Big swords and Bronze Age war protests | Curator's Corner S1 Ep2
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- Опубліковано 26 січ 2016
- British Museum Curator Neil Wilkin spends a lot of his time thinking about metal - he’s Curator of the Bronze Age. Was seeing bronze for the first time like the internet or 3D printing? Does he secretly enact Game of Thrones with the objects?
Neil has been working with UCL and members of the public to create 3D models of Bronze Age dirks (large ceremonial swords). This will help us to understand how these weapons were created and, in some instances, destroyed.
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guy walking through a bog, stubs his toe, pulls out a sword. i have been Chosen
Not quite as dramatic as pulling a sword out of a rock that it's stuck in, but it'll do.
Nick de Vera for tetanus.
"Crom!"
He is Shreck, Lord of the Bog, Master of the Swamp, and by this sword his roll is divinely ordained!
Shreck is love, Shreck is life
About the "anti war protest": a lot of people below have been very critical of this, suggesting it is Neil projecting his modern world view onto an historical period. I doubt that he means"protest" in the modern sense of people marching and waving banners in the forlorn hope of changing government policy; or the sense of well-meaning hippy types making up a ritual to express their personal distaste for war. I think he means a protest in the sense of a community gesture expressing sadness at the inevitable loss that goes with war. Bronze age people lived day to day by growing crops, herding animals, catching fish, and hunting. These are labour intensive activities. War may be exciting and, if you win, glorious, leading to wealth: slaves, livestock, land, treasures. However, it is also a risky business. It leads to the deaths of farmers, herdsmen, fishermen and hunters, the despoiling of the fields, loss of the livestock, loss of the fishing boats, and destruction of homes, and can be followed by a period of starvation. Even in the more organised mediaeval times, there was a recognised "campaigning season" because the soldiers had to get back to bring in the harvest. We may think of the "beaker people" (a modern term that they would not have recognised) as "warlike" but that does not mean they spent their entire lives fighting - only that war was an ever present danger. Before the war comes fear, and the need to secure the favour of whatever gods the society has; after the war comes grief for loss, relief for the survivors, and thanks to the gods for victory, then a period of rebuilding. It seems likely that the burial of the dirk was related to some form of ceremony or gesture at the beginning or end of a conflict. Without more data, we can only speculate.
You are one of the few sane people in this comment section that didn't resort to either calling him a liberal or an idiot and instead wrote out a well thought out response. I salute you.
@Jason McBeavis your a twat. It's very reasonable to believe this. I prefer to believe an intelligent man, rather than an ass like you.
In whatever sense he meant it, it remains a ludicrous assertion.
Yeah, and there could be some ritualistic feel around it.
People seem to forget that if you took a bronze age baby and raised them in the modern world, no one would notice.
Bronze age people were as human as we are, so if people today can protest, then people in yesteryear can protest too.
That said, Neil's idea of protest does seem incredibly silly. Especially since there's broken weapons, and symbolic weapons, found in graves of 'great' people. Plus there's a known religous like symbolism in the UK of bronze age people putting spears point end first into the ground, just like how the sword was found.
Not sure of the “protest against war” angle. Thrusting a sword into the soil of someone else’s territory could be symbolic of either declaring war on them, or of having conquered them. Bending a sword to make it unusable could be symbolic of the end of conflict between different groups.
Wf Coaker came here to say this 👆👆
I was hoping to see this in the comments.
Problem with that is how expensive and powerful that symbol would be. If you just left that behind what group of people wouldn't pull it up and make it into an actual weapon. Though I do think positioning it as a symbol against war is a stretch it could be a sign of an age of relative peace wherein the upper-class warrior caste could walk around with ceremonial blades as nothing but a status symbol.
@@RobespierreThePoof I think it boils down to the rarity of bronze tools during that time (let alone huge ~swords with no usage other than decoration). To use such symbols as against enemies would just arm the enemy. I'd say they were just aggressive symbols brought forth by an age of relative peace-- an implication of war and murder, but clearly not a tool for those ends. They could genuinely be a symbol of peace-- the sword had not lost its stature but it had lost its use.
Then the Norse came.
It would seem that such a sacrifice would be made to ensure success in battle.
I'm so happy that curator's corner is getting a series, this is so fascinating! I love hearing from the actual experts, and the production value is also amazing.
Theres nothing expert about this guy
Man ya'll are cynical af. To me he just seems like an excited guy sharing a cool project he's working on with his team. Even as an adult he remains a student in learning.
Watch it or don't, no need to shit on a guy who's passionate about the work he does, geez.
Cody McMillen
I’m not shitting on him, but this guy isn’t an expert. The idea that this was a Bronze Age war protest is laughable. I’d love to see any contemporary evidence of that.
@@maxoutrage7270 On the other hand you are a F noobody. :D Expert of noobodyness :)
@@zenaidebuonaparte3882 Only a deeply stupid person would think that anyone other than an expert would hold such a prestigious post at the British Museum.
Doctor Wilkin is a highly qualified expert with many published works.
I can't wait for the day when I can pop on a VR headset and examine all sorts of historical objects like this!
I’m still waiting 🥲
Ooh
Yes Zuckerberg like real men will allowed this go live in your bubble world just don't expect every one to follow
The story of King Arthur returning Excalibur to the 'Lady of the Lake' likely has some past echoes of people thrusting bronze swords into bogs.
My thought exactly!
Not just bogs, a lot of swords have been found which were ritually cast into pools or other bodies of water. The presumption is that it is a gift of a particularly beautiful object to the gods.
And they have found tons of Iron Age weapons thrown into rivers, bogs, lakes, and ponds. Almost any body of water seemed to be a sacrifice site.
Also the sword from a stone you cast a bronze sword not an iron one. So a Bronze Age sword is removed from a stone. Something to ponder.
@Astro Turf Other than finding a lot of bronze swords in bronze age bogs and lake bottoms....(along with a lot of ritually killed people).
I'm surprised nobody has brought up the term, "bury the hatchet." I wish the curator, Neil, had given us more context for his theory. I find it more plausible that it was a peace commemoration. It could also be a votive offering, but if the brutalized one implies the end of something, not a beginning.
"Hey Ben, did you forgot putting the handle in the sword again?"
"W-what? Oh, shit!" Angrily trows sword.
It's much more likely a celebration of war won or probably sacrifice to ensure winning a war. I have never in my long life heard a anthropologist even mention possible war protest motive, and I think there is a reason for that
Yes, precisely. As mentioned above, it could also be a symbolic gesture as a dual sacrifice commemorating the end of the war. It's really unfortunate in my mind that the curator in this instance has decided to put his anachronistic and highly unlikely explanation as if it was a likely one. His is highly unlikely, and to be honest rather ridiculous.
Bloggs CHURCH!
Totally agree. They were sacrficial objects. Further, put a handle on it and no mortal could possibly use such a large item even with an edge on it. It may have been made for some early pagan God and offered as a bog sacrifice to him
Especially when you consider these were the Bell-Beaker people, an Indo-European peoples who were by nature very war-like and were the ancestors of the Celts and the Germanic peoples who were both noted for their constant warfare. Also to note this is Britain, when the Bell-Beaker's came to Britain, the native inhabitants of Britain mostly "Disappeared".
And by Disappeared, they were probably killed in Genocide or completely outbred in genocide, the Bell-Beaker's would be the last people I'd think of as protesting war.
There have definitely been historical pacifists, and pacifist cultures... a lot of them got wiped out, as you might imagine. Given the constant warfare blanketing Europe from the earliest history until 1945 or so (with only a few notable periods of peace, none lasting nearly as long as the current one), it seems unlikely that these skillfully made weapons would have come from people with a distaste for fighting.
I don't think we need and conspiracy theories about increasingly vaguely-defined "cultural marxism" to explain that.
as an ex pattern maker, I don't understand why you wouldn't join the 3D printed blade then use that as the pattern for the mould and cast the dirk in one piece of bronze..(as it would have been made originally) that way when you bend/fold it it won't break at the weak point, ie the weld.. in fact, if you took into account the contraction (shrinkage) of the particular ratio of alloys in the bronze, of the original blade (before you 3D printed) you could make a perfect reproduction..
Anyway, it sounds like a great experiment that I would be very interested to know the results of. :-)
I have done sand casting of bronze and I agree with you.
I think when the original was made they probably made it in a stone mold and Didnt sand cast it.
To bend something like this would be very easy, just put it between two branches and bend it.
Sometimes I think people might read to much into ancient discoveries ...I once lost a shotgun over the side of my boat while duck hunting....wonder what people will think in 4,000 years if they find my offering to the gods !
A lot of these swords were hammer treated to be more compressed/stiffer, so bending a battle-ready sword would have been more difficult than using a fork in a tree. The Ancient Celts all over Europe did the same type of thing to iron/steel weaponry as well, which would have been even more difficult. There are clear cultural/ritual implications for some of these artifacts, but I do agree that there is some chance that some of the more intact artifacts could have been accidentally lost by their original owners, left behind by looters who ransacked and burned the owners' homes, etc.
Deadhorse1 - if you ever read Motel of the Mysteries, you'll have a pretty good idea. lol
@@deadhorse1391 Probably wonder what the wooden object was. The iron would be long gone in 4000 years (unless it was stainless steel).
3:20
For a second there I was amazed that you knew that the sword's owner was walking his dog as he buried the sword... Grammar, man!
This might be a silly couple of questions, but.. I always thought that bent swords had in fact been discovered from later periods (non bronze age as far as I am aware) buried along side its owner. In this sense bending the sword is actually a clever way of retiring the sword and making it more difficult for grave robbers to make use of (assuming they wouldn't just melt down said sword at a smithy :D). Remember owning a sword (much less a giant blunt dirk) was a symbol of status for much of ancient times. They would be cherished and past down (depending on culture obv), and some would even gain names and legends to go along with the infamy of their owners.
So in this sense bending it to the point of making it unusable makes sense as a grave offering, retiring the sword with the warrior etc. Could this be it? Or are the bent swords the curator is reffering found in seemingly random locations?
Lastly, did they ever revisit the site where the giant bronze dirk was discovered? I would love to have gotten any kind of topographical soil analysis, even a rough sketch of the strata can offer huge contextual clues to the "smaller" and "larger" biome conditions as well as indicate what, if any, use that particular bog may have had. I.e were they using the Pete from that bog for fuel? Any signs of burning or soil-strata disturbance around the actual "hole" (for lack of a better word) could indicate a path, or the "well-traveled-ness" of the site. Which in turn could (with other solid, or colaboriting discoveries) indicate a religious or communal site that could literally have been subjugated to anything (lol).
Hope this maybe gives someone an idea, or a fun thought experiment.
That gnome on the bottom of the bookshelf is freakin me out.
omg! just spotted him!
So interesting! Can't wait to hear from the next curator!
I think the idea of making 3d printer files available to the public is brilliant.
The "peace treaty" hypothesis sounds much more likely than a protest, which is pretty much a projection from a modern perspective.
But without knowing for sure what these things symbolized, their destruction or burial can't really be interpreted properly. If they represent rulership, for instance, then the act of destroying one or giving it to the bog would represent something quite different.
Giving things to a bog seems to have been a common form of ritual, so it could also have been an offering of some sort.
Aye, they would put other sacrifices in bogs too, even humans!
Sacrificing a ceremonial sword blade could be seen in several ways. Giving it to the gods when the war is over in gratitude for having peace is a good theory ("burying the hatchet" as mentioned), but it could perhaps also have been a way to ask for power in war. Give the gods a blade in the hope they bless your weapons?
To say they sacrificed anything is speculation in itself. They might not have viewed it as such at all. But I had the same idea. There will be peace between us, we will remake our weapons into a ceremonial sword and bury it so that our peace will last. Anything we say about them is projection and or speculation at this point.
@Brian W I would say what you are saying might be a good example of projection too.
Given the fact that it was thrust into the big, rather than laid could possibly be symbolic of a taking of the land by a ruler, a symbol of conquest if you will.
If I was making an offering to the gods, I would make it something of extreme value to me and thus a significant personal statement to the gods, beside gold/silver, what was more valuable at the time than bronze?
I doubt it was a sign of protest. Maybe the end of a war between two clans, and it was a symbol that the sword was no longer needed. An end to the conflict.
If 5 tribes swear to come to each others aid and each was given a dirk to commemorate the pact, bending and destroying the dirks woulld represent a breaking of that oath.
Perhaps placing the sword in the bog represents two clans “burying the hatchet” so to speak?
it was a gift to the gods. a promise kept for a prayer answered.
Reminds me of the folded cross of the Stafford-shire hoard where a golden cross was folded in a similar fashion: "Many of the finds at the site had been damaged prior to deposition, and the gold had been twisted or bent, and in some cases broken. It is believed that the cross was folded up so that it could be packed easily into the hoard before burial.".
Wow, each time I expect to learn a little bit about an artifact I end up learning about so much more.
I can imagine two groups of people that have made peace with each other after a war coming together and sacrificing a dirk as a symbol of their peace.
"A sword without a handle has no handler" an old Bronze Age Irish guy protesting the war
Photoscanning woo! Love to see technology at work like this
I thought he broke in to prose for a sec there.
"This Dirk was found
And pulled out of the ground
By a man in a bog
Out walking his dog
And was pooled from the soil
After the man stubbed his toe"
That's poetry, not prose.
Poetry, not prose, jusr sayin'
The Vikings bent the swords of the foes they had slain in battle so that their foes couldn't use them in the afterlife.
The idea that the Bronze Age was a time of peace is probably wishfull thinking.
We humans have hunted and fought for food and survival for most of our existence.
Chances are we will have to do so again in the near future.
Even if you proved that to this idiot he wouldn't accept it.... he has an agenda here and it looks like people aren't buying it
Achilles lived in the Bronze Age (!)
"The idea that the Bronze Age was a time of peace is probably wishfull thinking."
It clearly wasn't but he didn't say that it was. In fact, I don't agree with this protest hypothesis, which was a few seconds of an eight minute video, but there would be no need for protest against war in a peaceful period anyway.
This isn't the video I commented on.
Within the first minutes he said the Bronze age is the first time people see a metal... Well, i guess the Copper Age isn't existing then...
Great stuff. I fall in love with bronze swords. They are like some kind of alien tech artifacts.
bloody beaker folk comin over ere
They took our jobs!!...lol
@@richardvanh7147 took more than Jobs, they literally committed Genocide against the natives in one way or another it seems, and have ruled this Island ever since.
DNA shows us that even nowadays native British people still cluster with the ancient Beaker British people, we're one in the same, and only about 10% (I believe) of the Native DNA remains (although, the natives were closely related to continentals whom the Beakers partially descended from)
@@moreston4366 The pre beaker people looked like middle Eastern folk, the beaker folk were light skinned
@@SarionFetecuse yeah they were cheddar men!
BEAKERANIANS TAKING OVA
War protests? I'm pretty sure that ancient people were far too busy to be peace activists. Your military strenght was essential to your own survival and a deterrent towars your enemies.
It was common to use weapons as sacrificial items to the gods, and they were bent so no enemy could pick them up and use them against you.
And this Curator cannot bring himself to say Craftsman, rather he calls the creators of these dirks Craftspersons. This fellow doesn’t seem to be very rigorous in his scholarship, as is so often the case with SJW academics.
@@bombfog1 Indeed, I'm getting the same vibe from him. Ideologues don't make good historians...or good anything, really.
my first idea about sacrificing the dirk (?) was that it could be to symbolise a victory. .. maybe the winner of a conflict would force the other party to produce and then destroy the dirk. in this case additionally to the symbolism you have the effect of further weakening your opponent because of the resources they would need to create it.
I would assume that they could symbolise different tribes or something. They could be something that is passed down generation by generation, but when one tribe fights another and defeats them they destroy it as a symbol of the destruction of the other tribe.
It reminds me of the Eastern Native American tradition of "burying the hatchet", in which parties would commemorate making peace by physically burying a weapon of war. This famously happened at the founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Perhaps these European blades were sacrificed in a similar manner, to commemorate warring groups achieving peace.
My first thought was it being used as a primitive version of a tomb of the unknown soldier, a way to honor those who died in battle with a single gesture. Great to see all the different theories and constructive discussion here.
A protest against conflict?
This archeologist wouldn't be able to identify Occam's Razor if he stubbed his toe on it.
Let's 3D print this thing that's usually cast (and therefore quite cheap to make with the same material and a backyard smelter)! Give money!
Maybe the sword thrust into the bog isn’t a protest but a tribute.. the Bronze Age equivalent to pouring the first sip of your beer on the ground for your dead fallen homey? 🍻
My theory on the dirks being bent and thrust into bogs, is the obvious, it is probably a religious gesture.
I've seen theories about this stating that they believed that in order for the sacrifices to be able to get to "the other side" they had to be broken/"dead".
It's not specifically the 'dirks' that are bent. There are many many swords and knives found in rivers and bogs that have been bent. Other objects are also twisted and broken before being deposited; gold and silver cups, torcs etc.
They mention them quite often in the Time Team videos and it seems to be generally agreed that they are the sacrifice of beautiful treasured objects to the world of the Gods. The bending is to 'decommission' them, to take them out of the world of men and out of their original function and hand them over to the Gods. Certainly there has never been the slightest suggestion that they are in any way an anti-war protest which I think would be projecting our thoughts and values on people from a very different time...
@Artemis Fowl No they would never have made something that was for them so expensive and beautiful just to lift peat, It isn't even a good design to lift peat. This is Royal ceremonial stuff.
@Artemis Fowl You're *_completely_* wrong. It sounds like you are just inventing nonsense in your head. I cannot be bothered to argue or explain.
@Artemis Fowl no one recorded anything in the bronze age when swords were placed in rivers and pools. We have no records. it is the considered opinion of archaeologists and other experts. You are neither . You can "buy" it or not, but what you really need is a lot more reading and information.
Random, uninformed speculation will get you nowhere.
I'd suggest the bending of the sword is neither a protest nor a peace gesture but likely an act of sacrilege or perhaps to prevent unworthies taking it after the owner's death.
Fascinating!
War protest? You may well be "projecting" sir!
They had gods of war!
Sir.?
I’m just glad he didn’t say the sword was ceremonial. Usually means they have no idea
A metal sword in bronze age is like a Lamborghini nowadays. You don't drive it into the wall unless you wanna make a huge point.
I would like to point out that they had copper before bronze. Copper is the majority of the chemical make up of bronze. So to say they didn't have metal before is completely false and should be made clear.
Copper is actually much harder to work than bronze, and can be quite dangerous for the craftsman (copper production generates toxic gasses). Copper tool culture was not as widespread as bronze became. Some areas/populations likely transitioned directly from stone to bronze.
@@trumpocalypsenow4654 there was a copper age in Britain for a short period prior to the arrival of the beaker people, but other than that yeah; undoubtedly some areas transitioned directly through outside introduction.
A protest? Uh, not very likely imo. I would understand a disposal of a failed blank, or design. The sacrifice of something considered extremely valuable. But that bronze was, as I said, extremely valuable in its day. Disposed of in “protest”? Not likely.
It wasn't recycled, so it probably was deliberately "sacrificed" or something.
I do not think it is a war protest. I think it's the exact opposite. It could be a holy celebratory sacrificial mark of a heroic victory granted by the gods. Probably by a small religiously motivated mercenary band, or migratory tribe.
what leads ypu to believe this or was it only your fantasy
Interesting. I think you're right, it's probably not a protest. I assumed it might have been symbolic of the removal of a king/chieftain. Destroying the dirk that represented his rule would be ceremonially deposing him or getting rid of his authority. Alternatively it could be a burial of a king or war-leader as well.
"And try to unite all six dirks for the first time"
And lo, the six primordial blades of war and slaughter were finally united and thus the Age of War began; and any peace in the world melted in the raging fire of holy bloodshed.
Pulled it up out of the ground, is he now the rightful king of England? 😜
I saw stuff like this in China. Ancient bronze daggers and spades that clearly were never used or intended for real use, they were standard units of metal, kind of a transition from trading instruments and weapons to standard sized trading ingots of bronze for melting into other goods. Proto currency.
A bent sword being deposited in a bog suggests to me not a protest but a ritual either commemorating a new peace or asking the spirits for it.
3000 year old authentic display sword for the wall mount. Perfect for the game room.
I've got a 6000 year old flint axe on the wall in my man cave. Sets the room off nicely.
Good-ness, just because your 3D printer is small, does not mean all of modern humanity struggles to produce a flat triangle
Jacob Robison it's more allegorical than that
For a curator he did seem pretty clueless.
Bending your sword and throwing it in a bog? Sounds like a surrender or peace gesture
Best video purely from the comments below. This curator has really angered a lot of people. Wonderful.
The original looks so beautifully futuristic :D
Planting something that looks like a giant bronze age cinquedea reminds me more of conquest. Like somebody who plants a flag into newly discovered or conquered territory.
When going from a stone age people to a bronze age one, it's likely that it was hafted like a bi-face point rather than having an integrated handle. The resin, wood and bindings would have long rotted leaving only the blade. Likely as a ceremonial lance or pike.
I live about a kilometer away from the location where one of these dirks was found. I'm not holding out hope on finding one myself though.
Get a metal detector, and your chances more than triple, I have found things older than bronze age. just don't get eaten by the bog. ;)
It’s absolutely trivial to find a parallel for a completely new material, plastic. Plastic simply did not exist when my parents were born and now it’s EVERYWHERE. The introduction of plastic makes the Bronze Age pale in comparison.
Well, there is the term "bury the hatchet" signifying peace.
CraftPERSON?? My phone even knows its wrong.
..amazing.. More! 🙂
I love this show
Do you have functional swords in your collection? If so how does this compare in regards to size and weight?
We need more Sue Brunning!!
Wouldn't a metallurgist be able to tell you if the bending was done hot or cold? My money is on cold.
Thats awesome
Perhaps the offering of a bronze sword was symbolic, tying up a peace treaty between opposing sides as a way of signifying an end to hostilities?
It has been spoken that so many derks, Knives and sword have been found in water/bogs it was a sacrifice to their gods.
Why dont the 'corners' show better views of the items they talk about.
great!
Two things come to mind: I seem to remember reading/hearing t swords are often found alongside causeways through fens and moors? The second cound the "bending" have been a ritualistic show of strength by a leader/proto leader?
It's most likely to be a master as in the same way you have a perfect master to make silicone molds for resin casting that way you will have identical copies every time
This guy looks like a blast.
The beaker folk were pushing dirks into the bog...yeah, that's certainly a symbol, totally explains it.
As far as bending it, they could of just stuck it between 2 trees that are close to each other and then used the leverage to bend it easily. imagine hearing that the war was over and the smiths would then need to more or less stop production of the swords and then they needed to melt some down to make other bronze objects so they would bend the swords to make it more compact so they can fit it in the furnace. Just a thought.
and then buried it? it's a deliberate sacrifice. You could be right about the bending method though.
Maybe the dirks were shop signs hung outside a blacksmith’s yard to show what he could do...(?)
a buried dirk still straight could be a ceremony of peace or just a cease of hostilities, and the bending of the dirk could be a ceremony or wish of the previously warring factions that those that died and defeated dont return for vengance. kinda like the bending of the viking swords bureid with the men who wielded them.
I've been reading about the Beaker People for decades, but I've only ever seen a beaker in book illustrations, without any context, so I had no idea how big they were. This is the first time I've seen a real one being handled by a person.
Might have been the base of an ancient signpost or a land marker probably for a bus stop.
I've left some marvelous things in bogs.
The copper and tin that made it came from the earth so the plunging of the Dirk into the bog could be in thanks or reverence? Giving back of sorts
loving the experiment - are we going to get to know what happens??? edge of seat stuff, 'ta :)
You find a half finished sword and the only thing you can think of that it is a symbol. It is a half finished sword.
I know this comment is old but I can’t help myself sometimes. If it was blunt, unused and had never been hilted, but is of a design which is usually found sharp/used/hilted then sure “half finished sword” is the obvious explanation.
However, if the type of sword has only ever been found in a blunt, unused, never hilted state, and furthermore is of a very large size for the proportions and just happens to look like a grossly and impractically enlarged version of things which *were* evidently in actual use.....THEN there just might be a symbolic or ceremonial explanation.
it was probably used as an sample...to show off the craftsmanship for possible buyers.
I may be ignorant to the museum world, but it just seems like the British museum is the gold standard when it comes to the multitude of mediums they use to share knowledge with the public.
regarding bending: A micro view of the metal may show changes of crystalline associated with heating or not heating. I know iron does annealing, does bronze? Ceremonial wise I doubt a high heat source was used. Otherwise it would likely have happened at an inhabited not remote site (the forge, a great hall etc) to have the heat.
The dirk's might be leaned on over time or multiple people taking a turn bending it a little each time. The insertion into the earth may have also been part of the bending with a log or other heavy pushed over the upright. Dont know what the bends look like from just this vid but there are some ideas for you.
Alternative is they could have been territory markers as they all came from the same shop. If they were commisioned all at the same time and dispersed it could be to mark your kingdom or to have a blessing spread to the different places.
And people said Skyrim’s paddle swords weren’t realistic lol
Wow! That dirk is amazing! Almost 2500 years old and it looks like it is from the lord of the rings.
The potential as an energy weapon was lifted by bending it.
Thought a dirk was a dagger...and what on earth is a "master craftsperson". The word is craftsman.
very interesting
it is also quite possible that these swords were blunt because they were made to be locally mounted and sharpened.....ensuring that the blade is indeed a new blade without a prior history to the purchaser of the sword.... it may be that a new, purchased blade made a purer sacrifice, compared with one with a dubious history.
I am a little late here (the video was published 7 years ago), but I highly appreciate nevertheless! (this is a part of YT "magic": it stays!!)
BIG thanks to Neil & the Team!
PS. What is this Neil's lovely accent? So beautiful!
Fantasy sword wall hangings from the bronze age.
Fascinating. First thing that comes to mind for me is it may have been a gesture for fallen veteran soldiers. What reinforces it in my mind is that it's meant to be blunt and handle-less; which to me symbolizes a weapon out of commission with honor. Just my two cents.
fabian mastrapa, I immediately thought of them as being a "tombstone". I was disappointed to see that there wasn't any symbols displayed on it.
The Bronze Age is such an amazing period in European sociocultural development. We still aren't sure what caused the Bronze Age collapse that resulted in something akin to a 'dark age'. The Bronze implements from Mycenean Greeks, Troy, and Minoan civilizations are beautifully forged.
It may not have been an anti war protest. The object may have represented the owner and when the owner died the sword died with them.
Makes me wonder if there was something particular lying in the ground that the object was thrust through. Like pinning something (maybe symbolically) down or mashing it into something (or somebody) like a stake into a vampire.
Jeez, where do I start? I guess I'll start with copper, which was smelted long before people thought to alloy it with either arsenic or tin. Then there's the part about the amber trade, which was dominated by the Mycenean Greeks in the 2nd Millenium and in the First by the Etruscans, so while the locals might not have known how to make bronze at first, they were certainly exposed to it. Please recall that the Bronze Age started in the Middle East a good millenium before that technology was regularly used in Europe. Lastly, how does one document something like a "war protest" in a preliterate society? Other than that, great video!
This guy loves the DIRK
0.30 I love the Gnome in the cabinet.
Curator travels back in time to ask them what its for?
Their Answer: Sword, ya daft, lad that's my cheese board and that bog was the local trash pile.
In the 1876 book, 'Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy', Herbert Garland describes a process where flat or thin pieces of bronze and other copper alloys were repeated cold hammered and annealed into the final shape as it was difficult to cast bronze into thin shapes. There may have been a similar process with a final grinding to remove hammer marks involved here. According to Garland, cold hammering also hardens and strengthens copper alloys, so tools and weapons that could be cast into shape were often cold hammered after casting.