Pictures of Swedish Bronze swords -- myArmoury.com

Stephan Johansson · Posted: Tue 11 Oct, 2011 1:26 pm Post subject: Pictures of Swedish Bronze swords

J. Abernethy · Posted: Tue 11 Oct, 2011 2:20 pm Post subject:

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.

Justin H. Núñez · Posted: Tue 11 Oct, 2011 2:52 pm Post subject:

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

Jeroen Zuiderwijk · Industry Professional

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.

Jeroen Zuiderwijk · Industry Professional

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!

Stephan Johansson · Posted: Wed 12 Oct, 2011 3:53 am Post subject:

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".

Jeroen Zuiderwijk · Industry Professional

Stephan Johansson · Posted: Wed 12 Oct, 2011 12:19 pm Post subject:

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 Happy

Jonathan Hopkins · Posted: Wed 12 Oct, 2011 1:08 pm Post subject:

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! Happy

J. Abernethy · Posted: Wed 12 Oct, 2011 3:45 pm Post subject:

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.

Anders Backlund

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.

Shahril Dzulkifli · Posted: Tue 18 Oct, 2011 5:34 am Post subject: Pictures of Swedish bronze swords

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

Harry Marinakis · Posted: Sun 30 Nov, 2014 7:27 pm Post subject:

Scabbards?

Matthew Bunker · Posted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 12:02 pm Post subject:

Stephan Johansson · Posted: Mon 01 Dec, 2014 12:08 pm Post subject:

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...

Harry Marinakis · Posted: Thu 04 Dec, 2014 4:54 am Post subject:

Matthew Bunker · Posted: Mon 08 Dec, 2014 1:42 pm Post subject:

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Tue 09 Dec, 2014 12:58 am Post subject:

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....)

Matthew Bunker · Posted: Tue 09 Dec, 2014 12:05 pm Post subject:

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.

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Sun 14 Dec, 2014 5:23 am Post subject:

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.