This Ancient Mace Hides a Big Surprise! (From
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Adam Savage is back at one of his all-time favorite places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically the Arms and Armor conservation lab! This time, it's all about "shut up sticks" as associate conservator Sean Belair lets Adam handle some ancient, intricate and fairly terrifying maces and war hammers, including a cow-headed steel mace that gives Adam quite the surprise as he swings it!
Adam Savage Wields a Royal Mace: • Adam Savage Wields a R...
Adam Savage Meets Real Armored Gauntlets: • Adam Savage Meets Real...
Adam Savage Meets Real Ancient Swords: • Adam Savage Meets Real...
More Met videos: • Adam Savage Visits The...
The Met's Arms and Armor Department: www.metmuseum....
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Thanks for watching! - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Adam Savage Wields a Royal Mace: th-cam.com/video/BEgD0EGO6qE/w-d-xo.html
Adam Savage Meets Real Armored Gauntlets: th-cam.com/video/59-9PlB-F1Y/w-d-xo.html
Adam Savage Meets Real Ancient Swords: th-cam.com/video/wJypHnsEn8o/w-d-xo.html
More Met videos: th-cam.com/play/PLJtitKU0CAeiUv8endzt93QO2_T96n_xe.html
The Met's Arms and Armor Department: www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/arms-and-armor
What do you think the chances are the cow headed mace was hollow so that incense could be burned inside it? Imagine the effect, smoke coming out of its nostrils and ears.
We need more Museum stuff with Adam!
More coming!
@@tested More coming, but never enough.😉 Adam should just go LIVE in the museum!🤣
@@tested Mr.T, bring it! 👁👄👁
Space suits, armour, etc, with out doubt the best content, "Savage" is extremely knowledgeable, and his museum visits/ tours, are my particular favourites.
@@tested define "more" please?
Like, 100 episodes? or closer to 10? 😭😭 We'll take anything tbh.
the fact the curator knew to hide the last one just to get Adam's reaction says he pays attention. thank you for that one.
Sean is AWESOME.
I will never tire of seeing Adam in this environment. His enthusiasm is contagious 💯 Not to mention getting a history lesson that's more than enjoyable 👍
Can you imagine the feeling of being handed such a priceless and unique historical artefact and be told "Here - just swing this around" .... the stress of oh trying not to damage or break it, even if it's made of metal.
As a museum worker, I love hearing the awkward “sorry” heard in the background of the close ups, suggesting Adam is playing with the objects too much. 😂
Hey, fellow museum person! There is, by the way, also a Smithsonian mace.
@@annwagner5779 NMAI, Smithsonian 2000-2004 here. I cannot believe Adam was actually allowed to swing the cowhead mace.
@@robertrobert7924then again it's presumed 19thC provenance means that it is less of an issue. I'd still be very nervous about it though. One would hope that they were prepared in case he lost his grip.
The other exhibits are far too valuable (as an item) for swinging around.
He was not very pleasant
Adam is passionate but me as watchsmith is scared when he handles these objects without much thought. AdHd everything fast do before thinking work style does not fit with museum fragile pieces 😆
Man is a fascinating creature. He makes a weapon intended to bash someone's skull in and therefore kill them, but he also makes that item beautiful.
Marketing. Are you going to buy a stick that looks ugly, or a stick that looks cool?
The paradox of the beautiful weapon.
@@peterbear4413 Even more than that; it was ice, or bling, or drip, or whatever the kids call it these days. With manufacturing being way more cost-intensive in preindustrial times, decoration was expensive. The work needed to intricately shape and etch a metal object massively increased the price compared to the utilitarian version, and people with status would cram as much ornamentation into everything they had as they could afford as a way to show off they had the wealth to do so.
@peterbear4413 I imagine before leaving on campaign you would buy absolutely whatever you could afford. Something like this signified importance, rank, authority, etc...
*_ALWAYS_* thoroughly enjoy watching these Arms & Armor visits!
The look of pure joy on Adam's face when he swings the cow headed mace is priceless. I wish youTube had more content like that.
Wasn't there a hero with a cow-headed mace who defeated Zahhak the Serpent King in Iranian Mythology?
Well there's something I never knew I wanted...a cow-headed mace!
LOL
Bovine pimp cane.
It's a "Bull's head", not a "cow's head" city boy. It comes from an old story in Iran, called the Shahnameh.
The "Shut-up Stick". LOL, what a great description of the mace.
Similar to the "minority act right" stick carried by 90s LAPD 😂😂
I dearly love that cow-headed mace and the sound it makes.
It's like a sleepy gibbon just waking up.
"whoop."
There it is.
I'd like to think the creator was trying to make the cow go moo when swung. 😂
Im an arms and armor collector. I have mostly replica pieces, including a flanged mace similar to the one there. It must have been such a privilege to see these and hold those pieces in person. Thanks for sharing!
I cant be more gratefull adam, im realy happy you let us see these outstanding deadly works of art. I just love these weapons along with japanese and chinese weapons of the old. 😊😊😊😊
Love this content! All the MET content is top notch and I can't wait for more.
So many more videos!!!!
There's nothing better than a good museum. I can spend all day looking. I can only dream of a private tour that allows me to touch history. Love it
I love Adam's joy. Its not an annoying type of joy, its an infectious type. His joy makes me so happy but it also makes me sad cause of how much i miss mythbusters.
We breezed right past the 'how did someone, 500 years ago, drill a hole through stone crystal" question. I'm genuinely interested. It seems like that would be a difficult job even today. Most of the ways I can think of would get you in trouble if (when) the hole starts drifting off center. My best guess is some type of hand powered hammer drill setup, maybe with the bit running down a metal tube that would be advanced with it to help keep it centered.
As a frame of reference: I sharpened a railroad spike once and welded it to a 30in piece of3/4in rebar, for use as an oilpan piercer in a wrecking yard. We couldn't swing it at the oilpan tho, it could do too much damage inside the motor. We had to hold it up and hit it with a hammer.
We did the same thing to drain gas tanks at the wrecking yard..... With a pick axe 😂❤🎉
@SHAGG13 we had a spike in a oil tank that the crushers would spike the gas tanks when they were in. Mostnof the time we had drained them for the yard trucks but....
This video is so good! What I really love about it is that it takes me back to my D&D days and I'd run a cleric character and they can't use edged weapons but they can use a hammer. So I'd use a "footsman's hammer" (much like that broken poleaxe in the video) and 9/10 times I'd win any challenge about using it because it was clearly labeled with the word "hammer". 😆
Adam at 14:32, if you look very carefully you can see lines where the head of the pole hammer was attached and welded to the langettes and spike. The head looks like the beak and hammer were one piece and the langettes and spike were attached by making a hole for the spike with a cross drilled hole for a pin. While the langettes were attached by a slot cut into a round hole so the end of the langette with a round bead on it could be slotted in and then peened to securely attach the head to the langettes. It looks like it was done red hot on a forge and the ends of the langettes appear to have been forge welded into the body of the head. Thus, even with the uncertain strength of forge welding, it would be almost impossible to loose the head of the hammer or to dislodge the spike when it strikes something very hard. They have a lot of experience with different modes of failure and bad welds hidden in that apparantly simple design. This demonstrates how well they understood the limits of their materials and methods. I wonder what would be seen if you were to use a magnaflux system to look at those areas.
Adam's enthusiasm is always delightful. Face smashing items that are also works of art. Fantastic.
One of the things I love about Adam is that he always takes such delight in whatever he's doing or talking about. His enthusiasm makes every video so much more engaging and entertaining.
Adam needs to go to the Royal Armouries at Leeds, UK. Not only armour and maces but weaponry of all kinds.
The crowsbeak is square in cross-section for a grim reason. And that is that if it penetrates flesh it makes a wound that cannot be stitched together or easily closed, like a cut mark from a sword or knife wound could be. It makes a gaping square hole. Many old bayonets were triangular in section for the same reason.
For the full effect I think you need to spin that last mace like a baton or martial arts weapon ... really let it go round and round several times really fast.
Some of those hollowed types were used by people riding animals and made a noise that could carry for miles. It would scare the peasants who would know bad things are coming their way.
They need to get a drum major in there and let her play with it.
@@francesconicoletti2547just attach it to a spinning thingy
I do love it when Americans considered high medieval items to be "ancient", it's so adorable from a European perspective. It's the international equivalent of a younger sibling or cousin finding your old toys or games and going "woooaaaah, these are so old!". And with American experts it's like that younger cousin growing up to become more knowledgable about your stuff than you are.
in Swedish, the common name for what the English language would call a medieval or flanged mace is "hjälmkrossare", literally "helm-crusher". These were probably unsubtle weapons and were meant to damage sensitive and vital parts you would consider to be the most important parts of your body to cover with armour, from your skull to your kneecaps.
This video is more informative than 90% of school trips to any museum.
That's super lovely to say, thank you.
@@tested For real, I'm 30 years old and only now while watching your videos and many other videos of people who are fascinated and passionate about their hobbies I've learnt more, than from all trips I had in my high school to any museum and listening of bored guides and historians that work there on daily basis.
@@sw-gs If you haven't found them on your own already, I'd suggest looking up Tod's Workshop and scholagladiatoria. Both channels have quite a bit of content about historical weapons and armor and the hosts are every bit as passionate about their areas of expertise as Adam is.
Speaking about conducting poles, in 1687, the great composer Lully unalived himself by accidentally mashing his foot with his conducting pole. A tragic loss, and thank goodness conductors switched to a little baton.
You TH-camrs have the unique opportunity to take priceless museum artifacts in hands and show (and preserve the picture... and occasionally swing) the details to the world. Something not possible for ordinary person.
We consider ourselves very very lucky, truly.
Amazed at the craftsmanship in these examples. So impressive what they were able to make in those days, especially with the details they put on these works of art. Love the surprise mace at the end.
This just makes me want to see him collaborate with his British counterpart: Tod of Tods Workshop. Who's semi-retired from TV to do med-evil mythbusting on youtube.
indeed, Tod & Adam have similarly joyful and curious personalities!
This curator is awesome! Passionate about the works and very knowledgeable
immagine that in an actuall fight:
"Is that a cow headed mace?"
"Hoot"
Ouch stop hitting me with it!"
"Hoot"
@5:40 i was not even thinking rivets, i was thinking the plates have lil clearance and denting them prevents them for sliding and can lock up a joint
I can totally imagine the person who commissioned or received that mace having the same reaction as Adam when they got it.
Right?
I hope no servants were slain, just out of joy from swinging it!
Yeessss, I love seeing behind the scenes of this place! Everyone on camera is just SO happy to be there! And there's something so relatable, across such long spans of time, about the idea that the most important thing a man of might would want memorialized is, "I was here and I had a big stick" :D
We absolutely love visiting the Met, and we cannot WAIT to go back.
F Yeah more content from the Met! I'm happy to watch a wide variety of Tested videos, but the Met Arms and Armor stuff is absolutely my favorites.
These are my favorite segments of tested videos!😊❤
We’re so delighted! More Met videos to come!
Adam brings such joy to whatever he does and is always a kind person to who he works with. 100% happy time
You should see some of the ancient Indian weapons. My favorite is a warhammer shaped like a hand grabbing a piece of slightly curved animal horn. There are also axes shaped like elephants. They are amazing!
the "Shut-Up-And-Listen-To-Me-Stick" is hereby my prefered name for any blunt object from now on.
I love that Adam approaches the weapons from a maker’s point of view
I still have my 5' tall mace from when I was a drum major in my HS marching band. I was always worried about hitting myself in the head more than imagining it as a weapon though. It definitely falls into the "ceremonial" category.
From my research of pike poles/ pole arms, originally used by boaters to help reach and hook stuff, adopted during Roman times when shield walls were a thing to hook shields or reach over the shield walls throughout the ages to reach out and touch you. When I was in the SCA we used them when you were several deep to break the shield wall or get the guys behind it. Currently as a firefighter we use pike poles to pull ceiling
This just made my weekend!!! This series is absolutely my favorite that he does. Thanks to adam the met and all of their teams ❤
I'd love to see something smoking stuffed inside that cow-headed mace so smoke comes out of the nose and ears. Adam should make a replica and add a smoke machine into it!
The cow-headed mace relates to Freydoun, the mythical king who overcame Zahhak, the demon Arab king in Iran and imprisoned him Mount Damavand. According to the myth Freydoun is raised by a cow (very Remus/Romulus) like. As such, all the Iranian nobles carry a cow-headed mace into the battle in Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings. It symbolizes righteousness.
On the Bayeux Tapestry, the maces aren't just a symbol of command, they are also a symbol of mercy and the bishop would be required to not use a sharp weapon, in order to preserve life as much as he can instead of being focused on killing. He's also riding a donkey instead of a horse, so he's purposefully putting himself at a disadvantage for symbolic/religious purposes.
08:51 "Malice Aforethought" is the phrase that sprung to mind looking at the very practical crow beak on the saxon war hammer
One of my favorite weapons hands down is the wooden ball headed club used by the Indigenous tribes here in the Northeast US. I've seen a few originals in museums and I know several tribe members who have made reproductions pretty much like they used to do 300-400 years ago and they are a terrifying weapon in the hands of an angry warrior. As someone who has Mohawk ancestry myself, trying to imagine one in the hands during close combat. Most are highly decorative because they were very personal to the person who carried them and so no two were alike.
How you drill a long hole thru quartz. You take a long thin rod, it can be wood, cane, or metal. You coat the end of it with something sticky like hot wax or tar. You roll the end in crushed garnet, or some other very hard and very common gemstone. And then you start spinning the rod against the quartz, Mostly, you might just spin with your fingers, or you might set up a bow drill. In later years you might use something like a water mill to spin your drill. When doing it by hand, you have to frequently pull the rod out and reapply more wax and garnet, then go back at it. And you better have patience.
When I hear people marvel and suspect that ancient cultures must have had some ‘lost technology’ to carve such hard materials as crystal and granite, I explain to them, they used the exact same technology we Still use today. They carved very hard rock by RUBBING a harder rock against it.
A diamond drill is nothing but a piece of metal with crushed diamonds stuck to it. We just use motors to speed up the actual rubbing.
Back in that era, before glass blowing became a thing, artisans would make goblets and stemware out of quartz. Imagine the time it took to hollow out the bowl of a thin walled crystal goblet? In that era if you served someone wine in such a glass, they knew they were holding a year or more of some craftsman’s life in the their hand. This is how ‘crystal’ came to have the connotation with wealth that it has.
Also, you first drill the hole into a bigger piece and then you turn that piece down to the required diameter.
Ahhh the MET museum, Adam is the real life history Channel show for me...
We’re honored!
@@tested I quote Adam from his Livestreams all the time!
I love how Adam, who use the term Holy Cow a lot, got to handle the "Holy Cow" mace of Shahnama.
Adam, you have got to make a replica of that whistling cow mace at the end; it's incredibly amazing! Even something like a 3D print would be cool.
I can't understand, why do I love these stuff, dude? Could you please show us some more...
More to come!
This episode was a-mace-ing! 😁🤘
Oh, NICELY done!
@@tested Yeah, this deserves to be hammered home.
@@testedstrike while the iron is hot!
These chats with experts and examples are my favorites (along with the cool builds)!
I will need to commission a beautiful 'shut up stick' for my OC build. 🤩
Breaking armor joints would be bad, but I would think even bending a plate on a joint would seriously impede its ability to flex! Chain would provide no real protection from a mace or a hammer! Very nice.
Absolutely, even big dents in the wrong place could be disastrous for movement. A dent on the outside = a bump on the inside.
A hole pierced with the pointy beak would not only impede movement, it would also extend into skin and muscle, and that would hurt a lot.
@@wilfriedklaebe possibly but they wore thick padding under the armor to cushion any blows. It varied depending on where, being thinner at joints. So, yes, pierced joints would cause more injury.
Hitting the joints or causing a concussion would've been the way to go with a mace or spike.
Maille provides more protection from blunt force than you might think, due to the mass and flexibility it absorbs energy the same way a bag of sand or lead shot would. Still better to have plates though.
All I keep thinking is: "move the rock crystal mace away!" *visions of any of the other maces falling out of Adam's hands*
So glad your back at the MET!
The cow-head-mace IS a sort of fantasy prop: Sean said so "..19th century idea of what that would have looked like"
So cool to wonder about forgotten stories and providence of these objects.
Adam, THIS is the residency for you! Public educator at the museum!😍
One thing the curator didn't mention that a lot of reenactment fighters know for a fact is that maces and hammers were used to crush the articulated parts of the armor thereby locking that limb joint in place rendering that arm or leg totally immobile. If you land the right hits on your opponents they can be turned into essential just statues and so wouldn't be able to defend themselves any further and they would forfeit the fight to save themselves from additional damage or be forced to remove the armour during the fight in order to continue.
This is one of the reasons we need experimental archeology (the "serious" historical reenactment, not the ren faire sillyness). Historians have been repeating that "flanged maces were anti armor weapons because they disrupted the articulations" line for more than a century, until experimental archeologists started hitting each others with 2 Kg flanged maces while wearing accurately made period armor... and noticed flanged maces are *crap* against it. As in, they do not actually impede the armor wearer fast enough (compared to a regular mace, or an axe) for it to matter. The flanges were to break skulls, not rivets. And the popularity of a mace as a backup weapon had more to do with its capability to knock an armored opponent out through blunt force to the armored head, in order to capture him for ramsom. If you wanted to kill him instead, you stabbed his eye with a rondell dagger - the REAL anti-armor weapon of the late middle ages.
Watching Adam swing that cow-headed mace is hilarious. Each swing, he reacts like it's the first time, he's just so delighted with it. But I want that thing. I have no use for it at all, not even to show off...I just want it.
Now I need a video of Adam wailing on things with a crow's beak. Looks gnarly.
When Adam makes a face like a 4-year-old you know he is having a great day!
Hans Talhoffer -- the judicial combat illustrations are *amazing*. The illustrations of judicial combat between a man and a woman (he's in a hole in the ground up to his chest, armed with a knife; she's got a big rock tied up in her veil, both of them are in what can only be described as "combat onesies")...INTENSE
If it whistled that much by Adam swinging it lightly, could you imagine a weapons master whirling it in circles? If an armored knight came at me with a weapon that whistled as it spun at my face, I would flee in terror immediately. That's psychological warfare, no doubt about it.
We need more of these videos 📹 with cool armour & weapons from the past! Very cool, love the cow 🐄 🔨 hammer! 😂😂😂
oh this is so exciting, war hammers and picks were always the most badass medieval weapons to me!
The original creator/owner and usage of the cow head mace may be lost to time and up for speculation, but I can 1000000000% guarantee you that at some point, the child of the owner ran around the house making that cow moo and driving their parents crazy.
The one with the broken handle looks like a "Bec de Corbin," to me. Nasty weapons; part spear, part hammer, part pick. A phalanx of soldiers with these would just do a LOT of damage.
the sheer joy on adam's face from the cow mace whoooo sound 😂
that first warhammer really is beautifully and insightfully constructed, it has a belt / pocket clip!!
"This sticks a round!" Lololol
😂 3:26
the sound the cow-headed mace makes is so cartooney i love it! the maker was obviously thinking of slapstick.
Odo, as a bishop, wasn’t allowed to draw blood and therefore didn’t use a sword but used a club.
That explanation always fails at the fact that hitting someone with a big mace will certainly also cause a lot of blood everywhere.
@@Kuhmuhnistische_Partei Yes, drawing blood is not the criterion - as far as I know, it was a matter of not disobeying Jesus's statement that "they who take the sword shall perish by the sword", and interpreting that statement in a deliberately narrow, literal sense.
@@chevalierdupapillon It's also to consider that there simply aren't many depictions of Bishops in warfare (even though especially in the HRE Bishops did lead armies quite often) and it could just be that Odo specifically choose a club for whatever reasons, those were not entirely uncommon weapons back then, especially when on horse. Most claims that Bishops specifically used maces/clubs in battle seem to be based on that Odo depiction.
The noise from the cow headed mace was both satisfying and not at the same time! Satisfying that it made a noise but not because it wasn’t as resonating as expected; kind of like getting a new car and realising the horn sounds like a clowns nose.
I'd be fascinated to know if that cow-headed mace mightve been swung around and around one-handed to really get that whistle going. I imagine that could have a cool effect on whomever the wielder is trying to hype up or intimidate. Standing, it might hit the ground, but on horseback, I bet it could be done quite effectively.
Big thanks for such interesting video , Adam !!! 😊
That cow headed mace though. When you can hear the blow comming before you actually get hit. Must make one rethink their choices...
Not much time for thinking unless someone else is being hit. Though I don't see the nostrils section surviving many actual blows. Thick metal which could survive blows would need to be cast, because you can't braise thick blocks easily even now. If it were solid it would've been ponderous to swing repeatedly. Imagine needing to swing it once every 2 seconds for a half hour.
Just watched this whilst commuting to work, and LOL'd at your reactions at the end. PS see you soon at Adelaide Supanova 😊
Absolutely fascinating. We don't give our ancestors enough credit.
It's such a delicate little "...oooh!" sound that it's comical coming from a crushing weapon like that
Always been a huge fan of flanged maces. They just seem to be a simple weapon that works on unarmored and armored foes. But my first choice if i had to choose a medieval weapon, would be a spear. Reach is good!
Absolutely amazing! I love these segments!
You get to play with the best stuff! Please keep it up!
Always love the historical Tested videos!
Well-preserved authentically antique bronze/iron/steel weapons are such amazing artifacts- it’s a shame how few of the _finest_ works of “functional art” survive the test of time..
An add-on to this is that almost no "low status" or ordinary, unornate, simple, just-meant-for-work items get preserved.
Almost none of the worst pieces of pure function survive the ages.
The fancy ones people say "oh, that's too nice to reforge/remake/use as a prop/throw away" and keep, but the plain ones get used, abused, broken and made into other things, melted down for scrap and so on
I could watch this all day.
This stuff is stunning and has always intrigued me.
I have a walking stick with a knob at the end because of these weapons. Without question, this armament has done more damage then all other arms ever built, save land mines since the beginning of time.
Moooorning!
16:21 I see you killed the cow king in Diablo lol
Great job guys. Thank you 😊
Adam, I would love to see you attempt to make which I know we could one of those cow Macy’s one that you can swing and make the full noise and not be afraid of breaking
3D print a prototype.
People often confuse a mace with the similar looking weapon of a spiked ball on a short chain attached to a wooden handle. This is actually called a flail.
In the Lord of the Rings movie The Return of the King, the Witch King of Angmar is shown wielding a ridiculous flail. The book describes a large "iron mace"
It is essentially a metal club. I imagined it looking like an iron shaft with a perfectly smooth large round ball on the end. Too heavy for a mortal to wield but for the Witch King, it deals a deadly blow.
Perhaps since Sauron already had a mace they didn't want to confuse a casual viewer, especially since the Witch King is sporting an intentionally Sauron-like armor in that moment.
A flail is part of the mace family. I've heard it called a detached mace. As I see it, the flail is a less useful item. While it can potentially reach past a blocking shield it looses velocity in the process. It is harder to get moving in the first place, and controlling its path is harder. I bet you could get 2-3 solid hits in with a regular mace in the time that it took you to try to use a flail.