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Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

newsingermany.com

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Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#131

Post by bombcar »

hzay wrote: post #113
Archelaos wrote: post #18

The article is somewhat sensationalistic. Finding an octagonal type bronze sword ("Achtkantschwert" in German) from that period is rare, but we have quite a couple of them. Since bronze does not rust, the conditions of such swords are often quite good (and typically far better than that of medieval iron swords, for instance). Here is a map of the distribution of octagonal-hilted swords in Europe: https://www.research…

My knowledge of bronze vs iron comes purely from playing dwarf fortress. Are they fairly comparable in the damage they can cause?

Any real difference in damage would be weight based, as swords were more used for beating than cutting. It's likely that one metal could hold a better edge, and one (perhaps the same) would be more resilient to breaking.

It's not quite like the D&D "this metal is higher ranking and does more damage".

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#132

Post by fnordpiglet »

stinkbutt wrote: post #129
mcbutterbunz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people could make them 3000 years ago? Im curious how many blacksmiths there were back then with the appropriate skill and resources to learn it and do it well. I feel as if there are still a surprising number of people that could make a sword today, although maybe not from raw resources.

it was one of the most popular and widespread occupations

I think it’s more accurate to say most communities had a blacksmith. “Farmer” was the most popular and widespread occultations. A community at that time didn’t require a ton of specialized labor, they needed more people using the output of a blacksmith.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#134

Post by GravitasFailure »

hzay wrote: post #113
Archelaos wrote: post #18

The article is somewhat sensationalistic. Finding an octagonal type bronze sword ("Achtkantschwert" in German) from that period is rare, but we have quite a couple of them. Since bronze does not rust, the conditions of such swords are often quite good (and typically far better than that of medieval iron swords, for instance). Here is a map of the distribution of octagonal-hilted swords in Europe: https://www.research…

My knowledge of bronze vs iron comes purely from playing dwarf fortress. Are they fairly comparable in the damage they can cause?

Bronze is superior to iron, but not to steel. Both bronze and steel can take very sharp edges while only steel can be tempered to be springy and tough and therefore can make much lighter weapons. Iron is soft, weak, prone to rusting, can't easily take or hold an edge, and requires a lot of fuel to process from ore, but you can get it anywhere in large quantities if you have the fuel, while bronze needs the much harder to find tin.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#135

Post by mikewarot »

idiotsecant wrote: post #30
Luc wrote: post #13

More nice pictures here, very metal: https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article245860994/Archaeologie...

Wow! That really does look like it's in good shape. I understand it's because bronze doesn't oxidize as readily but it's not what I picture when someone says 3000 year old sword.

The arrow points are pretty amazing too

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#136

Post by labster »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #107
InitialLastName wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even on the outskirts (e.g. Romano-British) people held onto Roman, Christian, and Latin culture at a very deep level. Three of the 10 most common languages on Earth boil down to "Latin with a bad accent".

Exactly, and the most popular religion in the world is basically cultural continuity with late western Roman culture and its largest most organized official form even uses the Latin language and maintains political institutions with continuous lineage back to Rome. I don't think there's a real timeline where Europeans were wandering around the ruins of the suddenly collapsed empire wondering who these people were. Th…

Knowing fully what happened to Rome, if it’s even possible, would have been limited to the educated class. Stories would still have come out of the peasant class, whose folk memory of Rome couldn’t match what the clergy had.

Eventually we did remake the Pax Romana, but it took two utterly ruinous wars, humanism, and a working knowledge of free trade to recreate the system that Rome had managed to create almost by accident.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#137

Post by Paul-Craft »

masklinn wrote: post #38
idiotsecant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! That really does look like it's in good shape. I understand it's because bronze doesn't oxidize as readily but it's not what I picture when someone says 3000 year old sword.

Fwiw bronze does oxidise quite readily, but the copper oxide is not porous, and becomes a resilient copper carbonate. Which is why bronze and other copper-alloy artefacts are extremely resilient, unless they come in contact with chlorides and get bronze disease.

I can tell you have some experience with old bronze/copper. Most people do not even know what "bronze disease" is.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#138

Post by [deleted] »

Loughla wrote: post #95
hotpotamus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that bronze swords' lifespans were limited by the metal; they can't be sharpened, but would need to be re-cast. A replaceable handle probably wouldn't help much.

Wait, can you really not sharpen bronze? From what I know it takes a good edge, just not quite as fine as steel would. But I don't know anything about not being able to sharpen it. Am I wrong? Can you really not sharpen bronze?

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