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Martin Wallgren




Location: Bjästa, Sweden
Joined: 01 Mar 2004

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Posts: 620

PostPosted: Sun 20 Aug, 2006 6:56 am    Post subject: The landscape of spathae blades!         Reply with quote

I have finaly got the old digit out of you know what and started on my first own sword. It´s going to be a spathae for a impression of my Roman Auxilliary trooper from arlund the time of Trajan. Now, I am going to grind out the blade on this one. A local knifesmith and I made the rough shape of the blade and I are now in the stage of grinding out the fuller/fullers and edges and so forth. My cousetion now is that the plan I have for the sword is to have a short fuller aprox. the first quarter of the blad from the handle. It has a little distal taper and is also tapered about a total of 5 mm towards the point on each side. The blade has a with of 45 mm. But is this a plausiple shape of a spatha. On Peter Johnssons concept drawnings for Albions Next Generation there seem to be three totaly diffrent blades. I just wanna know so I don´t make a complete fantasy here.

Thanx in advance guys!

Martin

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Matthew Amt




Location: Laurel, MD, USA
Joined: 17 Sep 2003

Posts: 1,456

PostPosted: Sun 20 Aug, 2006 8:11 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Ave!

I certainly encourage everyone to make more Roman swords! Bearing in mind that I have *not* done a ton of research on the spatha, I think your plans are close but a little off. As I recall, the spatha of Trajans's times should have parallel edges, not tapered (though distal taper is certainly fine), and I don't think there should be a fuller at all. A width of about 35 mm is better, too. The blade you describe could be a spatha from the 3rd century, perhaps, or later, but that's going out of my area (and era) of expertise. So doing it just as you describe could be a perfectly good Roman sword, just a century or so later than Trajan, that's all.

Good luck with it!

Matthew
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Mikko Kuusirati




Location: Finland
Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Reading list: 13 books

Posts: 1,080

PostPosted: Sun 20 Aug, 2006 10:39 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

AFAIK, fullers only came about when Roman designs started mixing with the Germanic ones used by their barbarian auxiliaries; the original Roman patterns of both gladii and spathae had a flat diamond cross-section, sometimes with a reinforced point, with no fuller.
"And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
— Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
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Martin Wallgren




Location: Bjästa, Sweden
Joined: 01 Mar 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 620

PostPosted: Sun 20 Aug, 2006 10:51 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mikko Kuusirati wrote:
AFAIK, fullers only came about when Roman designs started mixing with the Germanic ones used by their barbarian auxiliaries; the original Roman patterns of both gladii and spathae had a flat diamond cross-section, sometimes with a reinforced point, with no fuller.


Yes, but at the time of Trajan (late part of the first century AD) The influences from nothern europe had been in Rome for at least 50 - 70 years, two or three generation of contact. Many stand up citizens of rome had a father or grandfather with a very germanic name.

And my impression is a Auxilliae soldier. If I was a Legionaire I would have opted for a Gladius.

Mattew!

I will take your word for it.

I wonder, did the gallic and germanic tribes fiddled with the fullers at middle of the first century AD.

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Shane Allee
Industry Professional



Location: South Bend, IN
Joined: 29 Aug 2003

Posts: 506

PostPosted: Mon 21 Aug, 2006 7:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Fullers start popping up on the celtic blades during the La Tene III period.

I really can't remember too many swords that have short fullers though, that seems to be a much later concept.

Shane
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Robert H. Shyan-Norwalt




Location: Cambridge City Indiana
Joined: 26 Jan 2004

Posts: 15

PostPosted: Wed 23 Aug, 2006 8:09 am    Post subject: Spatha-first try.         Reply with quote

My first go round for one. I'm doing, -not done yet, a 150 layer straight lame, to flesh out a Pictish persona.


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Spatha-first-try.jpg


Collosians 2:8
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