm

Pictures of Swedish Bronze swords

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J. Abernethy

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Posts: 44

Tue 11 Oct, 2011 2:20 pm

Thank you so much for these pictures, they have really blown my mind. I am an artist and currently working on a series of Mythological sculptures and these really inspire me. Especially the one example with the curved tip and the scroll work designs on some of the grips. I could only come up with maybe 2 or 3 styles off the top of my head, but now I see how creative and unique they were.

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Justin H. Núñez

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Posts: 142 Location: Hyde Park, UT

Tue 11 Oct, 2011 2:52 pm

Those are amazing! I don't think that any one really comes close to that type of design and workmanship.

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Jeroen Zuiderwijk

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Posts: 740 Location: Netherlands

Tue 11 Oct, 2011 3:07 pm

Cool! Most of these swords I knew only as linedrawings in "Minnen fran var forntid" by Oscar Montelius. It's great to have photo's of them, particularly as I may make some of them in the future.

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Jeroen Zuiderwijk

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Posts: 740 Location: Netherlands

Tue 11 Oct, 2011 3:26 pm

http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=211744

"Sword of bronze with resin inlaid wave-lines elsewhere and two rivets with large heads"

Resin inlaid wave-lines? I'd never heard of that before! Cool!

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Stephan Johansson

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Posts: 46 Location: Borås Sweden

Wed 12 Oct, 2011 3:53 am

I am glad you liked them. It was fascinating going through all these items.
I also love the single edged blade, with its curved "tip".

It's interesting to see how different and organic these swords shapes are compared to later forged and grinded steel swords.

I think it's partly up to the different manufacturing method.
It would be a pain trying to grind a lot of floating shapes in a steel sword.

Also many of these swords are filled with incised lines and pattern,
also this is possible partly thanks to the properties of the bronze material (perhaps)
I especially love this grip with its deep powerful shapes towards the blade.

http://catview.historiska.se/catview/media/highres/225802

When it comes to bronze swords, "more is more".

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Jeroen Zuiderwijk

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Posts: 740 Location: Netherlands

Wed 12 Oct, 2011 7:49 am

Stephan Johansson wrote:

I am glad you liked them. It was fascinating going through all these items.
I also love the single edged blade, with its curved "tip".

It's interesting to see how different and organic these swords shapes are compared to later forged and grinded steel swords.

I think it's partly up to the different manufacturing method.
It would be a pain trying to grind a lot of floating shapes in a steel sword.

Also many of these swords are filled with incised lines and pattern,
also this is possible partly thanks to the properties of the bronze material (perhaps)

Although casting and forging are very different, difficult shapes are difficult to produce in either technology. Both have to be ground to be finished f.e., so standing ridges, ribs etc. on the surface are a pain to do in bronze or iron. Curved organic shapes are actually easier both in bronze and iron then straight. Straight lines are the most difficult to do, as any imperfections shows instantly. Plus f.e. a straight edge, with a minor dip along the line means you have to grind down the blade over the entire length to keep the straight line. With a strong curve you can get away with grinding just a small section. Regarding grooves, this becomes much easier when you get hardened steel scrapers. On bronze you can't carve with bronze, so the lines have to be punched instead, which is much more difficult. Until you start making things with the limitations of the technology at the time, you suddenly find that things that look easy become really difficult.

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Stephan Johansson

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Posts: 46 Location: Borås Sweden

Wed 12 Oct, 2011 12:19 pm

Jeroen, thank you for the information.
This shows how important it is to do actual recreations of historical items. Just looking at them and draw "intelligent" conclusions as I did can lead quite wrong :)

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Jonathan Hopkins

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Posts: 1,377

Wed 12 Oct, 2011 1:08 pm

Thank you for posting the links to these fantastic images! This i way outside of my area of study but now you have me curious to learn more! :)

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J. Abernethy

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Posts: 44

Wed 12 Oct, 2011 3:45 pm

Also many of these swords are filled with incised lines and pattern,
also this is possible partly thanks to the properties of the bronze material (perhaps)
I especially love this grip with its deep powerful shapes towards the blade.

http://catview.historiska.se/catview/media/highres/225802

When it comes to bronze swords, "more is more".[/quote]

I can invision other materials like wood or bone discs between those grip rings, and precious stones set in the sockets at the base of the blade. Though this may not have been the case....it makes for neat illustrations and sculpture ideas.

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Anders Backlund

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Posts: 629 Location: Sweden

Fri 14 Oct, 2011 1:38 pm

Re: Pictures of Swedish Bronze swords

http://catview.historiska.se/catview/media/highres/225815

This is my favourite. I don't even like bronze age swords but that one is now a noteworthy exception.

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Shahril Dzulkifli

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Posts: 1,265 Location: Malaysia

Tue 18 Oct, 2011 5:34 am

Pictures of Swedish bronze swords

I must say that those swords would give rise to the iron ones used by the Vikings centuries later.

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Harry Marinakis

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Posts: 818

Sun 30 Nov, 2014 7:27 pm

Scabbards?

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Matthew Bunker

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Posts: 483 Location: Somerset UK

Mon 01 Dec, 2014 12:02 pm

Harry Marinakis wrote:

Scabbards?

Yes, there are a some excellent Scandinavian wooden bronze age scabbards that I've been able to study in Denmark.

They both have designs carved into them, a tradition which seems to continue through the iron age, as evidence by the carved scabbards from Danish bog deposits from the 3rd-5th century and also seen in the 7th/8th century Vendel era scabbards.

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Stephan Johansson

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Posts: 46 Location: Borås Sweden

Mon 01 Dec, 2014 12:08 pm

Can not remember seing any parts looking like belonging to a scabbard when I went through the pictures, but it was a couple of years ago, so I might have forgotten...

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Harry Marinakis

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Posts: 818

Thu 04 Dec, 2014 4:54 am

Matthew Bunker wrote:

Yes, there are a some excellent Scandinavian wooden bronze age scabbards that I've been able to study in Denmark.

Photos??????

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Matthew Bunker

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Posts: 483 Location: Somerset UK

Mon 08 Dec, 2014 1:42 pm

Harry Marinakis wrote:

Matthew Bunker wrote:

Yes, there are a some excellent Scandinavian wooden bronze age scabbards that I've been able to study in Denmark.

Photos??????

I posted one on your thread about Bronze Age scabbards earlier this year...
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/download.php?id=49276

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Lafayette C Curtis

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Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Tue 09 Dec, 2014 12:58 am

Some of the double-edged swords seem to have grips with round/circular cross sections rather than flattened oval/angular ones that'd make more sense for cutting blades. Am I seeing that correctly or is it just an artifact of perspective?

(A friend of mine made a big fuss about this when Mike Loades posted a news item about a bronze dagger/short sword found in China a short while ago. I hadn't thought of looking at the grip cross-sections of European bronze swords before, but now that the cat is out of the bag....)

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Matthew Bunker

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Posts: 483 Location: Somerset UK

Tue 09 Dec, 2014 12:05 pm

A lot of Bronze Age swords had round sectioned hilts, some (possibly all...not my field of expertise) of which are multi-sectioned, built up around a wooden core.

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Lafayette C Curtis

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Posts: 2,698 Location: Indonesia

Sun 14 Dec, 2014 5:23 am

Can anyone speak from practical experience (whether from handling antiques or from experimenting with accurate reconstructions) about how well these round grips performed with regards to maintaining edge alignment, keeping the grip from slipping/sliding around in the hand, etc? I've had mostly bad experiences with round grips on steel swords since these grips not only make it difficult to feel the correct edge alignment but also provide a rather insecure hold (so that the sword can be easily knocked out of my hand with a strong beat or even a firm block/parry), but bronze swords seem to have shorter grips in general and I have to wonder about whether this would mitigate the problem of edge alignment and a firm grip by forcing the user to hold the sword in a different way or something like that.

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