Ancient Origins of The Sword in the Stone

How the ancient technique of casting of a bronze sword in a stone mold might have led to the legend of King Arthur's sword Excalibur, the famous Sword in the Stone. The imagery is unforgettable.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• king Arthur
• Excalibur
• Sword
• stone
• Bronze Age
• casting

[sheep1ewe]

@23aztek

Yes of corse.

I am normally a big su**er of "historical correctness" (made some functional replicas to better understanding the original pricip of the tool). :) But maby also a dito for fantasy as loing as it is well done to be honest... But think i was thinking about creations like "real armoury" mfl, dvs, it has no real historical sorce but based upon real objects, then tested in field and here we got something new but sort a created history if know what i mean.

[23aztek]

@sheep1ewe

What you call "creating ther own history" is actually pure nescience. Not more, not less. That was my point.

[sheep1ewe]

Think copper/bronze swords was cold forged in the last phase to make the metal harder in the edge.

[sheep1ewe]

@EGCblackknight

That´s right i hawe tried both, copper became wery soft when heated and cooled by water, dont think the water has any effect on the metal at all.

Low carbon iron (less than <0,5%?) will not eiter be possible to quench it remain soft even after the process.

I hawe tried, but it can withstand much higher forge temperature than high carbon steel.

To high quenchtemperature will make high carbon steel wery hard but also wer brittle, think thats the story about the brooken sword

[sheep1ewe]

(My comment was about the movie refered to in @23aztek post.)

[sheep1ewe]

@23aztek

Excalibur was given by "The lady of the lake" (Nimue) and, Yes it´s not the same as the one in the stone, but i am a big fan of the movie anyway even if i know that it has lot of historical incorrectness. Personally i like what´s going on in the states in that case, i am a bit fachinated by the process of creating sort of a own history design of working pieces based upon real historical pieces ant testing it out for real.

.

[EGCblackknight]

@smijman The previous response is incorrect for bronze working, when you are working with ferous metals i.e steel, quenching does harden the metal. Non ferous metals like bronze as they are using in this video become softer when quenched

[wilbeckj]

@smijman You are wrong, when you quench the metal, it makes carbon/steel atoms become more tightly packed. Which makes it harder

[smijman]

Not sure if they would quench the blade. Slowing cooling the metal should make it harder. Am I wrong?