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William P
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 Posted: Thu 06 Jul, 2023 4:56 am Post subject: have we found any iron age swords that were still springy? |
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so i rememberreading . dunno where maybe somehow here on myArmoury, a statement that we found some iron age celtic sword blades that were somehow still bendy and springy despite being buried in the ground for 2000+ years
but i dont know if this really is a legitimate thing or if my memory is playing tricks on me...
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Thu 06 Jul, 2023 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Yes, Peter Connolly mentions it on p. 115 of "Greece and Rome at War" (1st edition): "I have seen a 2,000-year-old sword which was dredged from the lake of Neuchatel...bent almost double and then flex back."
Setting aside the utter madness of even *thinking* of doing this to such an artifact, I doubt this sword was a complete outlier in terms of quality. Presumably there was variation! But I also doubt that all or even most Celtic swords were bending and twisting when used, needing to be straightened after a heavy blow, as Polybius claims.
Matthew
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 06 Jul, 2023 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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Radomir Pleiner's The Celtic Sword has a few swords with the mechanical properties to do what the sword described by Connolly did. They weren't common but, as Matt said, they weren't a complete outlier either.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Fri 07 Jul, 2023 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Maybe I am paying to much attention to a single word, but does spring steel lose its springiness, or is it the remarkable thing that the iron age Celts had spring steel swords?
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Fri 07 Jul, 2023 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Ryan S. wrote: | | Maybe I am paying to much attention to a single word, but does spring steel lose its springiness, or is it the remarkable thing that the iron age Celts had spring steel swords? |
Well, of course the spring will go away if the metal corrodes badly enough! Otherwise, I'm not certain of the metallurgy, but I suspect that if a piece is made well and has good flex, it should keep that indefinitely if the preservation conditions are good enough.
Matthew
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Anthony Clipsom
Location: YORKSHIRE, UK Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 342
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| Posted: Fri 07 Jul, 2023 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Ryan S. wrote: | | Maybe I am paying to much attention to a single word, but does spring steel lose its springiness, or is it the remarkable thing that the iron age Celts had spring steel swords? |
Connolly in the original quote is contrasting his experience with the description of Polybius that Celtic swords were prone to bending if they hit a Roman shield, and couldn't be used until their owners straightened them again. Whether you believe Polybius is talking rubbish or you believe Connolly's spring steel experience is an outlier is up to you but the implication is Celtic ironworking was more sophisticated than Polybius knew/is telling us.
Anthony Clipsom
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Pieter B.
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| Posted: Mon 10 Jul, 2023 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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Philo of Byzantium who lived in the century before Polybius explicitly mentions Celtic or Spanish swords as quite springy. The Hellenistic Greeks do not appear to be in agreement on this matter.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Mon 10 Jul, 2023 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Anthony Clipsom wrote: | | Ryan S. wrote: | | Maybe I am paying to much attention to a single word, but does spring steel lose its springiness, or is it the remarkable thing that the iron age Celts had spring steel swords? |
Connolly in the original quote is contrasting his experience with the description of Polybius that Celtic swords were prone to bending if they hit a Roman shield, and couldn't be used until their owners straightened them again. Whether you believe Polybius is talking rubbish or you believe Connolly's spring steel experience is an outlier is up to you but the implication is Celtic ironworking was more sophisticated than Polybius knew/is telling us. |
Its not quite up to you because Radomir Pleiner analyzed the metallurgy of on the order of a hundred La Tène culture swords in a book which you can find on academia dot edu or summarized by a professor emeritus in Germany. From memory Pleiner tries not to say "Roman propaganda was wrong" but Roman propaganda was wrong about Celtic swords. I am sure some Celt had a sword of really soft malleable steel (there is one in the Sagas of the Icelanders and anecdotes from Napoleon's army and from Japan) but most of the swords he examined were not going to bend drastically the first time they hit something harder than flesh.
weekly writing ~ material culture
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jul, 2023 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| Anthony Clipsom wrote: | | Ryan S. wrote: | | Maybe I am paying to much attention to a single word, but does spring steel lose its springiness, or is it the remarkable thing that the iron age Celts had spring steel swords? |
Connolly in the original quote is contrasting his experience with the description of Polybius that Celtic swords were prone to bending if they hit a Roman shield, and couldn't be used until their owners straightened them again. Whether you believe Polybius is talking rubbish or you believe Connolly's spring steel experience is an outlier is up to you but the implication is Celtic ironworking was more sophisticated than Polybius knew/is telling us. |
How much of an indication of sophistication is spring steel? I also wonder if it makes sense for a culture to produce both spring steel swords and softer steel swords. Once you know how to make it, is it harder or more expensive to make?
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jul, 2023 10:04 am Post subject: |
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| Sean Manning wrote: |
Its not quite up to you because Radomir Pleiner analyzed the metallurgy of on the order of a hundred La Tène culture swords in a book which you can find on academia dot edu or summarized by a professor emeritus in Germany. From memory Pleiner tries not to say "Roman propaganda was wrong" but Roman propaganda was wrong about Celtic swords. I am sure some Celt had a sword of really soft malleable steel (there is one in the Sagas of the Icelanders and anecdotes from Napoleon's army and from Japan) but most of the swords he examined were not going to bend drastically the first time they hit something harder than flesh. |
What about sword sacrifices, where the sword was bent? Or is that from another culture? Does a sword have to be spring steel in order to not bend when hitting a Roman shield?
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Mon 22 Jan, 2024 4:02 am Post subject: |
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| Sean Manning wrote: |
Connolly in the original quote is contrasting his experience with the description of Polybius that Celtic swords were prone to bending if they hit a Roman shield, and couldn't be used until their owners straightened them again. Whether you believe Polybius is talking rubbish or you believe Connolly's spring steel experience is an outlier is up to you but the implication is Celtic ironworking was more sophisticated than Polybius knew/is telling us. |
Its not quite up to you because Radomir Pleiner analyzed the metallurgy of on the order of a hundred La Tène culture swords in a book which you can find on academia dot edu or summarized by a professor emeritus in Germany. From memory Pleiner tries not to say "Roman propaganda was wrong" but Roman propaganda was wrong about Celtic swords. I am sure some Celt had a sword of really soft malleable steel (there is one in the Sagas of the Icelanders and anecdotes from Napoleon's army and from Japan) but most of the swords he examined were not going to bend drastically the first time they hit something harder than flesh.[/quote]
There are a couple of things that made me think of this post. First, there is the clip from Forged in Fire where a sword bends drastically when hitting flesh. So this is something that could happen. Second is that I read an article by Judith Jesch that suggests that the writers of the Sagas were educated men who were familiar with works in Latin. So I wonder if we should view the Laxdæla Saga as an independent source of Polybius. Especially since the character with the soft sword usually used another sword named King´s Gift. That instead of his special sword, he has a crappy one is important to the narrative.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Mon 22 Jan, 2024 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Ryan S. wrote: | | There are a couple of things that made me think of this post. First, there is the clip from Forged in Fire where a sword bends drastically when hitting flesh. So this is something that could happen. Second is that I read an article by Judith Jesch that suggests that the writers of the Sagas were educated men who were familiar with works in Latin. So I wonder if we should view the Laxdæla Saga as an independent source of Polybius. Especially since the character with the soft sword usually used another sword named King´s Gift. That instead of his special sword, he has a crappy one is important to the narrative. |
Hi Ryan,
anyone who dealt with blades before the 20th century (or traditional katanas since) was familiar with blades which were not springy and could shatter or permanently bend in the course of normal use. The medieval Arab writers on swords mention this for example, so do French stories from the Napoleonic Wars, Joseph Swetnam the fencing master (1617), ethnological accounts from British India, Japanese veterans of the Pacific War, etc.
A Greek engineering manual of the third century BCE mentions Iberian swords which you can bend over the top of your head until they touch your shoulders and they won't break. Ever since then, some European swords have been springy. But not every European sword was springy because you need to use homogenous steel and successfully quench and temper it, and steel was more expensive to make and slower to work. And some people seem to have liked swords which were really hard and stiff, or swords which bent rather than chipping or breaking.
I don't know if any of the ancient Roman stories about bad Celtic swords were available in Latin in the Middle Ages, but anyone could buy a large knife of ordinary quality and bend it or break it.
weekly writing ~ material culture
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This is a standard topic