Sword Sunday # 50 - 2020 is turning out to be an interesting year to find things

When we talk about old swords in the modern day, we also need to understand the circumstances in which they were found, and that includes political, legal, and contextual. While this article isn't about swords, per se, it does inform us about how absolutely insane 2020 is in nearly all aspects of life, including when we talk about swords. 

In England, there has been a law in effect since 1997 that defines certain things founds in the ground as possible "treasure". For a country that has roots back to the height of the Roman empire, even simple things like tool handles, metal blades, and minted coins can be invaluable, not only for their raw monetary value, but for the historical information they provide as well. Anything found that is, or looks to be over 300 years old is required to be reported. Each county has an office who's job it is to review finds, and assess if they are national, and/or histrionically significant. Items found to have that value are taken into custody of the state (the government of the UK), and usually turned over to a museum or research institute. 

Currently, the law in question is being looked at for expansion, after several significant finds were deemed to not meet the age and value specifications that had been set, and critically important items were lost to the private market, and in many cases locked away from researchers eyes.

Still, even with what it does cover, the offices are hardly inactive.

In 2017, 1,267 pieces went through the process in which a committee determines whether an item should be considered a treasure, up from 79 pieces in 1997. - From the article by Jenny Gross

By those metrics, the committee in question would have reviewed about 3 items per day. 

2020, however, is another animal entirely. Even with a strong aversion to instituting a lock-down, England has resorted to that several times now, and, like much of the industrialized world, also seen an explosive surge in work-from-home employment situations. 

The end result to all of this? 

Well, sociologists will no doubt debate and evaluate the full effects well into the 2030s, but one thing that is also happening a lot more is a surge in home gardening, and yard improvements. 

And that means digging.

And that can get interesting in a country with a cultural history dating back over 2000 years.

One spectacular example was where gardeners in Hampshire found 63 gold coins minted during the reign of Henry VIII, 4 inscribed with the names of his wives. 

Another discovery in Milton Keynes were a stash of apartheid era South African Gold coins.Their presence alone on the island nation hints at an interesting story. 

As of the beginning of December, over 47,000 items (including some swords) have been reported to the authorities in England, a rate of over 120 finds a day, forty two times the previous rate of reporting. 

Whatever comes of COVID, and the consequences there in, one of the byproducts of the event (and the likely continued lock-downs into 2021), will probably include an improved gimps into the nation's long, and diverse history. 

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

Sword Sunday #49 - The Greek Xiphos

When you talk about the Greek military, the cornerstone image of the early, pre-roman armies is that of spear-armed, bronze-breastplated soldiers marching in their characteristic block, or Phalanx formations. The image is not altogether wrong,  like nearly every army that existed before the rise of the firearm, the Greeks learned that the pike or spear was the king of the battlefield, able to deflect almost any charge.

That being said, they were not blind to the question of what to do when the blocks of soldiers were broken, or individual troops were caught alone, or when the fight did close to hand-to-hand range. When that did happen, the Greeks had their own answer to the eventuality. 

Modern reconstruction of a Greek xiphos and scabbard.

The Xiphos was one of a handful of swords in history who's existence actually bridged the bronze (3200–600 BCE)   and iron ages (1100–700 BCE) extensively.  The exact age of the weapon is somewhat nebulous, but its association with the ancient Greek militarizes is strong enough to stipulate that it likely was part of the military arsenal from the 8th century BCE to the 1st century BCE. 

The sword itself is a simple, clean blade, with a flat grip and a small hilt. The blade was generally regarded at between 18 to 24 inches long, though Spartans were reported as using a 12" version. It was a 'leaf bladed' design, with the fullest part of the blade about a third of the way down its length, and it was probably equally good at both chopping or thrusting, though both iron and bronze are noted for being bad at holding an edge (bronze, of course more so). The weapon would have been originally been cast, and then shaped by stoning, since bronze can not be hardened. Iron swords however, may have been either cast, or forged, and examples exist to suggest both methods were used.

Its worth noting that the Xiphos is nearly identical in design and construction to the Celtic  

La Tène people. As to which sword came first, of they are event connected, or if both are an example of form following function is still something of a talked about debate among historians. 

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"

Sword Sunday #48 - new mushrooms, and an really old sword

The Vintage News this month covered an interesting find out of Europe. Roman Novak, a citizen of the Czech republic, was 'mushroom hunting', a common tradition in that part of Europe, when he discovered something that was decidedly not fungal. 

"It had just rained and I went mushroom-picking. As I went, I saw a piece of metal sticking out of some stones. I kicked it and found that it was a blade, part of a sword. I then dug some more to find a bronze axe." - Roman Novak

The axe was part of a larger find, the 'crown jewel' of  which being a cast bronze sword with a blade broken just above the hilt. 

Archaeologists have commented that the actual quality of the weapon is very poor, with x-rays showing bubbles inside the metal, creating weakness in the already soft bronze. Researchers suspect that the weapon was more than likely ceremonial more than functional in its day. The sword is beleived to have belonged to the Urnfield people, so named because of their practiced of burying their dead as cremated ashes in urns. 

As for the weapon itself, it will be further analyzed by experts before being exhibited at both the Ethnographic Museum of Jesenicko and the Silesian Museum.

But before we leave it at that, its worth pointing out here a little bit more about the context of the sword existence.

First of all, as I have pointed out before, the sword was the first truly 'pure weapon' in human culture. nearly all other instruments of war before that had their roots in hunting or building tools. To buiold a sword is to prepare for war, or at least conflict, as a fundamental level. Spears and bows can hunt, axes can build, and even maces drawn their linage from rock mass weapons who's smashing power would become the hammers and mallets of skilled craftsmen centuries later. But the sword had no such counterpart, to display a sword, let alone to wield it, was to unambiguously proclaim some level of fighting prowess, or authority.  Such a weapon was likely owned by someone with authority, or wealth, or both depending on the people. 

The 14th century BCE is part of the dawn of civilization in Europe. The parent and grandparent tribes and people who would go on to become the dominant force in the world in less than 1000 years have their roots in these times.  

Egypt is one of the major forces of the day, both militarily and economically. In its company are kingdoms such as  Assyria,  Athens, and the Mitanni, among others. Steel is still a millennium away, and man is building cities and reshaping the world now with bronze tools. The battle of Thermopalye is almost 1000 years into the future at this point, and one of the great engineering feats of the century was when Amenhotep III connected the red sea with the Nile river by way of a canal. 

In fact, its estimated that as much as a third of the worlds population of the day might have been migratory, not claiming a 'homeland' in the popular sense of the world. 

As something of a footnote to this, again for the sake of perspective, this sword is 500 years older than the great wall of China.

And , if you were to create a timeline from now (2020) to the approximate century the sword was made (1300BCE), and then to put a point on it showing when the first true European castles were built in Europe, that mark would be closer to you and to the sword by over 500 years (depending on who's definition of 'castle' your'e using).

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"