You’re a gentleman and a scholar sir! Now I really want to know your strong opinions on how shorter swords are better used. Can’t wait to see it and thank you for all your incredible work.
Shadiversity Isn't the answer that short swords are best used with a shield and in closer quarters, typically in a close formation, like the Romans, or in narrow confines, like WW1 trenches or city streets.
Shadiversity True. I suspect he'll also say onboard ships, with analogies to hangers and the clutless. Also, if you have a shield, reach become less of a disadvantage anywhere - and if the predominant tech means shorter swords are more durable, hold an edge better...
OutOfNamesToChoose Weren't tridents a fishing tool? Designed to both kill and capture a speared fish? And I thought they were a gladiator weapon for religious reasons, related to the trident being the symbol of the Sea God Poseidon...
Would be neat if you made a video about bronze as a material compared to iron/steel. There's probably a lot of misconceptions floating around about bronze weapons and armour.
That is an absolutely LOVELY bronze sword you've got there! I would most surely like to see it hilted and some more episodes on ancient era weapons and swords. Oh yes, count me in on that short sword use video as well! BTW, one of the reasons why i'm so fascinated by ancient swords (aside from them being ancient), is the sheer diversity of shapes and sizes among both hilts and blades, not only between cultures and time periods, but inside a same culture during a roughly same period.
I was glad to see the first video, even more glad to see the reply, and now there is a counter-reply! I love the interaction in the TH-cam swords and historical weapons community. (Also, I am seriously early!)
Thanks Matt, I never had a problem with the deviation since I always figured the relative softness of bronze would have informed the shape of the weapons made from it, but these people have basically "god metal" weapons.
There is line I remember from the old Batman television show that starred Adam West. After Batman displayed his knowledge of some esoteric fact, Robin exclaimed, "Golly, Batman, is there anything you don't know?" Batman replied, "Yes, Robin. Several things, in fact."
regarding the hilt - at 8:58, there's also a dagger hilt in that article at the top of pg. 37 that has an incredibly ornate version that is very similar in a lot of ways.
Who is humbly prone to change own opinions based on new evidences is actually wise! This video here is very much instructive and a example to follow personaly on any topic: be always open to evidence!
yes....and I'll just leave here that I (and probably others) did comment to you it's based on a historical sword in your original video as well, glad you actually saw it :D
While yes, he's technically right. There are long bladed examples, and yes, that hilt did exist on a real sword. I think an important point to make is that these weapons were far from common and the weight of numbers are heavily against them. They were not common for a reason. Just like there are examples of ridiculously long longswords. In the case of long ancient swords, I have to imagine that they were not common because of metallurgical reasons, it's difficult to get a durable, useful blade out of the materials and smithing techniques used at the time.
I haven't watched the original response video, but yeah if it's those long ritual swords that were thrown in the ocean as respect for the gods, using those as examples of long bladed swords is kind of disingenuous. Though I suppose we could say that Amazons would use those ritual swords as actual swords, I feel that that's cheating and missing the point. Chinese bronze swords would be a better example of longer swords of the time since Amazons can apparently speak every language. I heard it's because of the addition of lead that allowed their swords to be longer with some trade-offs in other properties.
I'm surprised at the fact there were a couple examples of swords with similar guards to the godslayer from the movie. I also found the horned swords to be pretty interesting; I'll have to look into those more.
Tod's (of Tod's stuff) prototype for Wonder Woman's sword was a lot better than what they chose for the movie. He made a post about it on his Facebook page back in March.
that is a beautiful sword, but I can understand why they didn't give him the contract. Most of the movie-going public have spent their whole lives seeing more stereotypically overbuilt and overdecorated fantasy weapons and would struggle to buy into it as such an important sword without more obvious decoration. The fact the hilt in the movie-version is quite wide in the plan of the blade gives it a lot more room for decoration as well as the room on the blade itself that both swords would have available
Matt, you've reminded me of something I've read years ago in a school history book (thanks for the childhood flashback, I guess). It talked about how bronze-age weaponry bent all the time and, even during battles, sides had to take breaks to straighten their swords. It even had a picture! How much of it was true?
A Roman historian's second-hand account of this happening was regarding iron swords of the Celts I believe. Could be propaganda of Roman superiority or it could be fact but as a feature is what I've heard.
Almost none of it was true, from the sound of it. Of course, sword quality depended on the skill of the person making the sword, but bronze swords typically were not that bad. As far as the Roman account of Celtic swords, yes it was most likely propaganda. One thing that's especially funny about it is that, as far as I know, there are actual Greek and Roman documents describing Celtic smiths as being very good at metalworking. So, on the one hand, they say the swords are so bad they bend a lot, and, on the other hand, they say the swords are really good.
I think that Wonder Woman should have a Greek-style bronze sword might be a wrong assumption. The Amazons in antiquity were portrayed more like Scythians, from the examples I could find they look much more similar to Wonder Woman's sword in blade shape and hilt design. (though probably still shorter in length and hilt length). In addition to this, the Amazons in the movie were closely tied to the greek gods and the sword in question was supposedly made by Zeus himself, which would imply to me that he would have the technological ability to make the highest quality steel sword, not merely bronze.
Whilst this is true of the mythological Amazons, the Amazons of the comics have been pretty consistently portrayed as stereotypical classical Greeks. Besides, how big would the island have to be to maintain a population of steppe nomads :p
well they could have migrated to the island after being steppe warriors previously. And they had contact with Greek culture so would have picked up cultural traits.
This is exactly the reason why I used to be subscribed to chat adversities Channel but once I found yours or maybe even before I unsubscribed to them. He is very wrong about many historical facts. Too many heirs to keep me as a subscriber! Thank you Matt for creating a channel that is both accurate and entertaining!
As long as she didn't test her sword on "no less than four children" I say "Fake"! More seriously always a blast to watch you sharing your opinions Shad and Matt, take care guys! PS : Nice 1882 French Infantry Officer sword
Well broadswords are from a time when most swords were quite narrow, hence why "broad" is part of the name - to distinguish them from them from the more common slim blades. The gaurd is whatever swords of that time had, which tended to be baskets and bars... They could have a simpler hilt but that wasn't common, because why would you downgrade like that?
+edi How much earlier? Because i've heard from multiple sources and historians that the term broadsword wasn't used during Medieval Times or during the Renaissance
Nox Xelor I believe even scholagladiatoria made a video on this topic. Or maybe it was shadiversity. It's hard to tell, since for he most part swords were just called swords and only when they needed they added prefixes like long, war etc.
Let's be honest, all those really big/long bronze and mild iron swords are well preserved and fancily decorated for a reason: They were ceremonial swords made to look impressive during a sacrifice, a funeral or as a sign of office but not to be actually used. You simply can't keep such a blade rigid after a certain lenght, look at Skal testing relatively short swords of the same materials and count the blows till they bend, the longer the sword the sooner and easier it bends.
One thing I notice about the sword from Mycenae: the hilt and guard are gold or gold plated. This was probably a ceremonial sword or made for display, and not one that was ever actually used in battle.
Hi Matt. I am currently writing my thesis about weopons used during the first world war by the austro-hungarian army and I was wondering if you could do a video on types of sabres used by them.
Hey Gabreshaa, you should check out the The Great War channel. They usually have special episodes about the arms used by the different nations. Though it is mostly about the guns. You could post the question to them in their weekly (sundays) Q&A-session Out Of The Trenches. I haven’t heard it yet, an I think it will be an awesome question. So give it a wave. You never know how much material you’re going to end up with.
Technically though Matt you were right. In history and anthropology when we mention a period say if it is Bronze age. The question should be which Bronze age because they differ culture to culture. Some have a copper age others do not some Iron Age start later than others. You said explicitly that the Greek Period Bronze age didn't have longer swords. And in that you are right to say this that this period has no sword that long because when speaking on Mycenaean bronze age period you are only speaking on that period.
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The problem that Shad denounced was more specific I think. At a moment, you said that "longer blade in bronze or early iron would bend or break easily". That is (sorry Sir...) completely bogus. The exemples Shad showed (that were not a minority of swords showed that longer swords existed back then and were not bent, and the assertion made by Shad was that those swords were made and used so they had to be efficient. He then showed several clips of other youtubers trying to break or dent bronze swords with no avail. The main point here was that you were probably wrong about the lack of reliability of longer swords, not about the fact that there were less longer swords back then.
Sir, Have you ever considered doing reviews on modern swords manufactured by contemporary artisans or manufacturers? Like the WKC-Solingen, Zhou Shi, or other contemporary manufacturers?
You should definitely try to hilt your sword in the Wonder Woman's one style, now that we know it has historical background to it...you know, "context" ;)
It doesn't work that way for Ewart Park swords as far as I can tell (I own one from Neil Burridge). The tang is shaped a certain way that you need to hilt it exactly as it is, otherwise you'd have to recast it. Or you'd have a non-full tang, which I don't think is historically accurate anyway.
What both of you seem to forget is that Wonder Woman did not fall through some type of time warp. Her island exists in the present and existed throughout the medieval period as well. During that time she and her people would have had ample time to travel in Europe and watch the evolution of the sword and apply those changes of which they approved to their own weapons. Clearly they decided to stick with the sword and shield style of fighting and would have only applied those changes that worked with that style of combat.
Interesting that the historical example looks almost exactly like Robbie McSweeny's alteration based on your suggestions. I'd say you were on the money there. :D
I mean, Themiscyra was shut off in-universe after the Trojan war which would mean any artefacts from that time would be well within the Mycenaean period
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, highly possible. If this sword was created for Zeus (was it) would the handle and sword length be more accurate to Zeus? I don't remember if Ares got all big in the end there, maybe Zeus would be of similar size.
Seems to me that a really short 5th century hoplite style sword would only be used as a very secondary backup to spear, or as a casual sidearm. For someone using a sword as their primary weapon and expecting to go into battle I would expect a sword towards the longer end, so I think Shad's argument very reasonable (though infantry might have shorter than cavalry). I do think a leaf-blade sword would have looked a lot cooler though. Edit: Very short sword can have a big advantage in the press of hoplite phalanxes smushed together, not so much in solo fight.
Huh. I wonder if Weta also took inspiration from that historical sword for the swords of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies. They have a similar guard style, but with horse heads.
Don't you also still need to hilt your seax from Paul Binns as well? Anyways, very interesting video, I never would've expected that there really was a sword with that manner of hilt
so the guard's attested, the length's attested and, per my comment last time, the pommel's very well attested in Celtic examples. It seems to me the only unusual thing is the fact that all these things are found _together_
In no world is octopus plural octopei. It's octopodes but that's because it's Greek. Otherwise you'd see it as octopi to be how people normally think of it because we latinized the spelling or octopuses because that's acceptable.
Well, I'll be! I, actually, was telling my colleagues at the office how that guard was not a thing anywhere but in Hollywood. Among other things. Right. So, I guess I'll just have to say something. :P
How much do you know about chariots? They've never made much sense to me as a weapon of war, especially compared to ordinary cavalry (light or heavy), but the fact that they were in use for so many years suggests they were more useful than they appear. What were their advantages and limitations, and why did they disappear from warfare.
Though...from what I saw, the way they used it, it seemed it could be one way one might use such a weapon.. (Though the armour seemed a bit off and also using the axe on the armour...well...not the greatest idea)
She's fighting on her own and open spaces so a longer blade is better. If she were in tight formation like a phalanx, a shorter sword would n better. So, context haha
I understand most of the criticisms of the longer handle, but I don't understand the 'she doesn't use it two handed' line of reasoning. In universe, the sword wasn't made for her, was it? Just because SHE didn't use it two handed, or for hooking like with a messer, doesn't mean it wasn't DESIGNED to do so. I use things 'wrong' all the time, even if that 'wrong' use is a perfectly valid way of employing the object.
Hey Matt I would be honoured to hilt the blades for you. Or you could send me the measurements and I could send the hilt parts to you. fell free to contact me.
Matt, I have what appears to be an antique tulwar, but I am unsure. What can I do to verify or disprove it authenticity? It was a little over a year ago when I attended a Renaissance Fair when I was perusing all the weapon vendors in search of Polish sabers. When I came across this tiny booth, not well decorated and the vendor was not very excitable or pushy. He just calmly asked if he can be of assistance. Upon seeing what he had on display (a fair amount of heavy fantasy blades) I told him that I highly doubt it that I was in the market for sabers particularly those of Eastern European design. He then says that he might have something for me and takes off to parts unknown. Roughly 20 minutes later he comes back with this thing sheathed in horrible looking scabbard. He hands it to me and instantly I recognized the hilt of a tulwar. It looked very rough and simple, no ornamentation. I drew the blade and to my surprise it did not have a mirrored polish like the rest of his inventory. It was light, and very nimble in my hands (well, as light and nimble as a strongly curved, broad blade can be). He told me I could take it home for $75 (done and done). After I returned home I inspected it more closely and I noticed on one side of the ricasso there is an inscription but I can not read it, the characters have an arabic or farsi (persian) look to them. I can not find anything in my limited research on it. This is the only piece in my collection that I am completely in the dark about.
meltedplasticarmyguy u sure it's a tulwar? If its indeed scripted with Arabic.. that could be an indication it's actually a pulwar (of Afghan region origin) or a Persian sabre/scimitar of some sort
Vk Deen because of similar design my mind went straight to tulwar, didn't consider pulwar. In any event how can I tell if this is truly an antique or just some thing that some guy put together in a garage
meltedplasticarmyguy take a clear picture of the script and try n find someone who speaks Arabic or a language from that region maybe a local university or college has a language teacher or even an Asian TH-cam or internet sword expert... email them the picture n explain the situation. Knowing what language or what said on the script is a start. Beyond that u'd have to find a sword expert or maybe an antique expert to examine it. Maybe an auction house might have an expert. No easy way to tell I'm afraid. Maybe a blacksmith could identify the metal?
Vk Deen I was able to identify the script as Persian, but my contacts could not really read it for it was an older script than what is used today. They made an estimate that it is possibly a name but beyond that nothing. Now I need to find someone who can understand the older language. I have a sinking feeling that I may never unravel this mystery like my family tree.
meltedplasticarmyguy Persian fits fine with anywhere from Afghanistan to Turkey... so possibly a pulwar or Persian sabre of some sort. Best bet if u don't wanna travel around too much would be to find a university with a language department for Arabic or languages from that region. Take a clear picture of the script and email a senior professor. Other than that u will have to find an antique weapons expert
Had there never been any long bronze or iron age swords, they would still have gone for the longer sword for artistic reasons. I think only a small percent of the population will notice or care. The longer sword is cool and looks more dangerous.
After watching 3/4 of this video last night I had a dream of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman wielding Matt's yet-to-be-handled sword featured in this video 😂😂😂
I don't think Neil really does much swordmaking these days; last time I asked some people who know him, he is more busy doing lessons for schools and the like. I've been trying to get some blades off him for a while now...
Indeed it is - I have been trying to get my wife a set of his khopesh(es?) for years, but he is hard to get an email reply out of (and now the molds have been listed as in need of remake for nearly two years now...). I got one of his Ballentobers a...decade ago now...and much like yours *still* have not hilted it.
I didn't watch the movies and I didn't even know she was from ancient greece. If her sword was more like the typical greece sword maybe I could have guessed.
Gladii is correct, gladiator being a second declension noun. The point is kind of moot however, since glamour would classically just be the word “sword”, not referring to any specific type. The would call anything shaped like a sword gladius, unless it had a specific denominator from parent language they knew (makhaira, xiphos etc.) They’re all gladii to a Roman
I still don't think you can think of Diana as being from anchient Greece. She's from a culture that's DERIVED from it, it's been two thousand years. Even with rediculously long-lived people, they kept in touch with the outside world. They bothered to learn our languages, so why not keep up with swords?
I have to disagree, Wonder woman is not famous for her sword and board use in combat but for her whip and magic bullet deflecting bracers. Then there's the size of the pommel and the counterbalance you called it out on. Pommels are not always counterbalance and that's a bronze pommel which is considerably more heavy than steel and thus does not need to be large. In that ones case it would weigh as much as an average sized disc pommel on an arming sword which just happens to have about the same blade length though Wonder Womans is wider than arming swords of that length. Which gets to the handle in relation to the pommel and blade length and how it evens out the width of the blade and length compared to pommel weight, the handle length adds the final counter balance by moving the weighty but small pommel further away for leverage. Then the handle length... Yeah it's a 2 handed handle with a medium length blade used with a shield. Not like bastard/hand and a half swords never existed. Nope Katana's are not a thing considering they can be used either 1 handed or 2 handed, but preferred 2 since that maximizes their effectiveness. There are other swords that have a 2 handed handle but often to mostly used one handed. Sometimes the extra length is just incase you need two hands and others it acts as a counterbalance. Not all swords are either one hand or two and can only be used that way is what 8i am saying, there are hybrids that are effective in their own right. Then there's the issue of the sword being made by gods.. maybe it wasn't meant to be a sword used by whatever god but a knife.
I'd argue that as far as style-choices go, everything was done by everyone at some point or another, however unlikely it should be. And, truth be told, even in regards to impractical designs, somebody did it somewhere. We have enough artifacts that defy any sort of common sense and yet still are there, to be found in graves and battlesites.If the technology allows you to do it, then it will be done.
I`m no expert, but you might consider as well that people used to be a lot smaller in ancient times. So a sword that looks small to us today might appear a lot bigger to those people who used it back then.
Matt has actually done a video on this very topic and to sum it up, no they weren't, at least not all of them. the celts were actually only about an ich shorter than modern english people, the Greeks might have been smaller because of the their diet containing less protein but i don't know.
Regardless, people weren't *that* short for the function to make a difference like that. The reason for the short blade is by design in function and also technological limitations of bronze and early iron.
The only thing that is known for almost-sure is that they wore Bear-skins. The rest as far as anyone can tell is the same as any other well equipped warrior of that culture and time period.
I feel like I already know the answer to this. The only weapons of real note (given attention) in Berserk are those used by Guts and maybe certain Apostles like Grunbeld. Miura himself is well aware that these are incredibly oversized and unwieldy, which is frequently lampshaded in the manga: even before he gets the Dragonslayer, people react to the swords Guts uses by saying they are ridiculous and that there's no way he could wield those, that they aren't swords at all etc, nearly every time he meets someone new. Other than that (and exaggerated exceptions like the stuff used by the Tower of Conviction torturers), Miura bases the weapons and arms closely on historical stuff so there shouldn't be large problems with e.g. Caska or Griffith's swords. I very much doubt that Matt is familiar with the series however.
Berserk, just comes from ancient words (my apologies, I've forgotten them) meaning "bear shirt", It had to do with them wearing bear pelts, asides from that, their weapons would be the same as any other warrior from that time (Spear, sword, shield, etc.) however, they were actually champions of kings and nobles, so their equipment would be higher grade, I presume.
Ok, maybe not weekly, but podcasts are really popular, and there would probably be an audience for it. About an hour or two once a month would certainly do-able. It might possible be possible to stream it on Twitch, giving all these guys a second revenue source (outside of youtube's adpocalyps laiden shores)
Shad, matt, skall, snap, and Metatron usually have open lines of communication with one another but they all live in different locations and have demanding jobs that would make this virtually impossible. Edit: lindybeige and swordsage as well, although neither being entirely sword based channels.
Matt, felt like to me you just talked yourself out of your own argument. Given that most bronze age swords were short(ish), don't you think a "heroes" sword forged to "kill a god" would not be like "most" swords of its era. Makes sense to me the weaponsmith tasked with forging a "god killer" would forge a sword which would stand out among the majority of swords of its age :)
You know, I don't care very much about the blade of Wonder Woman's sword. It's fine. Turns out that the guard is okay as well (though rather too big). My REAL problem is with the hilt length and horrible pommel.
can't argue with that :) a two handed hilt on a shortish one handed sword makes it look like it's a greatsword made for a hobbit warrior. And that pommel looks like it is used to slice up lemon's for the hobbit's tea.
Wonder Woman should not be armed with Greek weapons as Amazons were never represented as Greek. The movie sword is based on Scythian blades, as Scythia is considered one of the more likely origins of the Amazonian legends. The sword is a very scaled up version of common Scythian designs with an exaggerated hilt due to modern tastes for that proportion, but this was a special god slayer sword in the movie not a common arming sword. Yes it was used with a shield but that does not reflect it's design purpose, as these items were stolen by Diana not assembled formally by people who knew how they were supposed to be used.
You’re a gentleman and a scholar sir! Now I really want to know your strong opinions on how shorter swords are better used. Can’t wait to see it and thank you for all your incredible work.
Shadiversity Isn't the answer that short swords are best used with a shield and in closer quarters, typically in a close formation, like the Romans, or in narrow confines, like WW1 trenches or city streets.
That's what I expect but Matt has a great track record of bringing newer insights to certain topics.
Shadiversity True.
I suspect he'll also say onboard ships, with analogies to hangers and the clutless.
Also, if you have a shield, reach become less of a disadvantage anywhere - and if the predominant tech means shorter swords are more durable, hold an edge better...
Hey Shad! Any chance of a video on tridents? Why did certain gladiators use them? Did they exist beforehand? Etc. Thanks
OutOfNamesToChoose Weren't tridents a fishing tool? Designed to both kill and capture a speared fish? And I thought they were a gladiator weapon for religious reasons, related to the trident being the symbol of the Sea God Poseidon...
8:53 "The pommel of this sword was probably a rock crystal" with that drawing. Holy cow.
Matt is such an honesty guy! If he sees something that proves him wrong, he own up to it!
Yeah Matt is such a gentleman
A true Knight.
Definitely be interested in some videos around ancient periods :)
Would be neat if you made a video about bronze as a material compared to iron/steel. There's probably a lot of misconceptions floating around about bronze weapons and armour.
That is an absolutely LOVELY bronze sword you've got there! I would most surely like to see it hilted and some more episodes on ancient era weapons and swords. Oh yes, count me in on that short sword use video as well! BTW, one of the reasons why i'm so fascinated by ancient swords (aside from them being ancient), is the sheer diversity of shapes and sizes among both hilts and blades, not only between cultures and time periods, but inside a same culture during a roughly same period.
I was glad to see the first video, even more glad to see the reply, and now there is a counter-reply! I love the interaction in the TH-cam swords and historical weapons community. (Also, I am seriously early!)
So much information was revealed in these response videos. Great work by both of you.
Matt and Shad are going compare sword lengths ... click!
Your channels are my favorite channels, +Lindy Beige
This thumbnail was something else.
I made special effort.
Man I love leaf blades, they are so beautiful, especially in shiny bronze
Thanks Matt,
I never had a problem with the deviation since I always figured the relative softness of bronze would have informed the shape of the weapons made from it, but these people have basically "god metal" weapons.
There is line I remember from the old Batman television show that starred Adam West. After Batman displayed his knowledge of some esoteric fact, Robin exclaimed, "Golly, Batman, is there anything you don't know?"
Batman replied, "Yes, Robin. Several things, in fact."
I'm glad you specified which Shad or we might have assumed you were talking swords with Shad of Shadbase.
regarding the hilt - at 8:58, there's also a dagger hilt in that article at the top of pg. 37 that has an incredibly ornate version that is very similar in a lot of ways.
Who is humbly prone to change own opinions based on new evidences is actually wise! This video here is very much instructive and a example to follow personaly on any topic: be always open to evidence!
yes....and I'll just leave here that I (and probably others) did comment to you it's based on a historical sword in your original video as well, glad you actually saw it :D
While yes, he's technically right. There are long bladed examples, and yes, that hilt did exist on a real sword. I think an important point to make is that these weapons were far from common and the weight of numbers are heavily against them. They were not common for a reason. Just like there are examples of ridiculously long longswords.
In the case of long ancient swords, I have to imagine that they were not common because of metallurgical reasons, it's difficult to get a durable, useful blade out of the materials and smithing techniques used at the time.
I haven't watched the original response video, but yeah if it's those long ritual swords that were thrown in the ocean as respect for the gods, using those as examples of long bladed swords is kind of disingenuous.
Though I suppose we could say that Amazons would use those ritual swords as actual swords, I feel that that's cheating and missing the point.
Chinese bronze swords would be a better example of longer swords of the time since Amazons can apparently speak every language. I heard it's because of the addition of lead that allowed their swords to be longer with some trade-offs in other properties.
however the movie also said that the sword was forged by fucking zeus, making all arguments about metallurgy redundant.
I wish she had kept that sword, much better in design than the one she has in Justice League
I'm surprised at the fact there were a couple examples of swords with similar guards to the godslayer from the movie. I also found the horned swords to be pretty interesting; I'll have to look into those more.
Love those response videos too
I miss the days when you could actually link response videos below other videos.
Tod's (of Tod's stuff) prototype for Wonder Woman's sword was a lot better than what they chose for the movie. He made a post about it on his Facebook page back in March.
Yes he sent me some pics and his prototypes looked great!
that is a beautiful sword, but I can understand why they didn't give him the contract. Most of the movie-going public have spent their whole lives seeing more stereotypically overbuilt and overdecorated fantasy weapons and would struggle to buy into it as such an important sword without more obvious decoration. The fact the hilt in the movie-version is quite wide in the plan of the blade gives it a lot more room for decoration as well as the room on the blade itself that both swords would have available
Matt, you've reminded me of something I've read years ago in a school history book (thanks for the childhood flashback, I guess). It talked about how bronze-age weaponry bent all the time and, even during battles, sides had to take breaks to straighten their swords. It even had a picture! How much of it was true?
Yagi look at skallagrim testing bronze sword and decide yourself
A Roman historian's second-hand account of this happening was regarding iron swords of the Celts I believe. Could be propaganda of Roman superiority or it could be fact but as a feature is what I've heard.
Almost none of it was true, from the sound of it. Of course, sword quality depended on the skill of the person making the sword, but bronze swords typically were not that bad.
As far as the Roman account of Celtic swords, yes it was most likely propaganda. One thing that's especially funny about it is that, as far as I know, there are actual Greek and Roman documents describing Celtic smiths as being very good at metalworking. So, on the one hand, they say the swords are so bad they bend a lot, and, on the other hand, they say the swords are really good.
I think that Wonder Woman should have a Greek-style bronze sword might be a wrong assumption. The Amazons in antiquity were portrayed more like Scythians, from the examples I could find they look much more similar to Wonder Woman's sword in blade shape and hilt design. (though probably still shorter in length and hilt length). In addition to this, the Amazons in the movie were closely tied to the greek gods and the sword in question was supposedly made by Zeus himself, which would imply to me that he would have the technological ability to make the highest quality steel sword, not merely bronze.
Whilst this is true of the mythological Amazons, the Amazons of the comics have been pretty consistently portrayed as stereotypical classical Greeks. Besides, how big would the island have to be to maintain a population of steppe nomads :p
well they could have migrated to the island after being steppe warriors previously. And they had contact with Greek culture so would have picked up cultural traits.
Also looks like the inspiration for Theoden's sword from LOTR.
This is exactly the reason why I used to be subscribed to chat adversities Channel but once I found yours or maybe even before I unsubscribed to them. He is very wrong about many historical facts. Too many heirs to keep me as a subscriber! Thank you Matt for creating a channel that is both accurate and entertaining!
Great video, did you ever get the Seax fitted with a handle,? Would love to see the final results..
As long as she didn't test her sword on "no less than four children" I say "Fake"! More seriously always a blast to watch you sharing your opinions Shad and Matt, take care guys!
PS : Nice 1882 French Infantry Officer sword
What other types of guards can a broadsword have besides a basket hilt?
That depends on what you call a broadsword...
You could have anything from a minimalistic dish/cross to a 3/4 metal-sphere
Well broadswords are from a time when most swords were quite narrow, hence why "broad" is part of the name - to distinguish them from them from the more common slim blades. The gaurd is whatever swords of that time had, which tended to be baskets and bars... They could have a simpler hilt but that wasn't common, because why would you downgrade like that?
Drunkduck in earlier times they used the term broadsword for e.g. what we'd now call armingsword.
+edi How much earlier? Because i've heard from multiple sources and historians that the term broadsword wasn't used during Medieval Times or during the Renaissance
Nox Xelor I believe even scholagladiatoria made a video on this topic. Or maybe it was shadiversity.
It's hard to tell, since for he most part swords were just called swords and only when they needed they added prefixes like long, war etc.
Let's be honest, all those really big/long bronze and mild iron swords are well preserved and fancily decorated for a reason: They were ceremonial swords made to look impressive during a sacrifice, a funeral or as a sign of office but not to be actually used.
You simply can't keep such a blade rigid after a certain lenght, look at Skal testing relatively short swords of the same materials and count the blows till they bend, the longer the sword the sooner and easier it bends.
You should do a video on short swords😊
cool intro change!
Holy crap is your new intro nice.
Matt, would you ever do a touch point video on the swords used during the Revolutionary War/War of Independence from both sides?
Maybe, my knowledge of the swords of that period is not fantastic so I'd need to do a bit more learning.
One thing I notice about the sword from Mycenae: the hilt and guard are gold or gold plated. This was probably a ceremonial sword or made for display, and not one that was ever actually used in battle.
Hi Matt. I am currently writing my thesis about weopons used during the first world war by the austro-hungarian army and I was wondering if you could do a video on types of sabres used by them.
Sorry I do not know much about WW1 Austrian weapons.
Hey Gabreshaa, you should check out the The Great War channel. They usually have special episodes about the arms used by the different nations. Though it is mostly about the guns. You could post the question to them in their weekly (sundays) Q&A-session Out Of The Trenches. I haven’t heard it yet, an I think it will be an awesome question. So give it a wave. You never know how much material you’re going to end up with.
Technically though Matt you were right. In history and anthropology when we mention a period say if it is Bronze age. The question should be which Bronze age because they differ culture to culture. Some have a copper age others do not some Iron Age start later than others. You said explicitly that the Greek Period Bronze age didn't have longer swords. And in that you are right to say this that this period has no sword that long because when speaking on Mycenaean bronze age period you are only speaking on that period.
The problem that Shad denounced was more specific I think. At a moment, you said that "longer blade in bronze or early iron would bend or break easily". That is (sorry Sir...) completely bogus. The exemples Shad showed (that were not a minority of swords showed that longer swords existed back then and were not bent, and the assertion made by Shad was that those swords were made and used so they had to be efficient. He then showed several clips of other youtubers trying to break or dent bronze swords with no avail.
The main point here was that you were probably wrong about the lack of reliability of longer swords, not about the fact that there were less longer swords back then.
Sir, Have you ever considered doing reviews on modern swords manufactured by contemporary artisans or manufacturers? Like the WKC-Solingen, Zhou Shi, or other contemporary manufacturers?
You should definitely try to hilt your sword in the Wonder Woman's one style, now that we know it has historical background to it...you know, "context" ;)
It doesn't work that way for Ewart Park swords as far as I can tell (I own one from Neil Burridge). The tang is shaped a certain way that you need to hilt it exactly as it is, otherwise you'd have to recast it. Or you'd have a non-full tang, which I don't think is historically accurate anyway.
Any chance of reviewing other cultures weapons such as the assegai an the Aztec sword and maybe some weapons from within the British empire
ooh, fancy new and shiny intro
i like it when matt shout "BUTT"
something interesting will come out then
Could you mention the page number where you found that specific hilt? (With the assumption that it is in the University of Kiel-paper...)
Just see the link under the video - that's all I have.
Is a lighter sword much more compact than a heavier sword? Same wielder/user but with different swords.
This is why peer-review is important in academics and Science!
What both of you seem to forget is that Wonder Woman did not fall through some type of time warp. Her island exists in the present and existed throughout the medieval period as well. During that time she and her people would have had ample time to travel in Europe and watch the evolution of the sword and apply those changes of which they approved to their own weapons. Clearly they decided to stick with the sword and shield style of fighting and would have only applied those changes that worked with that style of combat.
Interesting that the historical example looks almost exactly like Robbie McSweeny's alteration based on your suggestions. I'd say you were on the money there. :D
The historical example at 9:00 is from Mycenae, the hipsters of the ancient world. I think Matt's criticism still stands.
I mean, Themiscyra was shut off in-universe after the Trojan war which would mean any artefacts from that time would be well within the Mycenaean period
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, highly possible. If this sword was created for Zeus (was it) would the handle and sword length be more accurate to Zeus? I don't remember if Ares got all big in the end there, maybe Zeus would be of similar size.
If his hands were that big, then the blade should be a lot bigger. Otherwise it's a dagger rather than a sword.
8:48 nice find, it still had a proper pommel though, unlike the movie's one.
Indeed. The WW pommel is dumb.
In "lord of the rings" movies some of the swords also had a similar guard with two horseheads... same inspiration?
Seems to me that a really short 5th century hoplite style sword would only be used as a very secondary backup to spear, or as a casual sidearm. For someone using a sword as their primary weapon and expecting to go into battle I would expect a sword towards the longer end, so I think Shad's argument very reasonable (though infantry might have shorter than cavalry).
I do think a leaf-blade sword would have looked a lot cooler though.
Edit: Very short sword can have a big advantage in the press of hoplite phalanxes smushed together, not so much in solo fight.
Huh. I wonder if Weta also took inspiration from that historical sword for the swords of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies. They have a similar guard style, but with horse heads.
Could be! Certainly a similar design.
Don't you also still need to hilt your seax from Paul Binns as well? Anyways, very interesting video, I never would've expected that there really was a sword with that manner of hilt
so the guard's attested, the length's attested and, per my comment last time, the pommel's very well attested in Celtic examples. It seems to me the only unusual thing is the fact that all these things are found _together_
The pictures in the background look really crooked, I think it might be the lighting but just a heads up in case not.
It's because of the lens and being close to it.
shouldnt it be gladei? since Gladeus ends in "us" like octopus or cactus or would the "e" cancel that out?
In no world is octopus plural octopei. It's octopodes but that's because it's Greek. Otherwise you'd see it as octopi to be how people normally think of it because we latinized the spelling or octopuses because that's acceptable.
Well, I'll be!
I, actually, was telling my colleagues at the office how that guard was not a thing anywhere but in Hollywood.
Among other things.
Right. So, I guess I'll just have to say something. :P
machicolations?
How much do you know about chariots? They've never made much sense to me as a weapon of war, especially compared to ordinary cavalry (light or heavy), but the fact that they were in use for so many years suggests they were more useful than they appear. What were their advantages and limitations, and why did they disappear from warfare.
A random question, Matt....
But have you ever seen a Tabar Shishpar? It is an odd double ended weapon, with an axe at one end and a mace at the other.
Only on Forged in Fire... I'm not entirely convinced that it's a real historical weapon!
Understandable.
Though...from what I saw, the way they used it, it seemed it could be one way one might use such a weapon.. (Though the armour seemed a bit off and also using the axe on the armour...well...not the greatest idea)
Maybe we'll get a video on how to hilt a bronze age greek sword.
She's fighting on her own and open spaces so a longer blade is better. If she were in tight formation like a phalanx, a shorter sword would n better. So, context haha
Cool sword. I want one!
Second link Uni Kiel... Oh sweet home.
I understand most of the criticisms of the longer handle, but I don't understand the 'she doesn't use it two handed' line of reasoning. In universe, the sword wasn't made for her, was it? Just because SHE didn't use it two handed, or for hooking like with a messer, doesn't mean it wasn't DESIGNED to do so.
I use things 'wrong' all the time, even if that 'wrong' use is a perfectly valid way of employing the object.
Hey Matt I would be honoured to hilt the blades for you. Or you could send me the measurements and I could send the hilt parts to you.
fell free to contact me.
He said he's already got the parts, just hasn't put them on yet.
I know he got the hilt parts for the Neil Burridge sword, but I was thinking about the Gladius blade he mentioned briefly. :)
gladii right?
The plural of Gladius is Gladi as I had learned it.
Matt, I have what appears to be an antique tulwar, but I am unsure. What can I do to verify or disprove it authenticity? It was a little over a year ago when I attended a Renaissance Fair when I was perusing all the weapon vendors in search of Polish sabers. When I came across this tiny booth, not well decorated and the vendor was not very excitable or pushy. He just calmly asked if he can be of assistance. Upon seeing what he had on display (a fair amount of heavy fantasy blades) I told him that I highly doubt it that I was in the market for sabers particularly those of Eastern European design. He then says that he might have something for me and takes off to parts unknown. Roughly 20 minutes later he comes back with this thing sheathed in horrible looking scabbard. He hands it to me and instantly I recognized the hilt of a tulwar. It looked very rough and simple, no ornamentation. I drew the blade and to my surprise it did not have a mirrored polish like the rest of his inventory. It was light, and very nimble in my hands (well, as light and nimble as a strongly curved, broad blade can be). He told me I could take it home for $75 (done and done). After I returned home I inspected it more closely and I noticed on one side of the ricasso there is an inscription but I can not read it, the characters have an arabic or farsi (persian) look to them. I can not find anything in my limited research on it. This is the only piece in my collection that I am completely in the dark about.
meltedplasticarmyguy u sure it's a tulwar? If its indeed scripted with Arabic.. that could be an indication it's actually a pulwar (of Afghan region origin) or a Persian sabre/scimitar of some sort
Vk Deen because of similar design my mind went straight to tulwar, didn't consider pulwar. In any event how can I tell if this is truly an antique or just some thing that some guy put together in a garage
meltedplasticarmyguy take a clear picture of the script and try n find someone who speaks Arabic or a language from that region maybe a local university or college has a language teacher or even an Asian TH-cam or internet sword expert... email them the picture n explain the situation. Knowing what language or what said on the script is a start. Beyond that u'd have to find a sword expert or maybe an antique expert to examine it. Maybe an auction house might have an expert. No easy way to tell I'm afraid. Maybe a blacksmith could identify the metal?
Vk Deen I was able to identify the script as Persian, but my contacts could not really read it for it was an older script than what is used today. They made an estimate that it is possibly a name but beyond that nothing. Now I need to find someone who can understand the older language. I have a sinking feeling that I may never unravel this mystery like my family tree.
meltedplasticarmyguy Persian fits fine with anywhere from Afghanistan to Turkey... so possibly a pulwar or Persian sabre of some sort. Best bet if u don't wanna travel around too much would be to find a university with a language department for Arabic or languages from that region. Take a clear picture of the script and email a senior professor. Other than that u will have to find an antique weapons expert
If you're going to be fighting giant monsters and slicing tanks, a beefier longer blade makes sense.
Had there never been any long bronze or iron age swords, they would still have gone for the longer sword for artistic reasons.
I think only a small percent of the population will notice or care. The longer sword is cool and looks more dangerous.
Gladii?gladiae?
Are you sure that wasn't meant as diplomatic gift or religous tool, not something to be used in combat?
After watching 3/4 of this video last night I had a dream of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman wielding Matt's yet-to-be-handled sword featured in this video 😂😂😂
BlondeBeard1689 that's not the usual male dream involving ww, especially gal 😂
I don't think Neil really does much swordmaking these days; last time I asked some people who know him, he is more busy doing lessons for schools and the like. I've been trying to get some blades off him for a while now...
Oh that's a shame, his stuff is really good.
Indeed it is - I have been trying to get my wife a set of his khopesh(es?) for years, but he is hard to get an email reply out of (and now the molds have been listed as in need of remake for nearly two years now...). I got one of his Ballentobers a...decade ago now...and much like yours *still* have not hilted it.
I didn't watch the movies and I didn't even know she was from ancient greece. If her sword was more like the typical greece sword maybe I could have guessed.
love ancient world warfare. we have great videos ahead.
Well, the reason that Wonder Woman's sword doesn't look Greek is because it's not. it's Mycenaean.
I would belive it would come to culture. The Greeks and Romans used short swords while celtic and Germanic tribes used longer blades
It is interesting, but to your original point, the guard in the movie is much more blocky.
*GLADII*
ah, but what case would it be? :p
Gladii is correct, gladiator being a second declension noun. The point is kind of moot however, since glamour would classically just be the word “sword”, not referring to any specific type. The would call anything shaped like a sword gladius, unless it had a specific denominator from parent language they knew (makhaira, xiphos etc.) They’re all gladii to a Roman
I am Gladius you explained all that, thank you.
I still don't think you can think of Diana as being from anchient Greece. She's from a culture that's DERIVED from it, it's been two thousand years. Even with rediculously long-lived people, they kept in touch with the outside world. They bothered to learn our languages, so why not keep up with swords?
I have to disagree, Wonder woman is not famous for her sword and board use in combat but for her whip and magic bullet deflecting bracers. Then there's the size of the pommel and the counterbalance you called it out on. Pommels are not always counterbalance and that's a bronze pommel which is considerably more heavy than steel and thus does not need to be large. In that ones case it would weigh as much as an average sized disc pommel on an arming sword which just happens to have about the same blade length though Wonder Womans is wider than arming swords of that length. Which gets to the handle in relation to the pommel and blade length and how it evens out the width of the blade and length compared to pommel weight, the handle length adds the final counter balance by moving the weighty but small pommel further away for leverage. Then the handle length... Yeah it's a 2 handed handle with a medium length blade used with a shield. Not like bastard/hand and a half swords never existed. Nope Katana's are not a thing considering they can be used either 1 handed or 2 handed, but preferred 2 since that maximizes their effectiveness. There are other swords that have a 2 handed handle but often to mostly used one handed. Sometimes the extra length is just incase you need two hands and others it acts as a counterbalance. Not all swords are either one hand or two and can only be used that way is what 8i am saying, there are hybrids that are effective in their own right.
Then there's the issue of the sword being made by gods.. maybe it wasn't meant to be a sword used by whatever god but a knife.
I'd argue that as far as style-choices go, everything was done by everyone at some point or another, however unlikely it should be. And, truth be told, even in regards to impractical designs, somebody did it somewhere. We have enough artifacts that defy any sort of common sense and yet still are there, to be found in graves and battlesites.If the technology allows you to do it, then it will be done.
More than one Gladius = "Glady-Eye"
I`m no expert, but you might consider as well that people used to be a lot smaller in ancient times. So a sword that looks small to us today might appear a lot bigger to those people who used it back then.
Matt has actually done a video on this very topic and to sum it up, no they weren't, at least not all of them. the celts were actually only about an ich shorter than modern english people, the Greeks might have been smaller because of the their diet containing less protein but i don't know.
Regardless, people weren't *that* short for the function to make a difference like that. The reason for the short blade is by design in function and also technological limitations of bronze and early iron.
Gladii. Glad-ee.
There were Chinese short swords with long hilts
They're called yue fei dao. Your take on them might be interesting
just because its got a historical precedent that doesnt mean its a good design. i think that all your previous criticisms still hold true.
ever think of reviewing berserks weapons and armor i would like to see you opinion on it
The only thing that is known for almost-sure is that they wore Bear-skins. The rest as far as anyone can tell is the same as any other well equipped warrior of that culture and time period.
I feel like I already know the answer to this. The only weapons of real note (given attention) in Berserk are those used by Guts and maybe certain Apostles like Grunbeld. Miura himself is well aware that these are incredibly oversized and unwieldy, which is frequently lampshaded in the manga: even before he gets the Dragonslayer, people react to the swords Guts uses by saying they are ridiculous and that there's no way he could wield those, that they aren't swords at all etc, nearly every time he meets someone new.
Other than that (and exaggerated exceptions like the stuff used by the Tower of Conviction torturers), Miura bases the weapons and arms closely on historical stuff so there shouldn't be large problems with e.g. Caska or Griffith's swords.
I very much doubt that Matt is familiar with the series however.
Berserk, just comes from ancient words (my apologies, I've forgotten them) meaning "bear shirt", It had to do with them wearing bear pelts, asides from that, their weapons would be the same as any other warrior from that time (Spear, sword, shield, etc.) however, they were actually champions of kings and nobles, so their equipment would be higher grade, I presume.
he's not talking about norse berserkers you normies he's talking about me.
I think Lindybeige did a great video on berserkers
It's a normal sized sword made for a larger than human sized person.
There is a pretty small community of 'Sword' channels on youtube. Have any of you considered doing a weekly 4 person hang-out?
that sounds like a scheduling nightmare
Don´t do it.
Maybe once or twice a year, but "weekly" ??? Pls don´t.
Ok, maybe not weekly, but podcasts are really popular, and there would probably be an audience for it. About an hour or two once a month would certainly do-able.
It might possible be possible to stream it on Twitch, giving all these guys a second revenue source (outside of youtube's adpocalyps laiden shores)
Shad is annoying tho
Shad, matt, skall, snap, and Metatron usually have open lines of communication with one another but they all live in different locations and have demanding jobs that would make this virtually impossible.
Edit: lindybeige and swordsage as well, although neither being entirely sword based channels.
So I've been wondering about one of the blades on the wall, the flamberge in the middle. Anyone have more information on that sword?
Evan Nelson it's a Kris, with an exceptionally wavy blade, He has a couple of videos about them. Beautiful little things.
There are a couple of videos about that and similar weapons on this channel. (Kris/flamberge blades)
Matt, felt like to me you just talked yourself out of your own argument. Given that most bronze age swords were short(ish), don't you think a "heroes" sword forged to "kill a god" would not be like "most" swords of its era. Makes sense to me the weaponsmith tasked with forging a "god killer" would forge a sword which would stand out among the majority of swords of its age :)
You know, I don't care very much about the blade of Wonder Woman's sword. It's fine. Turns out that the guard is okay as well (though rather too big). My REAL problem is with the hilt length and horrible pommel.
can't argue with that :) a two handed hilt on a shortish one handed sword makes it look like it's a greatsword made for a hobbit warrior. And that pommel looks like it is used to slice up lemon's for the hobbit's tea.
Wonder Woman should not be armed with Greek weapons as Amazons were never represented as Greek. The movie sword is based on Scythian blades, as Scythia is considered one of the more likely origins of the Amazonian legends. The sword is a very scaled up version of common Scythian designs with an exaggerated hilt due to modern tastes for that proportion, but this was a special god slayer sword in the movie not a common arming sword. Yes it was used with a shield but that does not reflect it's design purpose, as these items were stolen by Diana not assembled formally by people who knew how they were supposed to be used.
Wonder Woman's sword could be longer because they had better metal in Atlantis.