[Peter Johnsson]

Blaz, that is a very beautiful sword.

Strong and rather unique shape. I really like it.
Could you possibly describe your experience with it?
What as especially note worthy? Anything that stood out?
What was the most dominating aspect of its handling character?
What dimensions made an impression on you?
Did anything in its shape draw your eye especially.

It would be interesting to hear you describe the moment you had the sword in your hand.

Thank you!

[Patrick Kelly]

Based upon the computer renderings (which are nice, no negativity intended) I had no interest in this design. However, now that I see the original in-hand and can gauge its proportions, I find I like it very much. What a beautifully proportioned sword.

[Blaz Berlec]

My impressions about the sword - but I have to warn you, I have very little experience with the real swords out of the glass cabinet, and I have never even held an adequately accurate reproduction of a medieval sword (only sharp swords I ever used were some Del Tins and two Vladimir Cervenka cheaper swords). The only real swords I held are from those two events, together some 30 swords from 13 - 16 century, and in various state of preservation (mostly river finds).

Sword is quite thick at the base, and has a thick tang - over 1 cm. Even very close to the tip the diamond cross section of the blade is still very strong, so I had a feeling I'm holding a very rigid icepick or some other tool, quite dissimilar with the feeling I got when holding any reproduction sword (none of which had a similar blade geometry). I didn't do any drills or any movements that would stress the sword, I just slowly moved through various stances, but I still sensed that this is very rigid blade that would be very stable when performing thrusting, half-swording, blocking, winding...

Proportions are really much better seen in photo than in my renderings, but live sword looks even more of a masterpiece. It seems smaller than on the photo (it's only 116 cm long). It's nicely balanced, so it doesn't feel like 1,7 kg, but this is a strong and rigid weapon - every other sword from the Museum that I had opportunity to hold was much more cut oriented, lighter, and much more flexible.

So I don't know, perhaps most natural thing that sprung to my mind when handling the weapon wasn't cutting with it (although it felt very well when I made a slow cut), but thrusting with it - when you move the sword's grip it's very easy to leave the point in the same space. And halfswording seems natural with it - it feels like a strong crowbar or a can opener, begging to be used. In a good sense, of course!

When Alan Williams from The Wallace Museum, author of "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" examied this sword briefly, he discovered with a quick non-destructive test that it's surface is very soft - softer even than non heat treated mild steel, and compared to iron. It is believed that this is the result of electrolytic process of cleaning that was done in the 19th century, as sword is a river find, bud cleaned to the metal. Most other swords in museum have their patina intact.


And it was most admired weapon the Museum showed us, by almost everybody. It just looks "Gothic" like nothing else there. Some more photos from the event. Made by Pavlina Mikulickova.



Tomaž Nabergoj (left) and Tomaž Lazar (right) of the National Museumn of Slovenia presenting the artifacts.


Array.


Uglier side of the sword. Damage is mostly only on surface (apart from the cross), it's not as bad as it looks here.


Organiser of the event, Roman Vucajnk.



David M. Cvet from AEMMA, at his failed attempt at stealing it.


Admiration.


Yes, they had to wipe the drool from the blades afterwards.


And to answer at how does it compare with my reconstruction on computer - well, general shape is what I imagined it to be, and fullers are nicely defined, as I concluded from the (very small) photos I had. But they are shallower than I made them. Cross is also not so massive at the centre, and it has a bit more defined edges than I made them (also the pommel).

[Taylor Ellis]

That's an absoltely beautiful sword Blaz.

[Peter Johnsson]

Thank you very much!

This was exactly what I was hoping for. You made a good presentation, I think. These impressions, especially that it stood out from other swords, is what to be expected with a weapon like this. To me it seems to have much in common with those sturdier XVa´s and XVII one come across from time to time. They are almost in a 150% scale to "normal" swords.
Still, I do think that many of these cut pretty well, even though the impression is "Monster Can Opener from Hell".

Looking through the pictures, I see in the "array" photo what looks like two very nice messers!
I would be very interested to learn more about those.
Are they published in the same book that you got data for the XVa-ish sword?
I would be very interested in getting a copy of that book!
Those messers would be extremely interesting to document or get some data on.

Thank you for posting photos, Blaz.
Much obliged to you!

[Blaz Berlec]

Yeah, messers. They have them by dozens. I don't remember exactly, but I think three or four were presented here, and one very long and flimsy "sabre". The two in the picture are very similar, almost a "same model" single edged, straight and quite narrow messers. Wedge type cross section and quite strong spine.

Unfortunately, messers aren't covered by the book "Oboroženi stan srednjeveške družbe na Slovenskem na osnovi materialnih virov. Primer: meči" (Armed class of medieval society in Slovenia, based upon artefacts. Example: swords) by Nabergoj Tomaz (Curator for archeology of high and late middle ages in Slovenian National Museum). And as I have written, the "book" is his Masters Degree, so it's unfortunately unavailable.

But the good news is that National Museum of Slovenia is preparing an exhibition on medieval weapons (or whole military culture, I'm not sure), which will be accompanied by an exhaustive catalogue. Several replicas have been made, one is non heat treated "Sempach" type sword, another is heat treated straight messer from 15.th century, made by Tomaž Lazar from National Museum. But I have no idea when the exhibition will take place, in a year or two I guess. There is no official date yet. But the catalogue (which will include all the material from the above mentioned book + much more) will cover other weapons than double edged swords, I'm sure.

[J.D. Crawford]

[Blaz Berlec]

Ok, just the silly commercial for Slovenian National Museum:



An exhibition "Ljubljanica - Cultural Heritage of a River" has been opened yesterday.

Over 1000 finds from the river are displayed, together with various replicas of the finds - a long hand made logboat, and a 15. century mercenary's equipment (forged iron hat, riveted coif, linen jack, ahlspeiss, messer, hand painted pavise and rondel dagger). Quite a big portion of the finds is military related - from stone age, early bronze age swords and axes to lots of Roman equipment (silver embossed gladius scabbard for instance), and a big section on medieval arms and armour finds - swords, messers, other weapons. Of course, this sword (No. 22) is also displayed.


Exhibition will be opened until September 2009. Homepage of the Exibition (sorry, no English description yet):

http://www.narmuz-lj.si/slovensko/10_razstave...anica.html


And Google Translate try on translation:

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t...ry_state0=


There's also a large catalogue accompanying the exhibition, English translation will be published in April 2009.

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

Woohoo Manowar!!! \m/ (>.<) \m/ Rock on!


Oh! And awsome sword btw.