Viking Swords - Hit or Miss Affair

An inside look at historical Viking Swords reveals fluctuations in quality.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Viking
• swords
• history
• weapon
• blacksmith
• forging

[Liquidsback]

I think alota of the Germanic peoples were influenced by the roman spatha.

[tsafa1]

@Liquidsback Sure. No culture develops in a vacuum. The Romans likewise picked up a lot of stuff from other cultures.

[FULLTHROTTLE87]

what is the mane of the showe

[EGCblackknight]

Anyone else here think that perhaps because of the extreme value of these swords, perhaps the person being burried was given a cheaper sword and the good one was passed to an heir

[tsafa1]

A good deal of historical swords are found in old river beds.

[Conan568]

I make these swords and they are the most difficult swords to make because of all of the forge welding involved.

One bad weld and months of hard work are for nothing.

I have done two versions so far and am planning to make the most difficult sword of all Viking swords next year.

The Sutton Hoo sword.

I think he Vikings may have buried defective swords because they didn't want to waste the good ones.

These swords were fit for Kings.

[bremenlegation]

its a little known fact but most norse and danes got their swords from the franks, who made the best blades in europe for centuries........even the arabs coveted them...........the frankish sword trade was so widespread that numerous popes passed edicts against the selling of swords to the muslims....

[TOMHYLE88]

@Gilmaris Well if it's Roman made it's Roman made, but that does not make it Roman designed and it doesn't make it correct to refer to the overall style as Roman, and it leads to the sort of nonsense suggestion that the Celtic and Germannic longswords of which the "Roman" spatha is a fairly direct copy, must themselves be derived of that "Roman" copy. People insist on attributing the origins of things found around and throughout the Roman Empire, which was largely Celtic and Afrasian, to Romans

[Gilmaris]

@TOMHYLE88 Going by that logic, there is no such thing as an English, German or American firearm, either, because all are derivatives of older models, going all the way back to the middle ages in Asia. If the Romans made a certain type of weapon, then it is a Roman weapon - period.

[TOMHYLE88]

@Liquidsback There is, BTW claim for European invention of crossbow, in the Greek belly bow, which were rather giant (if not as giant as the Latin ones), but operated by a single man.

[TOMHYLE88]

@Liquidsback Is it your contention that the invention of the crossbow in Europe was independant of the earlier invention of the crossbow in Asia?

[TOMHYLE88]

@Liquidsback First off, no, it's not, because things travel through intermediaries, and second off the ancient Latins did trade with China. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they imported silk on a regular basis.

[Liquidsback]

@TOMHYLE88 Kind of hard to base your siege weapons on a civilization you never fought or hardly traded with.

[TOMHYLE88]

@Liquidsback The ancient Latins were for whatever reason not an inventive people, and nearly every military technology now associated with them was borrowed from other cultures (the segmented armor; chain mail; the necked, cheeked, visored helmet; the rectangular shield; the long necked javelin; their troop formations: all Celtic, German, or Etruscan. The crossbows they based their seige engines upon: Chinese) There is no such thing as an ancient Roman style sword, spear, or helmet.

[TOMHYLE88]

@Liquidsback There was no Roman spatha; it is the Celtic spatha, adapted only very slightly to Latin styles. There does not appear to be any Roman sword, outside the arena. The early gladius and the pugio seem to have been of Etruscan derivation, while the later one (referred to by ancient Latins as the Gladius Hispansiensis or Gladius Iberius; Spanish or Iberian sword) was a Celtic style, as was the spatha. BTW, the "Roman" helmet; Celtic and German.

[Liquidsback]

@tsafa1 Yes which the Romans got from the Iberians.