Hi all

Today I looked through an educational magazine that accompanied the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. In it, there were interviews with Norwegian students from different universities, etc.(I was in there too...that's why I bought the paper).

Anyway...there was an interview with some students studying archaeology. In front of them, on the desk, there was a viking sword. The pommel on this thing was absolutely friggin ginormous. It was a tad longer than the grip on the sword, it was _broader_ than the length of the grip, and it looked to be about 4+ cm thick at the thickest. It was three-lobed. Crossguard was a plain, straight, quite broad slab of metal. The blade was very warped, it looked to me like it may be a longseax. At the crossguard, about 10+ cm long, there was a cut-out on the side of the edge. May have corroded away, may have broken, but the edges seemed to be fairly straight.

So, does anyone have an idea about what type of sword this might be(except being a viking sword...)? I am referring to the huge pommel and the cut-out on the blade in particular. Perhaps some of our other Norwegian members with more knowledge than me could check it out? Any help is appreciated! Sorry for my poor description, take the "measurements" with a pinch of salt...

Johan Schubert Moen

It's impossible to say without seeing the image, but I suspect that there may be some optical distortion involved. If I were going to shoot a horizontal image of a group of student sitting at a table, and wanted to include an object on the table, I might choose a short focal length lens--maybe as wide as 19mm. Even a 24mm or 28mm is likely to noticeably distort objects at the edges of the image, bowing them outward (called barrel distortion) and otherwise inaccurately recording them. Just a thought....

Hello Sean

I do know that there are some iking pommels of large size as they are hollow inside being made of sheet. The one you describe sounds quite big but maybe one of these.

Best
Craig

It's quite imposible to judge which type the sword is without a picutre. If you can scan the picture from Aftenposten or somthing?