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Sam Arwas




Location: Australia
Joined: 02 Dec 2015

Posts: 92

PostPosted: Thu 18 Feb, 2016 3:42 am    Post subject: Any decently preserved Viking-era sword points?         Reply with quote

I'm trying to get a sense of how common acute sword points were in Northern/Western Europe from about the late 8th century to late 10th century but blades from this period tend to be severely corroded so I'm struggling.

Last edited by Sam Arwas on Thu 18 Feb, 2016 4:19 am; edited 1 time in total
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Andrew Gill





Joined: 19 Feb 2015

Posts: 150

PostPosted: Thu 18 Feb, 2016 4:17 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The book "Swords of the viking age" shows a few where the overall corrosion damage seems minimal, or at least good enough to give a good idea of point geometry. From memory, I'm fairly certain that most of the well-preserved examples had at least a slightly rounded rather than an acute point, although there are definitely examples of the latter type (i.e. sharp and pointy) as well. That's assuming, of course, that none were modified later; one or two of the pointy variety look decidedly odd in profile, if I remember correctly. Also note that the rounded points are usually of a sufficiently small radius as to probably still be very effective for stabbing (at least by appearance) - we're not talking about katzbalger-style spatulate tips.
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Sam Arwas




Location: Australia
Joined: 02 Dec 2015

Posts: 92

PostPosted: Sat 20 Feb, 2016 7:31 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Andrew Gill wrote:
The book "Swords of the viking age" shows a few where the overall corrosion damage seems minimal, or at least good enough to give a good idea of point geometry. From memory, I'm fairly certain that most of the well-preserved examples had at least a slightly rounded rather than an acute point, although there are definitely examples of the latter type (i.e. sharp and pointy) as well. That's assuming, of course, that none were modified later; one or two of the pointy variety look decidedly odd in profile, if I remember correctly. Also note that the rounded points are usually of a sufficiently small radius as to probably still be very effective for stabbing (at least by appearance) - we're not talking about katzbalger-style spatulate tips.
Interesting they are still preserved enough to tell, on all the Viking era blades I've seen the tips are long gone.
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