Bronze age swords
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ธ.ค. 2013
- In reaction to the comments on the mellow jazz used in the last bronze age swords video, I have gone to the other farcical extreme and used wildly over-the-top action music. You may now decide that you preferred the jazz.
I forgot to measure the Gundlingen and Naue swords, I'm afraid, but you can see roughly their length by comparison with the Wilburton.
All swords shown owned by Mick Skelly, who, as you have probably guessed, was sitting just out of shot.
A curious thing about these videos is how the title plates are my usual cream writing on a red-brown background, and yet for some reason when I upload them to TH-cam, they change to almost black and white. If anyone knows why this happens, do tell.
www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
Classicists:”everything originated in Greece”
Lloyd”no, actually everything originated in England, including time itself. The center of the big bang was Newcastle”
Yeah... He glossed over a bit here. The Urnfield complex was Late Bronze age and near the onset of the iron age (Predecessor to the Halstatt proto Celtic culture). While the Mediterranean and Greece was transitioning to Wrought Iron and soon after Forged Steel. The Bronze age continued for another 500 years in Northern Europe and among the Atlantic Countries. So his migration East occurred after the initial migration west and was late to the party of the upcoming iron age powers.
In any case, Greece is not a Bronze pioneer, they were a late Bronze age power. The Minoans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Anatolians, etc... were all there much earlier than the Myceneans.
The Greece we all know and love was actually an Iron Age Greece from the Archaic period or a Classic age power up to the rise of Alexander who transitioned to Forged Steel.
"One day I will have shown you enough swords"
I pray I die before that day comes.
Then I pray you live for quite a long time.
"...but this ist not that day!" :D ;)
Bronze is a beautiful metal. Why do all of the ancient movies insist on showing it as dark brown?
Because people know bronze from dark brown statues?
Lindybeige more likely from mueums understandably never polishing their bronze exhibits....
peter forden museums even....oops
+peter forden If they polished their exhibits, there wouldn't be much of them left for future generations after one or more centuries of polishing, I am afraid.
Plus, being the son of an antiquities trader, I can assure you that you should never remove the oxyde layer from old bronze statues or decorations, they actually LOSE commercial value if you do.
+Federico Spadone well the first part of your reply is relevant, polishing to nothingness an ancient exhibit is a bit of an own goal, however the second, the value of a museum exhibit should not lie in its monetary value but its educational, if the museum has it simply because it is economically valuable then it is a really a shop font and not a museum designed to allow greater knowledge of ancient or older customs etc, a single copy of a bronze age sword etc polished as a bronze age person would definately have had it will give the visitor a better idea as to just one of the reasons bronze weapon was so desired/loved.
You have someone BEHIND THE CAMERA?
My life has been a lie.
Not sure, but i think that's not a regular thing. I believe the person out of the frame is the owner of the swords (and possibly the house where they're filming). Most of his videos are a one-man project i suspect. :D
7 year old comment but look at 5:03 reflection
@@theolodger i always knew lloyd was a birdperson...
One day you will have not shown us enough! You're stuck here forever now.. I want to see every kind of sword there ever was. We got all the time in the world. :P
Besides you humor this is what I love about you. That bit of information about how these swords actually spread was really interesting. I also love the look of Bronze Swords. Bronze is a beautiful metal.
It would probably be prohibitively expensive but it would be interesting to see cut test and durability tests done with these swords. Take a hack at a lamb shank or an shield of the appropriate type. That sort of thing.
Newcastle University has been doing just that.
Really? Is their some kind of on-line video?
Dan Morgan
Just google it, Newcastle Uni (UK) is not the only one doing it, there are dozens of videos online of people testing replica ancient weapons to see how they worked.
Skallagrim did some cutting with authentic (though obviously not "real") bronze age swords. In fact I think they're made by exactly the same guy that made these swords.
Get 2multi-usage moulds and get on with it...bugger them up and start again...hours of enndless amusement...
great video! I don't think bronze age swords get enough attention.
"They are brilliant"
Yes, they literally are.
i can't imagine how many fingers were cut off because of no hilt swords like these.
Thank you for all of the great videos that you do. Always find them fascinating and informative.
archaeologists excavating london in a thousand years
Bronze Age started out in South Eastern Europe and the Middle East as they had easier access to copper and tin. Especially tin was some sort of a problem and it is actually proven that people in Northern and Middle Europe were so impressed by the size of bronze tools and weapons that they tried to replicate those with their know materials (i.e adding pieces of flint stone, obsidian or bone to wooden constructions in order to build a big sword). In order to use bronze long-distance trading of tin was necessary, usually imported from the Middle East. By 600 BCE Greece and Italy were way beyond bronze and reached Iron Age centuries ago.
Aegean swords were often inspired by the middle eastern ones, whereas the Romans were quite … practical. If they did encounter any form of a good concept or idea they just adopted and improved it. That was the case with the steel swords Gladius and Spatha - neither was invented by the Romans. Again: were already beyond Iron Age.
By the way: one of the reasons for switching to iron and then steel was the lack of tin. By the end of the 2nd millennium BCE almost all the tin that could be exploited with knows techniques has been used. From early times on tin was so rare that importing it from the Middle East made sense.
+diotough Good comment! I agree.
If I am not mistaken there were important tin mining and trading in the Iberian peninsula as well, right?
Sn, tin was available in Cornwall. Copper was available in north England and Cyprus and the Sinai desert.
it is known that shipments of tin from Cornwall were carried by the phoenecians to early Carthage .this knowlege was lost when Rome plundered Carthage.
@@ZioStalin gold & copper.
@@Paleoman There was also tin in Spain and Portugal, AFAIK ;)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancient_times
@@ZioStalin was not aware of those sources. they may have been small to the point where as sources they did not contribute on a global level but regionally contributed and enabled bronze production.
The end video music is like the BBC's attempts to inject excitement into their long and drawn out history documentaries.
That Is exactly what IT Is thank you
Cry Havoc and More Swords!
Those leaf blades are particularly pretty in bronze.
I'm not exactly sure why classicists would think that the bronze swords and all the rest were originally invented in Greece, considering that Greece has never been famous for either its copper or tin mines...
On the other hand, I think another name for the British Isles once upon a time was 'the Tin Isles', wasn't it? It's certainly one of the land masses where you do find both copper and tin in decent quantities and in reasonable proximity to each other.
Thanks for the good info, especially on the metallurgy. Just some more info for people interested in basic metal properties and the terms behind them.
Hardness: The ability of a material to resist being scratched or dented. Hardness is also ability to hold an edge.
Strength: Usually refers to tensile strength. The ability of a material to resist being pulled apart.
Toughness: The amount of energy absorbed by a material when it breaks. Tough is the opposite of brittle.
Strength and Hardness are often very closely linked in metals. But as metals get harder, they usually lose toughness. There are many things you can do with metals and alloys to make trade-offs between these different properties and these swords are a great example. The hammering on the edges pushes tiny little micro-cracks into the metal which jam up the metal's crystal structure and put it under a lot of internal stress. This helps it resist further deformation and makes it harder. But if you did it with the full sword, it would not have the needed toughness and would shatter the first time you used it.
The really amazing this is that all of this was well understood and developed without any understanding of metal atoms, crystals or even the scientific method.
Bronze is my favorite metal, and one day I would get one myself.
With the Great Orme copper mine in Wales it makes sense ancient people in the British Isles would have more material and opportunity to experiment with bronze weapons.
Makes sense that bronze sword tech comes from Britain since Cornwall is one of the few places in Europe where you can get large quantities of tin.
Also, they are British...they are pretty awesome and it doesn't surprise me ;)
There will never be a day that you've shown us enough swords.
One should not forget that most museums pieces were "special". Swords were like all weapons tools, most of them were used untill they were beyond repair and remelted.
Thus what we have are from funerals, ceremonial wapons or from rarly used pieces from rich and important owners. This makes it hard to imagine what weapons dominated on the battlefield (and in that era it might well have been spears and clubs)
Some are but not most, consider the haul found from the battle of Teutoberg or any number of other large battles from history which we have excavated. They bring huge numbers of military leftovers.
Wunel *Teutoburg
The Ewart Park sword is my favourite blade shape of all time, it's so aesthetically pleasing.
Those are beatiful, yes better looking dare I say than the katana....
Much prettier than iron swords, although probably because I don't see bronze swords much.
it's probably because the color of the metal makes it look more lively.
Neil makes yummy bronze items. Thanks Mr Beige!
finaly a good explaination about bronze swords! keep doing videos man!
I'd love to have a time machine. Just to go back and see these swords in use.
If you’re talking about the leaf blade design, yeah, the earliest examples are from the British isles and so forth, but bronze weapons, certainly bronze swords, first show up in the archaeological record in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They were well crafted for their intended purpose. Let’s not kid ourselves and say that well crafted bronze swords originated north of the Mediterranean.
Work hardening(cold working) is about the only game in town when you are making bronze swords w/ a harder edge. I can imagine them being mass produced, in molds, with a relatively thick/blunt "edge" as cast. Then, blacksmiths would have to cold hammer out the edge to thin it, making it sharper and harder.
Would love to have one of these swords, but w/o any training, I'd probably chop off one of my limbs!
There will never be enough swords...
Thanks Lloyd, excellent points as usual, loved the Naue and Gundlingen models. Any chance to make some points about mycenaean swords?
You can never have enough swords.
Man, that gundlingen sword looks like a beast!
One can never have enough swords.
OMG that Wilburton is so adorable!~ I want it :D
Bronze stuff looks so pretty.
WAIT WAIT WAIT! Don't say anything.
I have to watch the first video, I hope you don't mind if I pause this one.
Those swords make me wonder how small people used to be...
I've been watching your videos for quite a while now and I really like them. They are interesting, informative and really entertaining.
What I wonder (since I'm from that area) are there any weapons that come from the Balkans. I know that this region has mostly been either under roman rule or under other rule, but was there anything coming from it that is noteworthy?
I tried to search for it, but I cant find anything.
Could you help a fellow out?
wow, thanks. this is great!
Bronze swords look dope.
good evening Lloyd, since from here in Canada right now it is around 9. i am a great fan of yours, your videos, both the dancing and weapon videos, often saw me through my launch break during summer time enjoying a wonderfully delicious sandwich. I was wondering if you could talk about the real life vikings and not just the made up horned helmet wearing, balls deep in enemy blood, drinking ones but the ones that actully existed. Also I was wondering if your thoughs on the French werre just to the French from france or the whole of french speaking citizens of earth. Yous see I am French Canadian from Manitoba, this may seem incredible to some of you but yes we do exist in the rest of the country not just Québec, and was wondering if those same thoughts of yours are though of us aswell. Thanks in advance Lloyd.
Are these Neil Burridge swords? They're terrific!
Awesome video and awesome swords.
Once again the myths about "primitive swords" have been exploded. Thanks for pointing out that they knew more about metallurgy and such back then than most modern people give them credit for.
I would be very interested to see what these types of swords look like after sparring with someone who also has a similar sword and also after a few thrusts into a target that represents a man wearing various armor of the time, just to see how they would have fared after a battle. Were such swords basically throw aways, or turned back in for recasting? Could they have been used many times? If the maker could make such a video, I would be interested.
Gentlemen, we can look forward to more swords!
This gets me thinking that I should hurry up and finish the hilt on my Ballentober sword from Niel...
People were smaller back then so I'm betting they could get a full grip on the handle comfortably. Assuming that they're accurate replicas of course.
Their beautiful...But my fav is the Urnfield, that shape is beautiful!
Greece is great and all, but its advantage is that it worked well as a central hub for the movement of nice things back and forth between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It made a nice place to start or end the boat rides between those places. So it was likely better at gathering up new technologies, rather than creating them from scratch. But because everything was gathered there, enthusiasts like to think it is the source of everything.
That's for that really cool video
Can we get a video about two handed weapons before the 13th century? In the time where armor was not yet good enough to justify the loss of a shield for bigger weapons.
mmmmm Lindybeige sword....
Bronze looks so cool`
You will never show me enough swords. Nor guns. Or axes.
I wonder what combination of fullers, ridges, taper, and profile you'd need to get a good, solid sword out of bronze that had the reach of steel blades, and didn't have the tendency to bend...
I'm sure it's possible somehow, given the right allowances.
Bring the Jazz back!
nice video again there, Lindy! love the channel. I was thinking the other day that way back when people probably didn't have the high-gloss finishes on many of their tools as they were made, and it was probably very common to have rusting and patina away from cutting edges. this always bothers me a bit in film and reproduction when everything looks like it came out of a factory.
they still had oil though, so they would treat their swords with that and maybe every couple of months or so they'd need to reapply the treatment unless they actually needed to use the thing in combat.
PsylomeAlpha
yes, I think they would definitely have this knowledge. probably animal fat or beeswax they would definitely be familiar with their properties to combat rust or keep moist out. thanks for the comment!
They also had pride in their expensive weapons, no telly to watch, and servants.
Well, tha classic bronze age mycenean cutting sword (φάσγανον), essentially similar with the Danish sword, dates from 1700 bc
Hey Lloyd, please do a video on scale armour!
when the second voice came in I snapped my head to the right because I thought someone was beside me lol
Perhaps I should mix everything in surround sound.
How thick were bronze age swords? I'm planning to cast one for mysef in the future, but I'm not sure how thick the blade should be, because the material is a lot softer than steel. Can I just use a normal steel sword as a rough guide on thickness?
+TheRealBaneheart Go with the weight!
We don't know how thich they are, but we know the total weight of the metal and the lenght and shape (proportions) of the blade. So the thickness can be engineered from this ;)
You should do a vid on the re-emergence of heavily armored infantry in modern warfare, like the american infantrymen with heaps of kevlar and ceramics on them and if it seems to you like it's effective at all on a modern battlefield.
The music is brilliant and appreciated. My kids listen to epic battle music while doing chores/yardwork, dishes, brushing their teeth... Jazz is cool too. Who doesn't listen to Miles Davis and think, "if I wasn't seventeen measures deep in this Bitch's Brew I'd totally murder someone with an antique sword right now." -- dear TH-cam censorship bunnies, Bitch's Brew is the name of one of the most important and iconic jazz albums of all time by Mr. Miles Davis. Further, to "murder" someone musically is to affect them emotionally with the timbre and totality of a, usually live, performance. Bitch's Brew killed, slayed, murdered audiences; blew them away; slaughtered listeners. It still does. Censorship is the act of a Coward.
will you be making a similar series on iron age swords?
Mr. Lindybeige, are you a fan of sci-fi in any way shape or form? More to the point, could you do a video about Light Sabers and/or the Covenant Energy Sword from the Halo video game franchise?
Considering the tin supply in britain, relative to the rest of europe, especially Greece, I don't see why it's unreasonable to imagine alot of early bronze work was done in the British Isles, probably close to Cornwall, where the tin is. The bronze swords follow from the bronze (or rather tin) trade.
I would love to see a video talking about the fact that aside from the pilum almost nothing we think of as traditionally Roman infantry kit actually was. They adopted most of their gear from others.
Lloyd: As a german, I _really_ appreciate how you do best to pronounce gundlingen right. I am so fed up with people on youtube who pretend to know what they're saying, and then failing even to get their favourite german car brand right.
All the others: It is _NOT_ Porsh, BeeAmDoubleyou or Awdee. It is Porshe and Be eM We (with the e pronounced as is in men), and it is Oudee. If you stumble into saying something in a foreign language (not only german but all the others along), please youtubers, do as Lloyd does here.
Where do you purchase your reproduction swords? I don't see many bronze swords of that quality.
These are Neil Burridge swords. Google for him and you'll find his bronze age crafts website.
Speaking of changing colors on youtube... it seemed under most light the weapons were all, well, bronze colored. I was kind of surprised when you were doing the top-down shots and the weapons looked almost steel-like, particularly the Wilburton and Gundlingen, while the Ewart Park and Naue retained a more yellow/gold color.
I was wondering if this had to do with the substance the swords were made of, or just a consequence of the lighting/shape of the blade.
I think I read once as a child that they used to make mirrors out of bronze- though I have never seen a bronze mirror, I never thought they would have made very good ones. Was I perhaps mistaken?
You can indeed make mirrors out of bronze. Many examples have been found in tombs. In order for them to work as mirrors they must be extremely well polished.
paralel shape appeared because they found a way to make bronze more rigid? so they didnt have to so strongly articulate the weight-centre of the blade anymore (to prevent reverberations deforming it)?
Is there a place where I can get 2d templates of these swords with some dimensions? I have some aluminum bronze lying around. I'd really like to try my hand at casting one of these.
I agree with you point on Greece but have to chuckle when you ref to most things coming out of the British Isles....To each his own I suppose, great Vid once again
I was talking about the swords I saw on the table in front of me, from Mick Skelly's collection. People tend to have a bias towards collecting things from their own part of the world. I think the first Naue swords come from what is now northern Italy.
I'm wondering why they got rid of the leaf shaped blade? doesn't it give more cutting surface?
Let me mention, that one of the reasons why ancient swords might also look small to us is because ancient people were much shorter then modern today. I have seen skelletons of ancient people and real clothes exhibited that were from the dark ages, and before, and i noticed how small they were. But they were adults clothing. So it is only reasonable that they made their tools and weapons to mach their bodysize.
could u do anything about the Chinese bronze sword,please?
Do you ever intend to do cut testing with these and show how well they work against soft/rigid/leather wrapped objects?
Nothing like ending the day with Lindybeige
These swords had smaller hilts because the bronze age people had smaller hands, I think.
Dear Lindy i have a bronze age sword which a friend dug up here in Scotland its in great condition much better than the one in the Kelvin Grove art gallery and museum I was wondering if you knew any collectors who may be interested? it is in one piece, straight and in good condition other than a coat of patina. all the best mate ...
please review more medieval movies like ironclad. you are really good at that
You should adjust your white balance while inside. The orange color means the camera is set or daylight white balance.
Actually the wall is not white, nor is my shirt. They were that colour.
Lloyd, I've been looking for an existing example of a Caledonian Iron age sword so that I can compare it to a Viking type sword but I have not found any. Do you know of any?
Hey Lindy, I have a question. I heard that the length and sturdiness of spatha and a slightly more rounded tip (not true for every single spatha found though) might have been adaptations for horse combat. Surely one would need something longer than a typical bronze age sword to reach infantry from a mount, when his spear break or all his javelins were thrown. So, I'm not very well versed in the bronze age history, is it possible that horses were used enough in warfare at that time to provoke the invention of spatha? Or maybe you think that the reason for longer swords to be developed is not necessarily horse combat, but just an experiment that seemed to work?
For fighting infantry from horseback, you would want a longer weapon than a short sword, yes. We don't know how common things like wooden clubs were, however, which may have filled this role. Certainly the Romans were using the spartha from horseback.
Lindybeige
Surely clubs and axes were in use more, not only in mounted combat, as they are cheaper to make and still very effective ;) Only downside to them is different balance that makes them less wieldy, and of course they break more easily due to wooden shafts.
is it just me or does the reflection on those blades make them look CG?
I can't wait to go cattle raiding!
Does anyone know where I can buy a reproduction of a bronze age rapier? I've looked all over the place and I was able to find bronze age swords but not rapiers.
Lindy did u move houses or did u just use a different part of your house to film. The backgrounds different from most of the videos.
I am at the home of Mick Skelly, owner of the swords.
Anyone got some sources for summerian warriors? Would like to reenact as one.
Color changes would happen due to encoding of the video. Depending on the codec, software and compression ratio and approach used you can get color changes, fringes and all kinds of funny stuff happening. It could also be that youtube changed their reencoding settings which play mumbo with your video.
Third Creations Since the codec determines the color space too, of course a codec can introduce the wrong color in a video, if you switch color spaces. That's no guess, that's a fact of video encoding and color spaces. Transform from one space to the next and you can end up with a different color than when you started.
In addition he is talking about his title plates. They are not filmed with a camera, so why should white balance or camera setup cause them to have the wrong color?
Proof? Take any picture and store it as a JPEG (basically a still frame codec so to speak) and pull down the quality settings. You'll see all kinds of wonky colors appear and flat, evenly colored planes can completely change color, loose saturation etc... a video codec is in the end something similar. It throws away information and tries to throw away only the stuff that's not important, but it's a "dumb program" in the end if you force it to throw away too much, you'll get visible effects.
Not saying his color issue is definitely based on a codec issue, but he mixes his videos in the usual settings and everything is the same and looks fine on his PC before uploading, it has to happen while youtube converts the video down to it's own formats => encoding problem.
Third Creations I'm actually guessing the orange colour on the blades come from reflections in the house. It also seems, like you said, the house contains some warm lights, but also the interior itself. Maybe the owner of the house has got orange walls.
If it was a white balance issue, Lindy's face would have a very weird skin tone but that seems to be natural. Because al lot of the other colours except the blades, seem to be fine. The white wall behind him can't be used, since if it is a colour balance issue, the white wall we are seeing, might be an entirely different colour.
When you look in the reflection of the swords in the last shot, it also seems its still inside, but they are just lying on the (same) table with a skylight above it. That would explain the fact that they are looking more silvery, since there is no warm colours reflecting on the blade. You can see the left and right wall of the house on the blades.
( Professional cameraman, editor & animator, 3 years, saying this like you, to credit my opinion with a source :) )
I understand :) Thanks for your response.
I was thinking that the difference is SO big between the colour (to a golden look to a more silver look) of the blades, in the shots, that the rest of the colours should also look different. Would not call it a minor alternation because of the big difference on the blades. Might be because my experience is mainly on 7D's and 5D's (prosumer), and there, the entire picture changes to a more blue or red feel when you adjust the whitebalance.
But I guess I dun goofed with my reasoning. With your added explanation and rereading your posts, it looks like he has an "outside" picture profile (I guess he's not calibrating it manually) since he's below the skylight. And the colours around there look natural. But that way, the indoor warmer lights, look even warmer giving the blade the orange feel. So, like you said, white balance issue.
Have I got the right train of thought?
Third Creations The walls and my shirt were that colour: beige. The title plate was not shot using the camera at all. It is a graphic created using Adobe Photoshop. Colour balance does not explain the weird colour change of the title plates.
The point I made was only and precisely about the point he noted in his comment. I didn't say a word about the rest of the video. I know about white balance and no I did not "just learn" about this stuff.
You are arrogant for someone who laughed at someone else, while he himself didn't even bother to identify the subject the person was talking about.
TH-cam always reencodes all material, no matter you set it to the "right settings". So much for you know all the shit about the stuff and are a master of the dark arts.
About me not knowing what I am talking about: I even know the mathematical theory behind codec design, color spaces and wrote a master thesis about video analyzation, but I guess you are just the man of the mans and you can judge from afar how experienced someone is, by misreading a comment, misinterpreting the subject talked about and then wild guessing how much knowledge someone has about a subject by judging it based on a couple of sentences (who were written in laymans terms for better understandability, on purpose).
You win +1 internet.
Am I correct to suppose that it's quite faisable that those longest swords were most fit for horsemen than for infantrymen?
Britain rocks. Bronze style!
NOTE that the Spatha was developed by germanic people(they are not completely sure who they got it from), not by Celts and IIberians.
Anyone else want to play a Bronze-Age fantasy game after watching these videos?
RuneQuest?
I was actually thinking of a video game, specifically. I was super disappointed that the "Ancient Nord" weapons look like corroded Ren fair wall hangars. You could definitely whip up a Bronze Age campaign for a number of systems, I should think. Could be fun!
.....I want one.....I want one bad.
All those swords look greek to me and especially their handles I dont know why they seem so much like the greek swords yet you claim the opposite... Did the skeletons found near them wear greek armor too? :P
How did you get to handle an original sword (and a mail shirt)?
did they have to meltdown these swords and make new ones after every battle? I would imagine the metal to be pretty weak.
I much prefer the jazz makes me think I'm watching a shopping channel.