We all know about Albion’s excellent work with making exact museum replicas with their Museum Line range of swords. However we don’t hear all too often of the others making exact museum replicas.

For me holding these swords is closest I can get to holding the real thing so it is something I am very keen on and am always looking out for. So with this in mind I would like to present the Orust sword, which is the work of Neil Burridge at http://www.bronze-age-swords.com.

This is an exact recreation of a germanic bronze age sword, which measures up to a massive 115 cm. The sword due to its length is quite heavy at around 1.8KG and was most likely designed and made purely as an offering to the gods. The gods like big swords! The original was found in the sea and other swords of a similar design have also been found in the sea, which would support this theory. Shorter versions of this style survive and are quite wieldable.

This work was commissioned by the Vitlycke museum in Sweden who wanted to show how the swords would have looked when new.
http://www.vitlyckemuseum.se

The original sword:



The recreation:


Detail of the grip:


Close up of the vicious tip!



Neil holding the sword for size comparison.

That's a beautiful sword. I am beginning to think of picking up one of Mr. Burridge's fine bronze examples.

Nice sword William.

WOW--what a cool sword! Fantastic repo!!

The world needs much more bronze swords

that is awesome.

what would happen if you hit something with it? would it bend?

Congratulation!

Was it much more difficult to cast it as a sword with normal (50-70 cm) length?

Absolutely stunning!

To make sure that is not a photoshop please contact me for my shipping address so I can verify it to everyone... :D

Hey glad everybody likes the sword, it is a beauty!


@ Henrik
Longer bronze swords are much more difficult to cast as the bronze becomes less fluid as it travels down the mould. You can add lead and other stuff to the alloy like the Chinese did but this makes for a weaker sword. For this sword it was made slightly thicker than it needed to be and then was worked back down to the museums specs.

@ Guy
Before you use a bronze sword you need to work harden the body to stiffen it up.

Hopefully that means mine is next in the queue! :-)

Lovely work, as always.