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5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

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Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#31

Post by tarheels100 »

irjustin wrote: post #29
tarheels100 wrote: post #22

This seems to stretch the meaning of "discovered." Hey look, I just discovered a dinosaur at the natural history museum! It's older than they thought it was!

I'll take the opposite end and say it was discovered. If you "discovered a dinosaur" that was completely mislabeled and of the oldest dinosaurs known to man "hiding in plain sight" - you deserve it.

Certainly it is a significant contribution, but I have to admit that my mental image when reading someone dicovered an ancient sword is of someone digging it out of the ground.

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#32

Post by nl »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #16
nl wrote: post #9

Given that it's a bronze sword it seems fairly clear it wasn't medieval. Surprising that this took so long.

Why would that be clear? You can buy new bronze daggers today.

Because bronze was outdated by Roman times (let alone 1000 years later), and high quality weapons were prestigious.

You can get one now because it's fun.

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#33

Post by inawarminister »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17
mehrdadn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weapons come before crowns etc. I don't think anyone suggested weapons didn't exist before these swords either?

In the Iliad (much more recent than this sword, but nonetheless informative in some ways), swords are symbolic of nothing. The text is very clear on what the symbol of royal authority is -- it's a club. ("Scepter") I'd be pretty comfortable with the idea that clubs are no more recent than weapons in general.

Yes, even until the Hellenistic era, the weapon of virtue and honour was... the spear. As exemplified by the poetic sense of a conqueror's demense: his spear-won land.

However, other peoples from deep antiquity held sword to higher regard. Like the Celts and Germans. Especially the Germanic tribes, who couldn't make their own swords and need to win them in trade or raid.

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#34

Post by arminiusreturns »

Wow, this is very interesting and right up my alley. One of my many random hobbies is collecting images of artefacts and I have a huge dir dedicated just to ancient swords. Bronze tends to look very similar due to the casting methods but it's cool to see an older iteration and compare it to say the Scythian (my personal favorites), Mycenaean, Greek, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc.

Funny enough, the ones I have marked as oldest are called "The Swords of Arslantepe" [1] (which the article mentions in passing) from the same general region as this one, and are said to be also ~5k old, and of a very similar chemical composition. The weapons of the royal tombs of Ur [2] are right behind these in age.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Swords+of+Arslantepe&iax=im...

[2] http://sumerianshakespeare.com/117701/118301.html

edit: From the article, a new one to me: "and the sword found in the Tokat Museum in Turkey", now I have a new something to search for!

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#36

Post by roywiggins »

nl wrote: post #9

Given that it's a bronze sword it seems fairly clear it wasn't medieval. Surprising that this took so long.

Blatantly mislabeled stuff being rediscovered in archives and dusty back shelves of museums is more the rule than the exception. It happens all the time. There's way more stuff collecting dust in museum archives than there are subject matter experts to review them.

For instance: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/historians-find-long...

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#37

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

nl wrote: post #32
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be clear? You can buy new bronze daggers today.

Because bronze was outdated by Roman times (let alone 1000 years later), and high quality weapons were prestigious. You can get one now because it's fun.

I'm not a historian / archaeologist, so I can't really be sure here, but I would have assumed bronze would have been valued throughout history for-at least-it's appearance?

I also would have assumed the fun-factor has been a historical constant too? If you're wealthy enough, at any time since the bronze age, you might want a bronze version of [thing] for the same reasons people want a bronze [thing] now?

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#38

Post by hodgesrm »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #34

Wow, this is very interesting and right up my alley. One of my many random hobbies is collecting images of artefacts and I have a huge dir dedicated just to ancient swords. Bronze tends to look very similar due to the casting methods but it's cool to see an older iteration and compare it to say the Scythian (my personal favorites), Mycenaean, Greek, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc. Funny enough, the ones I have marked as…

It seems your user name matches your hobby!

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#39

Post by cull »

I know that this is more of an announcement of the recognition of the misattribution of an artifact in the museum’s collection, but I am more curious of it’s provenance; specifically, how it made its way into the museum’s collection. And what its original archaeological context was.

Re: 5,000-year-old sword discovered by archaeology student at a Venetian monastery

#40

Post by samstave »

rvz wrote: post #19

Reminds me of the discovery of a 1,500 year old sword at the bottom of a lake thought to be King Arthur's legendary excalibur which was said to have been thrown in that same lake in Cornwall in England [0]. 𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔬 𝔶𝔢 𝔩𝔢𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔈𝔵𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔟𝔲𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔢... [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/schoolgirl-e...

Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government!

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!

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