Bravo for those great swords! Have you also made or would you make bronze swords with bronze hilts - the other most common type in Central and Northern Europe, sometimes cast together with the blade but most often cast separately?
Hi Neil, nice to see you featured. I have put in lots of replies on this thread. Since Matt has many followers you might need to gear up for orders! Don't let it keep you away from us. Hoping to see you soon. Love and good health to you as ever, from Alex and I.
in Homers "Iliad", the bronze sword with mushroom pommel and leaf shape that have front balance its called Aor, from the word " Aeiro which means i raise" probably becouse you need to raise your hand to use it as oposed to the earlier long stabing swords Fasgano which take the word from "I Slain" which they were used for stabbing on the throat of the enemy as proved by the many iconografy depictions that survived. Homer decribed that the Aor strikes on Helmets were devastating, their protection were insufficient to those kind of blows, and Aor was the predominant type of sword in the Iliad.
The leafblade sword that Matt demonstrated is a Ewart Park and peculiar to Western Europe, especially to what is now the UK. Same with the Gundlingen type. G Type and Naue II plus some swords possibly similar to Urnfield European swords were possible. Most people seem to think that the Naue II is the most likely 'normal' sword contemporary with the actual Trojan war. However by the much later date ascribed to Homer's Iliad as we now know it, I.E. 'post palatial' Classical Greece leafblade swords of various kinds were being used. But this is in the 'Iron Age' since the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been using iron for a century or so by Homer. So I suppose it depends on whether you want to look accurate for the actual dates or Homeric! All the best.
@@michaelel650 i personally beleive homer its ither very close to the trojan war, or it has onfo from that time. becouse in his accounts in many places he describes cities that were not inhabitent in the 8-7th century BC and the greeks of that time didnt know they were existed becouse they were buried, we found them on archaelogical excavations, also Homer describes places like rivers and other landscapes as were the time of the trojan war and in the 7-8th century were diferent. also, he describes us pieces of armour and clothes that did corespond with archaelogical evidences, frescoes, artifacts etc and not of the 8th century. so he did have reliable infos on the time the war was fought. i think the Naue II sword type, which probably in homer its described as Aor, it was used for many centuries and in later examples was made from iron, becouse it was very efective. i think the Hoplite Xifos were an evolution of it, it has the same leaf shape blade. all the best to you too!
They are cast, in sand or in stone. Mine were made in England and reasonably priced. That's where the 'pulling the sword from a stone' stories probably came from and the molten bronze was the 'blood of the sun'. There are videos of making them.
Very expensive to make so most cultures used bronze-head maces or bronze-head axes with a D-shape blade. That meant that bronze swords were either used for officers or used by in a specific type of war by rich nations (for example the Greek city-states used primarily spears and sevondarily bronze swords in their phalanx formation. In that type of warfare, the mace while it has the anti-armor capability just doesnt have the reach to bypass this defensive formation (large heavy shields overlapping each other). Its a similar situation with the axe. Not to mention a hoplite using a mace/axe also cannot use those weapons to their 100% potential, in such close quarters there is not enough space for vertical arm movement.
@@markhatfield5621 Yes I know the basic way bronze items were, and are, made. But it is my understanding that they were also hammered once out of the form to draw the edges out and to harden them.
@@GeoGyf I believe tin was quite difficult to find and extract, if I remember right... i think tin is quite rare in general actually. back in the day a tin mine was a very big deal!
Hi Matt, I work for the museum where the swords on display were filmed, the ‘riverwall’ we called it. Had a wonderful and fascinating couple of days in the store measuring these swords and spearheads etc to devise the mounting system we adopted for the display!
Experimental testing I've seen on bronze swords suggests they are good at the kind of cuts where you draw the blade through the target and at stabbing, but less resilient when it comes to a hack where one part of the edge has to bear all the impact if it hits a hard surface. But with the exception of nobles and theirimmediate retainers, bronze age warriors often had relatively light protective gear. So a stab followed by pulling the sword out in a cutting motion would be ideal with this kind of pommel. Additionally, I've seen some illustrations and reconstructions where the rear of the pommel was a gentle cone shape. Few warriors wore metal helmets, and (as Matt points out) swords were used close-up rather than with full arm extension. I wonder if this meant that swords could be used to deliver a sharp surprise bang on the head with the pommel. Similar to the skull-crackers fitted to some modern combat knives, but with a lot more momentum (and thus damage) from the larger blade. I guess looking at a few skulls with battle damage might give us a clue.
Check Pylos agate (from Griffin warrior tomb). The warrior is stabbing his enemy behind the shield with the sword from above. Grip is highly detailed and realistic, hand is shown from inside so you can see where all the fingers are. Pommel is mushroom-shaped and it looks like the sword depicted is the one in the grave, and the stone itself was carved as portrait of buried warrior in his lifetime so it must be 100% accurate.
I was going to type something about Combat Agate as well but you nailed it perfectly. There are several similar depictions around and each one showing warriors using swords for stabbing. Pommel on this pictures are big, thrust are executed kinda overhand. So yes, probably fighting style evolved around bypassing the shield and persisted even when shield was absent during fight what is clearly visible on some of the mentioned pictures although the Combat Agate scene shows warrior stabbing his shield wearing opponent in the neck over the shield.
Hi Matt Easton, folks here. More of a general thought, but have you considered doing a video on earlier two-handed swords? They really took off as steel and armour advanced post-1300, but I know there's carvings of dacians holding falxes in two hands, a viking account of someone fighting by gripping their sword with both hands, etc. Could be interesting to look at what swords were used this way before things like longswords and katanas, and what context it would be done in
The Dacian Falx (and the Thracian copies) as well as the Romphai were sickle-like but to the front, a slight curve to the front. That means that they are very effective/excellent choppers, offensive with big movements used in loose formations. There were multiple variants, both one-handed or two-handed. Sometimes the curve could be bigger (like a khopesh), this allows some better angles (against shields for example) at the cost of cutting power. The Falx/Rhomphaia were very devastating, the Romans had to reintroduce greaves, introduce bracers and more importantly add ridges to their helmets for added protection.
the only real bronze two-handed sword that i know is a african one, used by mercenaries from the Koushite kingdom (actual soudan) that the egyptien hired, and we only have found drawings of theses , not any real evidences. But they implied so much, in logistic, crafting issues, etc... And it's more than possible that they broke and where reshaped in smaller ones, bronze is too easy to recycle to not do it.
The Dacian Falx as popularly understood is a sort of short polearm rather than a sword; although its most probable that it was neither, and not Dacian either, but rather just an improvised agricultural tool employed by civilians of a Dacian ally in one scene on the Adamklissi monument. The Thracian rhomphaia seems more probable to have been a real weapon, but it was localized to a rather small area and very little evidence survives to us outside of the excavated examples.
My favourite Bronze Age sword is the makhaira at the National Archeological Museum in Athens. The handle merging with the blade looks so satisfying and I can almost feel how it swings just by looking at it.
@@milobuur9913Makhaira is a kopis-like sword (slightly curved slasher, like a big kukri), but usually means a larger kopis sword. The translation is "big knife".
@@milobuur9913 has my reply to you been deleted? I went into more detail with links. On the wiki page for makhaira, the bottom sword in the main image is a reconstruction of the one in Athens. If you look up “Mycenaean knives, swords, and spearhead at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on October 6, 2021” on wiki commons it shows the display I remember in Athens.
This makes a lot of sense. Looking at Classical Greek art, we often see the Xiphos and Kopis (both blades with good cutting capabilities, the former being very similar to Bronze Age leaf-bladed swords in overall blade form) being used with powerful overhanded swings. I believe there are also images of swords being used to get around shields with thrusts, but I can’t think of specific examples at the moment.
This due to the Phalanx warfare (big shield overlapping with each other). The Phalanx was also used to push, the troops would do it on command (othismos tactic) so the enemy troops lose their balance. The Spartans were masters at this, even doing orderly feigned retreats then using othismos. The primary weapon was the spear and when the spear broke or the battle went into melee, they would use their swords (primarily xiphos). In this scenarios the swords were very useful as opposed to axes/maces., due to the extended reach & more angles to hurt the enemy (over the Shielf).
Look up Greek vases referencing the Iliad. They show shields used edge on with angled thrusts as Matt demonstrated. I.E. the Iliad references dynamic and more individualistic ('heroic') fighting styles that pre-date the phalanx of later Classical Greece. There has been an analysis of the changes in writing styles in the Iliad that imply that it was modified over the years and references fighting styles from around 1200 BC to those around 700 BC that were more familiar to the latter audiences when the poem was finally written down. That's the best I can do as I can't find my copy of the actual book! All the best.
@@michaelel650 Back at the time of the Iliad, chariots were all the rage. There were chariots for 2 people or 3 people. The driver, the lord & the lord's bodyguard. As for the armor of the lord look the Dendra armor. For its time, the protection it gave was tremendous. If you pair with their big 8-shaped shield, you truly have an almost unkillable warrior. No wonder legends arose about these warriors, especially if they were extra good at fighting. Adding a useful info about the shields used in the Illiad. A couple of Greek universities hired javelineers to throw javelins at traditional made shields from the data we have from Troy. A surprisingly large amount of javelin shots stopped at the 7th leather layer, stopped by the final 8th layer, just like it is written in Illiad. Simply fascinating.
@@GeoGyf Interestingly war was transforming at the time the Iliad was set, which may be at the time of the Bronze Age Collapse. Although there apparently some textual evidence that the real war was a revolt of a city, with the support of the Ahhiyawa (the Palatial 'Greeks'), against the Hittite Empire. The Hittites won. So it seems that the original Iliad was composed at the time where chariot warfare was dominant but then the Sea Peoples transformed warfare. I think that this is covered in the book 'Centuries of Darkness'. The Sea Peoples were more lightly armoured and armed than the chariot warriors but more heavily armed and armoured than the 'runners' that accompanied the chariots. It is thought that they used throwing spears to kill the horses then mobbed the chariot warriors. After the 'Collapse' war changed toward Hoplite warfare in Greece and Ionia etc. The text of the Iliad changes over time, this is analysed in a book but I cannot find my copy at the moment! It changes to reflect changes in warfare so that you can have chariots and what is, in effect, Hoplite type warriors anachronistically placed together. Assuming the Iliad was composed for a Greek audience around a time of growing Greek expansion into Ionia and around the Black Sea with the potential for conflict with indigenous societies then the actual 'Trojan War' was inverted to make the Greeks the victors. Anyway, for what it is worth, that is my understanding. All the best.
@@michaelel650 The Ahihahwa were the Mycyneans/Achaeans & the rest of the Greek states that fought in Troy. After their win, documents have been found in which the 4 major empires that maintained the status quo (Hittites, Mittani, Egyptians, Babylon) acknowledged the new 5th power, the Ahihahwa. So the Hittite victory must be after that fact to check thd Ahihahwa. Anyway the Bronze Age Collapse happened & it is a very valid possibility with numerous indications that Ahihahwa were one of the Sea People.
Matt, if you are so inclined, please do a video on the sword of the Prince of Oss (a major Iron Age burial from the Netherlands). You'll find it if you search for "Vorstengraf Oss" or something along those lines. It is a very beautiful example of an Iron Age high status weapon, and I'd love to hear your take on it. I worked at this site when I was studying archaeology at Leiden University, and it is a truly fascinating place. Also, I know that you like bowie knives, and I would enjoy a video in which you discuss some modern models and which you would recommend for camping and bushcraft purposes. I live in Canada, so the wilderness requirements are sometimes enough to justify carrying a fairly serious large knife when camping and hiking (although something less extreme like a Mora or Fallkniven is still usually sufficient).
I think it's a good theory especially since in at least one Roman account, I forget which at the moment, the Celts were described as swinging their swords as if chopping wood. Which brings to my mind the full body slashing you talk about. Granted there probably were multiple schools of thought on how a blade should be wielded but it does seem like the above mentioned school would have been very fearsome and worth remembering.
More bronze age stuff please! With regards to shields, I was given to understand that a popular type of shield was a figure 8 shield. Would that help both spear and sword usage? Given that there were no stirrups, perhaps you might discuss cavalry use with Jason Kingsley and Zac Evans? I find this all fascinating; more, please!
From Western Europe all that survives to us is bronze shields, which were round and centre-gripped. Many different designs are attested in other places, especially in areas where more elaborate pictorial and literary evidence survives to us. It was specifically the peoples of Greece and nearby islands that employed figure-eight shields. These seem to almost invariably be misrepresented in modern art, probably because their real design is too weird for people. Specifically they were suspended from shoulder straps rather than being held, and had an extreme curvature such that they wrapped around their wearer. The design left both hands free, though the shield obviously constrained larger movements, and the shields seem to have been employed in conjunction with two-handed spears or short pikes. However they were not the only design employed, and by the close of the Bronze Age smaller round centre-gripped leather and/or wooden shields seem to have been more popular; these were also employed by the Sea Peoples migrating from the Anatolian coast, which may perhaps be related to their depiction in Mycenaean art.
Im a hobbyist bronze caster; I've made one sword and want to start working on more interesting sword reproductions, so I'm absolutely stoked to see more bronze sword content. Love to see that, and maybe some of the more intricate bronze spearheads
@@kazikek2674 there are some African sword styles that look similar as well, some of which come from martial cultures that either still exist or lasted long enough to be filmed. I wonder if there are any similarities in combat methods?
I can't wait for more bronze age sword content! I will admit that the Mycenaean Type G are among my favourite, and there is just something about bronze in the reflections and everything that is just amazing!
Your discussion of cuts & thrusts got me wondering, how well do bronze blades stand up to such treatment? Has anyone experimented with a bronze blade against test subjects in contemporary armor? Of course we want to see what damage is done to the target, but we should also pay attention to how much damage is done to the weapon, especially with different attack techniques: thrusts, cuts, chops, etc.
Newcastle University has a history of exploring BA sword edge damage. A lot of their research re: combat archaeology is problematic and does not exclude the influence of ideomotor action and their conclusions re: BA shields are way off, they should have gone to Roland Warczewcka, but the research is as good as it gets. See theri book 'Bronze Age Combat: An Experimental Approach'. Somewhat flawed from a HEMA perspective but it is the best you are going to get. All the best.
@@disnarkI don’t know about that! A great deal of armor may well have been made out of perishable materials. Laminated Linen, sometimes with hide glue layers is extremely tough! Helmets were made of sinew and hide Glue by some Mediterranean cultures. These would be somewhat similar to a modern fiberglass helmet, but likely heavier and more elastic. Effective armor can also be made of waxed water hardened leather. This can also be layered with hide glue. These sorts of armor rarely survive. Also keep in mind that for every surviving bronze helmet or cuirass ( a word that clearly has leather based etymology ) there were 100 or 1,000 that didn’t survive to our day. Who knows. But the ease of recycling bronze and it’s intrinsic worth makes it highly likely that there were plenty of them. They may have ended up as statues commemorating victory, and then turned into cannons a Thousand years later.
I figure a pommel with a very severe "stop" for your hand would be better if your sword got caught stuck on the edge of a shield after a chop; it would give your hand better purchase/leverage as you try to wrench your sword back.
One cannot argue with human anatomical physics. If the tool you're using will not accommodate a certain action because of the limitations of body mechanics, then obviously it wasn't used in that fashion. Combat is typically an enterprise that puts a premium on the best use of any particular weapon (or else you get killed, which is a strong disincentive!). So if the pommel's design limits a certain action, but makes a different action better, then it's hardly a stretch to assume that was the point of the design. I would suggest that variation in design may have been due to personal preference. We're not talking about a mil spec weapons manufacturing industry, nor are we in a time of government funded standing armies. So I would assume that when you were 'called up' for service, you brought your equipment out of the closet and it was -your- equipment, not government issue. So some guys liked cutting and chopping, some guys preferred the ability to thrust more efficiently, etc. Context.
These things are prestige goods though, in this period. The people getting called up probably didn't have swords but only spears. I think the people handling these blades were more like professional sports players than they are like levies or conscripts. Bronze was really expensive, so you had to be either rich yourself or have a rich sponsor. There is actually evidence of standard issue from a period even earlier than this, although I agree that I don't think that was what was happening here.
@@garethmartin6522 differences in manufacturing maybe? its not like these things are machine made. everything is hand carved, hand made etc. Some wood maybe carved into mushrooms easier. some wood may be more suited to smaller handles. Also maybe a storage related thing too.
@@Winston-lf7sb On the one hand there can be lots of variation due to the fact that these are all made by individual artisans. On the other, the styles are so close that clearly everybody knew what the standard pattern was. I also expect an individual might be measured and fitted for their sword, and that you would use a different blade for people of different height, say.
Makes good sense. Studied kashima in my younger days/ so not just an 'i think', a little practicality also. Pommel does suggest angled thrusts with shield work as a 'core use'. The bronze material suggests cutting would be prioritised over clashing/slashing. The deep belly of the leaf (offering a curved edge) suggests cutting rather than chopping to me too. The engagement of back and core in cutting (not slashing!) couples with experience of curved blades. I agree the way the sword is intended to be held tells how it is intended to be used. Thanks for a thoughtful and thought provoking piece.
The other one of your two bronze swords (NOT the mushroom pommeled one) with the stepped profile taper, reminds me of many Chinese sword blades of the same general period. You can see that abrupt decrease in width on bronze Chinese swords such as the Sword of Goujian. Although it seems to be much more pronounced in the European swords.
Man, I really, REALY would love to see this theory tested out using a figure-8, or dipylon " Boeotian" shield to see how they work together as a combined armament
the bronce age in britain spans 1700 years, why should there not be a variety in sword hilts? look at all the variety from the roman time to the Napoleonic era....
@@marting1056 there are a few "clusters" of surviving bronze swords from places like Ewart Park that tend to be much more contemporaneous. And it probably won't surprise you to hear that the Ewart Park swords are more similar to each other than they are to swords from other periods and regions.
They might have had different swords for military and civilian use. You'd almost certainly want a shield in combat, and they'd have developed a martial fighting style around using a sword and shield together. But they'd potentially be a pain to carry around in your day to day life. If you still wanted to carry a sword for self-defence or as a status symbol, you might want something with a flatter pommel so it'd be easier to carry at your side, and might use a different fighting style when using it. Slingers, archers and charioteers might also have wanted a more conveniently-shaped sidearm if they could afford them. It's also pretty clear they had cultural significance beyond their use as weapons, as they were often thrown into bodies of water in a ritualistic way and some sword-like objects have been found that wouldn't have been suitable for combat. If you wanted a sword as a trade gift or a ritual offering, you might not bother with a bulky wooden pommel.
Citizen levies. Most folks would have one sword, *if they owned any* - swords are expensive and very single purpose. And, the *spear* seems to be far more common as a "civilian defense weapon", at least outside major cities. Spears help keep the threat (whether man or beast) at a distance, are a lot cheaper, and can be used as a walking stick.
@@geodkyt Yep, that fits with the findings of the Hjortspring Boat where the majority had spears and a big shield, and a wee knife, with two carrying more slender shields with a wooden boss, (I made a rough replica whilst 'shielding' during lockdown). Only these two warriors carried swords. All the best.
@@geodkyt We don't know very much about how people organised themselves politically prior to the Roman conquest. It'd be nice to think that their weapons provided some clues.
Now i want to know more about bronce age spears. I mean, ALL (ok just most of those) of those swords, as beautiful as they are where still (just) backup to weapons. Mostly to the spear.
@@maxdoblinger1749 There were bronze head maces & bronze D-shaped axes as well, quite common in the armies of Egypt, Mittani, Babylon, Assyrians etc. The bronze swords start to gain more importance in the Phalanx fighting system, they are the perfect side weapon when the spear breaks. Do note that the Phalanx spears have 2 points, one is the proper spear point, the other is called the saureoter, or otherwise the spear-foot, this is used to rest the spear & can also be used in battle.
@@maxdoblinger1749 More specific bronze age spear information: (2300-1100bc). We have a lot of information and various surviving blades from Greece. The Greeks colonized all of the Mediterranean, they got involved in the Troy war, their win was acknowledged & they were welcomed as 5th state by the 4 great empires of the Bronze Age, they got involved with the Sea People and ofcourse the great City-States that came after that. The blade design is usually leaf shaped or a tear-shaped blade with a more elongated spear & all the various variants. The spear blade has 2 small holes at the base, this is where the cord is threaded to the pole. There is also a 1600bc specimen with 4 holes for the cord. Interestingly there is also a silver blade specimen from Troy. Some blades are even decorated in the form of an animal. As for the blade length, again we have various lengths like.. Prepare for a long one! Group A spears are are from 15.5cm to 38cm, with flat/narrow tang. Group B spears are also called shoes, these have a hollow where the wood goes in. Their length us from 11cm to 18,6cm. Group C spears have a forged,fissured tube and go from 14,4 to 60cm. Very common in Mainland Greece (example Mycynae) they are found from 1600 bc onwards. Group D spears are similar to Group C but the fissure is shorter, now we are going more to 1000bc, they go from 14cm to 40cm. Some variants have also the willow leaf shape & even 2 holes for the pins/nails. Common in both Mainland & Aegean. Group E spears (1500-1100) are long, narrow with a tongue-like blade & blunted points, going from 16,8 to 32 cm. Common both in mainland and islands. Group F spears are oval with a rectangular/flat shape rib, the blade is long and narrow. From 17cm to 45cm, mostly in the islands. Group G spears (2000-1100)have convex angles, oval shapes, but larger than group F and different shapes of the rib, going from 13.2 to 45cm. Group H spears are like Bayonets, they go from 12.5 to 57cm, found all over, especially in Rhodes. Group I spears (1400-1100) are the oval-leaf, from 15.5 to 21cm. Bellerephon's, the Chimera Slayer's spear was that type. Group K spears (1400-1100,) have a large, casted tube and a teardrop blade, the 2 holes for the pin/nails with several different tip points, they go from 10 to 21cm. Group L are leaf-bladed with the tube casted or fissured. Similarities with the Group D spears, from 19,5 to 32cm. Group M spears have the lanceolate blade, like a man's "organ". From 9 to 24cm, usually in the mainland. Group N spears have various designs, most likely javelins & few spears. Last but not least we have the Saureoter, or Spear Foot, used to rest the spear on the ground. Also used in battle when the primary spear blade shaft is destroyed. They range from 8 to 14.5cm. Hohoho! And we have the last one, the Shepherd Crook's Spear (like a fish bait) found in Cyprus. Quite possibly the predecessor of the Bill Hook and every such weapon used in naval battles (Longhkodrepanon, Spear-Sickle by the Eastern Romans). The current theory is that it has Egyptian influence, as the Crook Sceptre was a symbol of royal power, also used by the shepherds. As for the Spear Shafts, we have short & long (for 2handed spears) and for Javelin Shafts, we have short, short & heavy (more penetration) and light (for distance). Light was used mainly in Late era & was used a lot for warfare. Trivia from Illiad: Hector's Spear was around 4,8m (11 forearms long). More Trivia: The Javelin is called in Linear B as A-ko-te-u with no ideogram. The similarity with the greek Akontion/Akontio is astonishing. For more info check Hoeckman, Casolla Guida, Gallin Fonseca, Stocker, Davies etc.
Thrusting seems like a strong option at first, until you consider that the impaled enemy probably still has weapons in their hands after thinking about it, hence musashi emphasizing the importance of cutting.
Extremely good video, as usual Matt!! What I want you to cover next is the Bronze Age bronze bra. I know this existed because it was on a page in a history book when I was 11 or 12 at school and I studied that page pretty intensely. So much so that I would even call myself a Bronze Age bronze bra specialist. So I almost insist that you cover the Bronze Age bra in a future video and what sort of protection you can say it afforded.
Interesting, some good ideas there. I've always thought that if you want to work out how something was used, you look at all the sources, then the archeology, then you get as accurate a replica as you can and try it out to see what works and what doesn't. Your comments about how a weapon feels in the hand, almost telling you how it want's to be used are spot on. I got to hold a reenactors Mainz pattern gladius a few years ago and he was kind enough to let me try it out a bit. And it didn't feel like a thrust-centric sword at all. It felt like it wanted, with it's waisted, flaring blade, to be hacked into something. Yeah, that long, broad point would make a nasty stab, but it felt like a hacker. (He agreed), and the Adamliski monument shows us Roman troops doing just that. Backed up by a source from one of Rome's wars against Macedon, where we're told the Macedonian troops were horrified by the cutting wounds the Roman swords had inflicted. Maybe the differences in Bronze age swords come down to date, region, culture or even just personal preference? After all, a sword back then was an elite warriors weapon.
I'd love to see more bronze age weapons! Great video, interesting ideas. I did wonder immediately if the movement-restricting pommel may have meant it was used similarly to the talwar, but then I only have cursory knowledge of swords in general, and the talwar in particular. Interesting to think about!
This is kind of the wrong place or topic to ask a question . But since I don’t know where to ask , so I have two questions. 1 where is the appropriate place to ask general questions. 2 I was watching Rashamon ( Akira Kurosawa, Tashiro Mifune 1950 ) and the bandit appears to have a ‘ European’ looking sword , is this a Japanese sword or is it foreign, not necessarily European?
Something to say about Mycenaean bronze swords. Many have survived and most of them are exceptionally long and often have huge pommels. From surviving clay tablets we know that this type of sword was called ''Fasgano''.Certainly was a thrusting weapon, used in angled thrusting attacks over or from the side of shields. The Mycenaean infantry used particularly large shields and are depictions of battles or duels on vases and golden rings where the warriors clearly thrust over the shields with long swords aiming mainly for the throat of the opponent.
Hi Matt, As it happens Neil Burridge is my best mate and spends some time with us in the Highlands every year. I have a collection of many of Neil’s BA swords, a Clonbrinn type leather shield and a Yetholm type spear which we explore with the National Museum of Scotland using the concept of ‘convergent evolution’ to ascertain its use; i.e. if it looks like a partisan, handles like a partisan it was probably used like a partisan. Previously it was held to be ceremonial bling or somehow like a assegai! (About ten times too heavy for the latter.) The use of BA swords has to been seen in the context of the shields and the Ewart Park, with the big pommel, was contemporary with the Clonbrinn type leather shield. The visual reference is Greek vases which show the shields used edge-on and with angled thrusts as you suggest. We discussed this with the NSM Curator of the BA, Matt Knight, some years ago with reference to the wonderful Yetholm type bronze shields. Like the Clonbrinn they have a small boss which would fit tight around the hand allowing a relaxed grip. Theses bronze shields are very light and thin but the hammered in ridges with mini-bosses between them add to the structural strength and mean that if the shield was used edge on a striking weapon would tend to ‘skip’ over the surface. The clincher is that the folded edge, sometimes folded around a bronze wire, is two to three times thicker than the rest of the shield, arguing for usage along the lines demonstrated by Roland Warczecka for Viking shields. The Yetholm type shields are around the same size and, if anything, lighter despite being bronze. These shields, if the archaeologist Marion Uckelmann is correct in her dating, are contemporary with the Type IV ‘rapiers’, I have two of these in my collection of Neil’s truly excellent (because of his obsession with morphological accuracy) swords. These type BA swords are optimised for thrusting and have no pommel. The sword types contemporary with the Trojan War - in terms of the accepted dating - tend to either be optimised for thrusting (N.B. the Merneptah period illustrations of the ‘Sea Peoples’) or Naue II type swords, reminiscent of short, parallel-edged Viking swords, and optimised for cutting. These might have been used with tower shields but the illustrations tend to show round shields. I think that the Carps Tongue type swords are not cavalry swords but an attempt to produce and optimum cut and thrust sword for very dynamic combat on foot. The later Hallstatt C Mindelheim sword, which Neil also makes, looks more optimised for cavalry use, although we are probably talking ponies. Years ago I was interviewed by Lindy Beige with some of my collection and this can be found on RUclips. You and I have actually met both at the Royal Armouries and in York, around twelve or so years ago! I love your stuff by the way. All the best from Mick Skelly.
The Bronze Age is far and away my favorite period of history, so would love to see you analyze more weapons and gear of that era. My personal favorite as most beautiful sword in human history is the Celtic “antenna” sword, particularly the corcelette type from Bad Schussenried. I assume those would have been used much like the mushroom pommels. Would also love to see you discuss my favorite armor, the Dendra panoply.
I haven't read the study but I know that Robert Brooks and his club were part of a study trying to recreate Bronze Age sword technique and came up with some interesting points. I think what you say here is at least plausible, just difficult to prove anything. Always fun to try, though!
I've been listening to audiobooks on the Bronze age collapse / end of Empires of late. One thing mentioned is that some early Iron age and late Bronze age swords were of the same design. But in different materials (obviously). It's probably the case that many of the fighting disciplines / martial arts were already established in the Bronze age. It'd be interesting if you and Tod could collaborate and pitch some period replicas against each other to investigate how the different materials led to advantages and thus the birth of the Iron age.
I think that bronze swords probably used a system or systems of fighting that were very different than those used with iron and steel swords. The material is fundamentally different, and can't handle the same stresses. They also had thousands of years do develop fighting systems that were based on the use of swords made of bronze, and the sword patterns developed to take advantage of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of bronze. My guess would be that they did not use the blades for parrying, and probably tried to avoid blade on blade contact as much as possible, relying on shields for defense. And based on both the pommel shape and how bronze reacts to torque, I would also think that slashes and cuts were emphasized more than chopping. Mostly because bronze blades can bend when they hit something solid. Whereas using the edge for a drawing cut would avoid that possibility. Stabbing, especially on the bronze blades with a thickened midrib would also be viable, as you have a lot more material to counteract the possible torque. This is all completely my own opinion. However I have spent a good amount of time using bronze swords to see how they react to impacts and cutting, so it isn't just wild supposition.
the finds in the battlefield of Tollense show marks on the found blades that are identical to sword to sword contact in test fighting with recreated blades even edge to edge. if you are in a fight for life, you don´t care as much for edge damage, you try to survive
@@marting1056 I think the original commenter's point was that and I'm just talking out my ass here cuz I don't know jack about sword fighting, Later sword fighting techniques with iron or steel parrying and what not was encouraged while with bronze it was like a last resort type thing.
When I last looked at the bronze swords in the British museum there was one with clear cut marks notching the blade edge. Evidence that it had been used to parry another blade. I thought that could support the hypothesis that the fighters had been 'fencing' rather than 'hacking'.
Their is a counter point to stabbing. Both these sword don't much of a hand stop. Thrust to be very no committed and very liimited targets. If you thrust into reistent and your comes to a stop, with a double edged sword with no real guard and a smooth grip, there a high likihood of cutting your palm on your own blade.
@marting1056 yes, and I am not saying that those kinds of contacts didn't occur. Especially when you are fighting. But I am speculating that that was not the ideal. Just as it was discouraged in places like India and parts of North Africa in more recent history. If you compare the microscopic pictures of the edges of historical bronze blades to those of recreations used to fight experimentally, there is very clear evidence that such contacts did happen. But what does happen frequently when you chop on bronze sword into another, like you do with a steel sword, is that the blade bends. Not just chips, or takes edge damage. But bends. Sometimes it can be returned to straight or almost straight. Sometimes it can't. The thing about bronze though, is that unlike iron and steel, it is pretty easy to recycle. So those blades that bent too severely would be melted down and used for other things. We don't have as much evidence as we could, simply because most of the broken or damaged weapons were recycled.
Having just watched your video analysing spear fighting in movies, including the Hector vs. Achilleus battle in Troy, I'd really like to see a deeper dive into that, i. e. all the weapons and armour used therein, how realistic it is, etc. I seem to recall reading that cavallery was quite rare in the Bronze Age, because horses had not yet been bred to be big enough by then (hence the prevalence of chariots). That would be another interesting aspect, both regarding the point raised in this video and the movie, which features extensive cavallery scenes, if memory serves.
I have specifically wondered about those pommels myself, so I'm interested in this discussion. I think my main doubt about this theory is that if it's a dedicated cutting weapon it is surprising that it isn't curved. Perhaps it would be worth looking into whether it was hard to make curved blades with bronze, or when curved blades first appeared. Another thing I find curious about these swords is how small the grip is. I don't have big hands, and they look uncomfortably small to me. Yet the Celts were reportedly quite large and well fed. It's possible that there is some other context in which the sword is used, like duelling, and that it was used in a different way in that context. There could be techniques that you only used in that context, which benefitted from a different form. Let's say they didn't use shields in duels, that might change the way a sword was handled. Or if a duel was usually to the blood rather than the death, maybe the big pommel was like a safety feature to prevent you using the point. Or maybe they were dual-wielded. I actually dislike this idea, I've never been comfortable with double weapons, but it would lend itself to a slashing style that might benefit from a more secure grip. Finally, it's possible that sword didn't just have a pommel, so much as that it was fitted with a pommel suitable to it's intended use. If you had a private blacksmith who does bespoke commissions, it's quite possible that you went to him to have you sword modified and updated all the time. Look how people love modding their weapons in games.
Very interesting! I remember seeing bronze age swords in museums in Greece, with big pommels made of marble. Were they trying to shift the mass of the sword to the back, in the same way a rapier does, in order to have more control of the point, perhaps?
Matt, please do a video on the Khanda. I think tip cuts or strikes where the end corners hit first would be particularly deadly. Maybe even effective against some mail armours?
Something tells me those swords are mostly used for draw cuts and stabbing as hammered bronze is very sharp but absolutely not a friend of chopping at all. Edit: It'd be fascinating to see how the Antenna-pommels figure into this idea.
I agree and I think that stylistically sword use might relate back to the palstave and refined to enable both push and draw cuts. From my own handling of palstaves, BA 'rapiers' and including leaf-blades of various types. All the best.
@@mnk9073 they almost certainly *should* be used for thrusting and draw cuts, and the disk pommels seem to indicate that sword makers took pains to steer sword users in that direction. However, some of the surviving Ewart Park swords have been damaged in a way consistent with being used in a chopping motion, and badly at that. Being a crappy fencer is historically accurate.
Haven't watched the video yet, so sorry if this comment makes little sense (and also because I might have to comment again later). Anyway, had to get it out of the way. Several years ago, when I was studying archaeology, we had a course on typology and how to identify artifacts by type. We had a bunch of iron axes and knives, but mostly bronze axes, spears and swords. One of mine was a bronze sword which was in very nice condition - it had some edge damage (pretty much the same as you'd see on an iron blade) that we deduced from the patina was propably original. But more excitingly, it had some residue that my professor said was most likely blood. So, I can't really tell you much about how they were used, but I can say with very high certainty THAT they were used and that at least one person in Bronze Age Europe had edge-to-edge contact with another weapon and edge contact with some body containing blood - I like to think it was from a battle, but who knows, it was about 3200 years old if I remember correctly. Beautiful blade too, very light and nimble - if we'd fitted a new handle and slightly touched up the blade, it'd been ready to go again. Very small handle though, I could barely get my hand in and I don't have large hands.
I love that you point this out, they say "bronze was too soft and people hadn't developed fencing yet" so they were used as show weapons or with simple technique - but then the finds exactly show they would have been used much as later items of the same type.
I forget the author, but at least one Roman source says that Gauls would deliver massive brutal cuts that could chop a man in half. If i remember correctly, the context was actually meant to be somewhat disparaging of their technique but it could still be indicative of a Celtic preference for strong, full powered cuts even after the bronze age had ended.
@@Jtbrahh I do remember that the Romans transition from the smaller gladius to the larger spatha (for the reach). The Gaul influence shows, but the Spatha is a good thrust sword as well. There is also a cavalry Spatha version. Their shields also changed to large oval-like shields and they employed shield walls as well, much more effectively than other people (because they also used ranged weapons extensively, especially the second line). Their battalions at that time were called Fulcum (Foulkon/Phoulkon in the Eastern Roman Empire). The Eastern Roman Empire/Kingdom of Romans later transitioned to the straight-double edged Spathion (Goth/Vandal influence and the Romaic Sabre, the Paramerion (Hunnic influence). The Paramerion is the highlight, it has a crossguard, it is lightweight therefore agile sword, agood chopper as well. It is really an advanced sword for its time & perfect for defence in castles, castle-cities (like the Mediterranean islands) and in close melee.
I don’t think it’s specifically cultural. Armor was relatively rare in pre-Roman Europe. When the only defense you run into are wooden shields, then chopping weapons are REALLY good at destroying human anatomy.
Very interesting thoughts, thank you. Do you think the large pommel is also a kind of hand protection (from the front and from below), as some of the cuts you showed seem to lead with the hand more than cuts with other types of swords (hilts)?
I think the shape of the blade also applies here. The one you have that has no mushroom shaped pummel as a thick base of the blade and the tip goes into a finer shape. If you were to draw that back you wouldn't need as much leverage if your sword were to have become dull during a extended engagement. The material of bronze age weapons dulled faster and chipped and such, so being able to draw the blade out of a foe if you've stabbed them, or across them if you are slashing is extremely important in spite of the dull blade. The one that has the large pummel could be easier to draw out of a foe that it gets stuck in. Keep in mind also that the armor used at the time was often wicker. It's possible that after stabbing through the wicker into someone, the wicker itself would shift and grip the blade from the sides so that you're not only contending with the material you have already cut through. Drawing that blade back out for the immediate next fight would be tough, but the mushroom handle would let you do so quite easily without having to grip the handle with your own hand strength alone. since the sword was also a sidearm back then to a spear or even a sling, maybe they just didn't want to lose their side arm during battle since it's their last resort in the first place.
An interesting piece of evidence on the use of these swords can be found on the agate found at the Griffin Warrior site in Pylos from around 1500BC. The hero of the piece is stabbing along a line that is not a straight thrust as you suggest using a type A sword with "horns", a crossguard that angles backwards towards the pommel. What appears to have gone unnoticed, even misrepresented in the official sketches I have seen, is that the warrior has looped an index finger over the guard. This is done to allow the type of straight thrust that the pommel would seem to disallow. What seems to allow this is that the grip itself is longer than one would expect. With these swords and later xiphoi there is an excellent notch to place the thumb on the blade, which is another way of extending for a stab. The grip needs to be long just to index the blade, because otherwise the crossguard hits your wrist and keeps you from aligning the blade. It is almost like a dual-purpose grip based on where you hold it. I would love to see you test a reproduction of these swords. In fact, it would be interesting to compare the lines of attack used commonly with spears with those used with these swords.
I think that you will find that the bronze swords without pommel tabs still had large pommels. They were just attached to extensions of the grip slabs, instead of to a pommel tab integral to the tang.
Thanks for mentioning the shield effect on thrusting, although I would have included the under the rib thrust from below. Very useful in shield wall combat, Also lots of vital points where a two inch thrust is generally lethal. Then the heavier point that makes it a good chopper assists on the thrusts from above and below.
Hello Matt. Thanks for the video. Have you ever noticed a significant difference in terms of "fancyness" between disc-pomelled and less-pomelled bronze age swords? I might be wrong, but one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when looking at these swords was "the one without the mushroom hilt looks easier to carry on a daily basis. One might keep it close to the body without the hilt getting in the way". Could it be a situation where the "battlefield swords" are made to guide the user when fighting with a shield (eventually with the same thrusting angles the soldiers would use with their spears, which could be their usual weapon) and the "status symbol/self defense swords", used when you may not have a shield, and thus would benefit from more flexibility?
I also think of ergonomics reason. Being forward heavy blades, swings could impart strain on the wrist and forearm, having it locked using the pommel means most of the tension would be imparted on the back muscles and upper arm.
I was thinking that there must be a similarity in the use of BA swords an tulwars for quite some time now. Not only because of the pommels but also because the fact that there are metal hilted bronze sword types, which share the construction weakness with tulwars in seemingly insecure connection of blade and handle (riveted vs glued in blade) ). On the other hand, I think that sword types seemingly lacking larger pommels could be just a result of different (wood on wood) construction. For example, Gündlingen swords (iron age, but often made of bronze) lack the substantial pommel-securing tang Mindelheim swords possess, but both types apparently had the large "Mexican hat" type of pommel...
Tests using replicas made by Neil Burridge have been undertaken in an interdisciplinary study. In 2020, the results were published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory under the title: “Bronze Age Swordsmanship: New Insights from Experiments and Wear Analysis” by Raphael Herman et al. The paper is available online as a free download.
This is really interesting, a lucky find for me. I study the Chinese bronze age. Most of their swords were short. Since bronze is rather brittle, I assumed the swords were used for thrusting and slicing, not chopping. You have given me a lot of interesting information to work with. Thanks.
This is a great topic. YI wonder if you could look at some of the bronze age civilizations that had a written language, like the Minoans, China, Japan and Egypt.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Ron’s swords featured. If we go further back, there are even examples of short stone swords or large stone daggers. I would love for you to examine. It’s always been of interest to me to know about the very first swords, you are definitely the person, I would love to hear from examining the subject.
Do you have a _kopis_ type sword? I’ve always been fascinated by them. I recall reading a study in the metallurgical qualities of the _kopis_ they found that the incurving cutti g edge served to keep the edge under compression as it was hammered out, which increases the hardness while maintaining toughness, since bronze tends to become brittle as it is work hardened.
I’ve got the same Burridge sword, and I love it. I came to the same conclusions about use, but I think you missed a use of the hilt. The problem with bronze is that it’s softer than steel. Because of this, I think of the Thames sword as a double edged talwar or maybe a smatchet . If an edge gets dinged or bent, you can readily flip it over and use the other edge. The grip is square in cross section, there’s a ridge where the edge is, and the pommel holds your hand as you spin it. As a result, you can spin the sword really quickly without looking at it., and know exactly where the edges are by feel. You can also spin it 90 degrees , and then it seems just perfect for stabbing up through a rib cage. Anyway, I’d recommend playing with rotating a mushroom hilt bronze leaf blade and seeing what you think. Cheers!
One thing that can’t be overlooked would be the effect of the material qualities of bronze itself on any fencing system developed to use bronze weapons.
The flat backed pommel reminds me of the pommel on a rondel dagger. Could it be designed that way in part (instead of being rounded like the other one) so that it's a better surface to put the palm of your secondary hand, in order to add more pressure for a two handed stab?
I think it might be interesting to see if pommel type correlates at all to blade profile. It seems to me of the bronze swords I have seen in pics from museums that they very much suggest form follows function. So in bronze it is much more pronounced either/or cut vs stab, and much less some of both.
I always assumed a total lack of hand protection meant you were standing off and thrusting with your shield far in front of you, so this totally changes my mental picture. Fascinating!
Very interesting. How do the bronze blades fare in direct thrusts, as allowed by the smaller type of pommel? I could imagine them bending if hitting shields, ribcages and so forth - but I have never tried (and they can be bent back in shape of course)
In classical FMA, the pommel of long blades is used for pummeling. After cutting the leading weapon arm of an attacker, the FMA defender can quickly move into short distance and use the pommel to smash the face, to block an attack or to scoop a blade away from the defender.
Perhaps the disk pommels were given to the lower rank infantry that were trained in large groups to keep things uniform and simple, and the flat and disk pommels were used by more experienced veteran warriors. If it was mainly the lower ranks/ militia, that would make sense because most of them would have much stronger back muscles and it would be more akin to using other tools or farming implements that they would have been used to.
Could the big mushroom pommels be meant for pommel strikes? I would guess that battles often got really up close and personal when they had big shields and short swords, and in a battle like that people had plenty of opportunities for hard hammer strikes to the head.
You could certainly do that, though a wooden pommel would probably be a bit more fragile than the metal pommels of medieval swords. It could also have been used to brace your shield (and simultaneously chamber a cut), or to push your opponent's shield if you got close enough. Whether or not combat regularly closed to the distance where pommel strikes would be attractive in the bronze age is a genuinely good question. I think the prevalence of shields would suggest "yes," but the lower levels of armour being worn would suggest "no." Closing to a distance where your shield was in contact with the enemy's shield and then displacing it (by some means) to open them up for a cut seems quite plausible.
really interesting; i made a replica of the Llyn Fawr sword (different pommel, thought equally with a disc shape), which would suggest a slashing/stabbing technique of the kind you describe, and the blade of the other would seem to favour a more extended focus on the tip as a thrusting weapon. would the greek kopis use a similar slashing technique, with that very secure grip?
Hi. Different idea brought on by earlier discussions of wearing swords. Could the smaller palmels be for wearing, either in a position (general) or station (Noble) way and the larger palmal for those who would only carry in battle?
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Thank you Matt i feel the love x
Hi mate, it would be great to have a catch up soon.
You deserve it, those are beautiful pieces. I even zoomed in into the video just look at them better
Bravo for those great swords! Have you also made or would you make bronze swords with bronze hilts - the other most common type in Central and Northern Europe, sometimes cast together with the blade but most often cast separately?
Hi Neil, nice to see you featured. I have put in lots of replies on this thread. Since Matt has many followers you might need to gear up for orders! Don't let it keep you away from us. Hoping to see you soon. Love and good health to you as ever, from Alex and I.
Hi, I tried checking out your website to see if you had anything for sale, but it just looks like a Chinese gambling site. Did it get hacked?
Ill never get over how beautiful bronze weapons are, magical things
I agree!
Specially when they have Bladesharp 3 on them… 🤪
Until you find out what arsenicanal bronze is
@@davidbrennan660Add Strength to that and you're golden! That or Fireblade for that odd weird target that you gotta cook rather than cut :P
I bet they sound amazing too
in Homers "Iliad", the bronze sword with mushroom pommel and leaf shape that have front balance its called Aor, from the word " Aeiro which means i raise" probably becouse you need to raise your hand to use it as oposed to the earlier long stabing swords Fasgano which take the word from "I Slain" which they were used for stabbing on the throat of the enemy as proved by the many iconografy depictions that survived. Homer decribed that the Aor strikes on Helmets were devastating, their protection were insufficient to those kind of blows, and Aor was the predominant type of sword in the Iliad.
fascinating!
Where did you gain this knowledge from? And where would one learn more on this topic?
The leafblade sword that Matt demonstrated is a Ewart Park and peculiar to Western Europe, especially to what is now the UK. Same with the Gundlingen type. G Type and Naue II plus some swords possibly similar to Urnfield European swords were possible. Most people seem to think that the Naue II is the most likely 'normal' sword contemporary with the actual Trojan war. However by the much later date ascribed to Homer's Iliad as we now know it, I.E. 'post palatial' Classical Greece leafblade swords of various kinds were being used. But this is in the 'Iron Age' since the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been using iron for a century or so by Homer. So I suppose it depends on whether you want to look accurate for the actual dates or Homeric!
All the best.
@@michaelel650 i personally beleive homer its ither very close to the trojan war, or it has onfo from that time. becouse in his accounts in many places he describes cities that were not inhabitent in the 8-7th century BC and the greeks of that time didnt know they were existed becouse they were buried, we found them on archaelogical excavations, also Homer describes places like rivers and other landscapes as were the time of the trojan war and in the 7-8th century were diferent. also, he describes us pieces of armour and clothes that did corespond with archaelogical evidences, frescoes, artifacts etc and not of the 8th century. so he did have reliable infos on the time the war was fought. i think the Naue II sword type, which probably in homer its described as Aor, it was used for many centuries and in later examples was made from iron, becouse it was very efective. i think the Hoplite Xifos were an evolution of it, it has the same leaf shape blade.
all the best to you too!
@@BADALEX1 many authors are searching that time salimbeti it good example,
I would love to see more bronze age content. I would especially like to see more info on how bronze swords were manufactured.
They are cast, in sand or in stone. Mine were made in England and reasonably priced. That's where the 'pulling the sword from a stone' stories probably came from and the molten bronze was the 'blood of the sun'. There are videos of making them.
Very expensive to make so most cultures used bronze-head maces or bronze-head axes with a D-shape blade. That meant that bronze swords were either used for officers or used by in a specific type of war by rich nations (for example the Greek city-states used primarily spears and sevondarily bronze swords in their phalanx formation. In that type of warfare, the mace while it has the anti-armor capability just doesnt have the reach to bypass this defensive formation (large heavy shields overlapping each other). Its a similar situation with the axe. Not to mention a hoplite using a mace/axe also cannot use those weapons to their 100% potential, in such close quarters there is not enough space for vertical arm movement.
@@markhatfield5621 Yes I know the basic way bronze items were, and are, made. But it is my understanding that they were also hammered once out of the form to draw the edges out and to harden them.
@@robo5013 Yes. I don't believe that the modern reproductions have that done though.
@@GeoGyf I believe tin was quite difficult to find and extract, if I remember right... i think tin is quite rare in general actually. back in the day a tin mine was a very big deal!
Hi Matt, I work for the museum where the swords on display were filmed, the ‘riverwall’ we called it. Had a wonderful and fascinating couple of days in the store measuring these swords and spearheads etc to devise the mounting system we adopted for the display!
The way Matt keeps the point centred while demonstrating the different thrusting angles looks super slick.
Experimental testing I've seen on bronze swords suggests they are good at the kind of cuts where you draw the blade through the target and at stabbing, but less resilient when it comes to a hack where one part of the edge has to bear all the impact if it hits a hard surface. But with the exception of nobles and theirimmediate retainers, bronze age warriors often had relatively light protective gear. So a stab followed by pulling the sword out in a cutting motion would be ideal with this kind of pommel.
Additionally, I've seen some illustrations and reconstructions where the rear of the pommel was a gentle cone shape. Few warriors wore metal helmets, and (as Matt points out) swords were used close-up rather than with full arm extension. I wonder if this meant that swords could be used to deliver a sharp surprise bang on the head with the pommel. Similar to the skull-crackers fitted to some modern combat knives, but with a lot more momentum (and thus damage) from the larger blade. I guess looking at a few skulls with battle damage might give us a clue.
Check Pylos agate (from Griffin warrior tomb). The warrior is stabbing his enemy behind the shield with the sword from above. Grip is highly detailed and realistic, hand is shown from inside so you can see where all the fingers are. Pommel is mushroom-shaped and it looks like the sword depicted is the one in the grave, and the stone itself was carved as portrait of buried warrior in his lifetime so it must be 100% accurate.
I was going to type something about Combat Agate as well but you nailed it perfectly. There are several similar depictions around and each one showing warriors using swords for stabbing. Pommel on this pictures are big, thrust are executed kinda overhand. So yes, probably fighting style evolved around bypassing the shield and persisted even when shield was absent during fight what is clearly visible on some of the mentioned pictures although the Combat Agate scene shows warrior stabbing his shield wearing opponent in the neck over the shield.
I sometimes just stare at that agate and love looking at it to admire the fighting technique and also the precise skill of the artist that made it.
@@paleowhite8027 Me too😀
Thanks, that's a great piece!
Hi Matt Easton, folks here.
More of a general thought, but have you considered doing a video on earlier two-handed swords? They really took off as steel and armour advanced post-1300, but I know there's carvings of dacians holding falxes in two hands, a viking account of someone fighting by gripping their sword with both hands, etc. Could be interesting to look at what swords were used this way before things like longswords and katanas, and what context it would be done in
The Dacian Falx (and the Thracian copies) as well as the Romphai were sickle-like but to the front, a slight curve to the front. That means that they are very effective/excellent choppers, offensive with big movements used in loose formations.
There were multiple variants, both one-handed or two-handed. Sometimes the curve could be bigger (like a khopesh), this allows some better angles (against shields for example) at the cost of cutting power.
The Falx/Rhomphaia were very devastating, the Romans had to reintroduce greaves, introduce bracers and more importantly add ridges to their helmets for added protection.
the only real bronze two-handed sword that i know is a african one, used by mercenaries from the Koushite kingdom (actual soudan) that the egyptien hired, and we only have found drawings of theses , not any real evidences.
But they implied so much, in logistic, crafting issues, etc... And it's more than possible that they broke and where reshaped in smaller ones, bronze is too easy to recycle to not do it.
The Dacian Falx as popularly understood is a sort of short polearm rather than a sword; although its most probable that it was neither, and not Dacian either, but rather just an improvised agricultural tool employed by civilians of a Dacian ally in one scene on the Adamklissi monument.
The Thracian rhomphaia seems more probable to have been a real weapon, but it was localized to a rather small area and very little evidence survives to us outside of the excavated examples.
My favourite Bronze Age sword is the makhaira at the National Archeological Museum in Athens. The handle merging with the blade looks so satisfying and I can almost feel how it swings just by looking at it.
That’s my favorite museum in the world. Which sword exactly do you mean? They have a lot of swords I remember
@@milobuur9913Makhaira is a kopis-like sword (slightly curved slasher, like a big kukri), but usually means a larger kopis sword. The translation is "big knife".
@@milobuur9913 has my reply to you been deleted? I went into more detail with links. On the wiki page for makhaira, the bottom sword in the main image is a reconstruction of the one in Athens.
If you look up “Mycenaean knives, swords, and spearhead at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on October 6, 2021” on wiki commons it shows the display I remember in Athens.
@@SirGruffdid you mean greek falcata?
This makes a lot of sense. Looking at Classical Greek art, we often see the Xiphos and Kopis (both blades with good cutting capabilities, the former being very similar to Bronze Age leaf-bladed swords in overall blade form) being used with powerful overhanded swings. I believe there are also images of swords being used to get around shields with thrusts, but I can’t think of specific examples at the moment.
This due to the Phalanx warfare (big shield overlapping with each other). The Phalanx was also used to push, the troops would do it on command (othismos tactic) so the enemy troops lose their balance. The Spartans were masters at this, even doing orderly feigned retreats then using othismos. The primary weapon was the spear and when the spear broke or the battle went into melee, they would use their swords (primarily xiphos). In this scenarios the swords were very useful as opposed to axes/maces., due to the extended reach & more angles to hurt the enemy (over the Shielf).
Look up Greek vases referencing the Iliad. They show shields used edge on with angled thrusts as Matt demonstrated. I.E. the Iliad references dynamic and more individualistic ('heroic') fighting styles that pre-date the phalanx of later Classical Greece. There has been an analysis of the changes in writing styles in the Iliad that imply that it was modified over the years and references fighting styles from around 1200 BC to those around 700 BC that were more familiar to the latter audiences when the poem was finally written down. That's the best I can do as I can't find my copy of the actual book!
All the best.
@@michaelel650 Back at the time of the Iliad, chariots were all the rage. There were chariots for 2 people or 3 people. The driver, the lord & the lord's bodyguard. As for the armor of the lord look the Dendra armor. For its time, the protection it gave was tremendous. If you pair with their big 8-shaped shield, you truly have an almost unkillable warrior. No wonder legends arose about these warriors, especially if they were extra good at fighting.
Adding a useful info about the shields used in the Illiad. A couple of Greek universities hired javelineers to throw javelins at traditional made shields from the data we have from Troy. A surprisingly large amount of javelin shots stopped at the 7th leather layer, stopped by the final 8th layer, just like it is written in Illiad. Simply fascinating.
@@GeoGyf Interestingly war was transforming at the time the Iliad was set, which may be at the time of the Bronze Age Collapse. Although there apparently some textual evidence that the real war was a revolt of a city, with the support of the Ahhiyawa (the Palatial 'Greeks'), against the Hittite Empire. The Hittites won. So it seems that the original Iliad was composed at the time where chariot warfare was dominant but then the Sea Peoples transformed warfare. I think that this is covered in the book 'Centuries of Darkness'. The Sea Peoples were more lightly armoured and armed than the chariot warriors but more heavily armed and armoured than the 'runners' that accompanied the chariots. It is thought that they used throwing spears to kill the horses then mobbed the chariot warriors. After the 'Collapse' war changed toward Hoplite warfare in Greece and Ionia etc. The text of the Iliad changes over time, this is analysed in a book but I cannot find my copy at the moment! It changes to reflect changes in warfare so that you can have chariots and what is, in effect, Hoplite type warriors anachronistically placed together. Assuming the Iliad was composed for a Greek audience around a time of growing Greek expansion into Ionia and around the Black Sea with the potential for conflict with indigenous societies then the actual 'Trojan War' was inverted to make the Greeks the victors. Anyway, for what it is worth, that is my understanding. All the best.
@@michaelel650 The Ahihahwa were the Mycyneans/Achaeans & the rest of the Greek states that fought in Troy. After their win, documents have been found in which the 4 major empires that maintained the status quo (Hittites, Mittani, Egyptians, Babylon) acknowledged the new 5th power, the Ahihahwa.
So the Hittite victory must be after that fact to check thd Ahihahwa.
Anyway the Bronze Age Collapse happened & it is a very valid possibility with numerous indications that Ahihahwa were one of the Sea People.
Matt, if you are so inclined, please do a video on the sword of the Prince of Oss (a major Iron Age burial from the Netherlands). You'll find it if you search for "Vorstengraf Oss" or something along those lines. It is a very beautiful example of an Iron Age high status weapon, and I'd love to hear your take on it. I worked at this site when I was studying archaeology at Leiden University, and it is a truly fascinating place.
Also, I know that you like bowie knives, and I would enjoy a video in which you discuss some modern models and which you would recommend for camping and bushcraft purposes. I live in Canada, so the wilderness requirements are sometimes enough to justify carrying a fairly serious large knife when camping and hiking (although something less extreme like a Mora or Fallkniven is still usually sufficient).
I think it's a good theory especially since in at least one Roman account, I forget which at the moment, the Celts were described as swinging their swords as if chopping wood. Which brings to my mind the full body slashing you talk about.
Granted there probably were multiple schools of thought on how a blade should be wielded but it does seem like the above mentioned school would have been very fearsome and worth remembering.
I want a Burridge piece in my collection pretty badly. Exquisite work. Excited to see more videos on bronze swords, for sure.
More bronze age stuff please! With regards to shields, I was given to understand that a popular type of shield was a figure 8 shield. Would that help both spear and sword usage? Given that there were no stirrups, perhaps you might discuss cavalry use with Jason Kingsley and Zac Evans?
I find this all fascinating; more, please!
From Western Europe all that survives to us is bronze shields, which were round and centre-gripped. Many different designs are attested in other places, especially in areas where more elaborate pictorial and literary evidence survives to us. It was specifically the peoples of Greece and nearby islands that employed figure-eight shields. These seem to almost invariably be misrepresented in modern art, probably because their real design is too weird for people. Specifically they were suspended from shoulder straps rather than being held, and had an extreme curvature such that they wrapped around their wearer. The design left both hands free, though the shield obviously constrained larger movements, and the shields seem to have been employed in conjunction with two-handed spears or short pikes. However they were not the only design employed, and by the close of the Bronze Age smaller round centre-gripped leather and/or wooden shields seem to have been more popular; these were also employed by the Sea Peoples migrating from the Anatolian coast, which may perhaps be related to their depiction in Mycenaean art.
Im a hobbyist bronze caster; I've made one sword and want to start working on more interesting sword reproductions, so I'm absolutely stoked to see more bronze sword content. Love to see that, and maybe some of the more intricate bronze spearheads
I immediately thought about tulwars when the bronze sword's pommel was shown.
@@kazikek2674 there are some African sword styles that look similar as well, some of which come from martial cultures that either still exist or lasted long enough to be filmed.
I wonder if there are any similarities in combat methods?
More Bronze Age content, amazing!
I'm agree, we want more Bronze Age swords content 😁
@@Gilbrae bronze age axes are crazy too, don't know if they were used to fight tho
I can't wait for more bronze age sword content! I will admit that the Mycenaean Type G are among my favourite, and there is just something about bronze in the reflections and everything that is just amazing!
Your discussion of cuts & thrusts got me wondering, how well do bronze blades stand up to such treatment? Has anyone experimented with a bronze blade against test subjects in contemporary armor? Of course we want to see what damage is done to the target, but we should also pay attention to how much damage is done to the weapon, especially with different attack techniques: thrusts, cuts, chops, etc.
Newcastle University has a history of exploring BA sword edge damage. A lot of their research re: combat archaeology is problematic and does not exclude the influence of ideomotor action and their conclusions re: BA shields are way off, they should have gone to Roland Warczewcka, but the research is as good as it gets. See theri book 'Bronze Age Combat: An Experimental Approach'. Somewhat flawed from a HEMA perspective but it is the best you are going to get.
All the best.
A sword like this, in its own time, would be *extremely* unlikely to face armor of any kind at all.
@@disnark It would certainly have to face shields, though.
@@disnarkI don’t know about that! A great deal of armor may well have been made out of perishable materials. Laminated Linen, sometimes with hide glue layers is extremely tough! Helmets were made of sinew and hide Glue by some Mediterranean cultures. These would be somewhat similar to a modern fiberglass helmet, but likely heavier and more elastic. Effective armor can also be made of waxed water hardened leather. This can also be layered with hide glue. These sorts of armor rarely survive. Also keep in mind that for every surviving bronze helmet or cuirass ( a word that clearly has leather based etymology ) there were 100 or 1,000 that didn’t survive to our day. Who knows. But the ease of recycling bronze and it’s intrinsic worth makes it highly likely that there were plenty of them. They may have ended up as statues commemorating victory, and then turned into cannons a Thousand years later.
Thanks
Thanks!!
I figure a pommel with a very severe "stop" for your hand would be better if your sword got caught stuck on the edge of a shield after a chop; it would give your hand better purchase/leverage as you try to wrench your sword back.
That's a good point. The bite on bronze blades must be much stickier
I think you're so on track that there's an academic treatise just waiting to be written here!
One cannot argue with human anatomical physics. If the tool you're using will not accommodate a certain action because of the limitations of body mechanics, then obviously it wasn't used in that fashion. Combat is typically an enterprise that puts a premium on the best use of any particular weapon (or else you get killed, which is a strong disincentive!). So if the pommel's design limits a certain action, but makes a different action better, then it's hardly a stretch to assume that was the point of the design.
I would suggest that variation in design may have been due to personal preference. We're not talking about a mil spec weapons manufacturing industry, nor are we in a time of government funded standing armies. So I would assume that when you were 'called up' for service, you brought your equipment out of the closet and it was -your- equipment, not government issue. So some guys liked cutting and chopping, some guys preferred the ability to thrust more efficiently, etc.
Context.
These things are prestige goods though, in this period. The people getting called up probably didn't have swords but only spears. I think the people handling these blades were more like professional sports players than they are like levies or conscripts. Bronze was really expensive, so you had to be either rich yourself or have a rich sponsor.
There is actually evidence of standard issue from a period even earlier than this, although I agree that I don't think that was what was happening here.
@@garethmartin6522 differences in manufacturing maybe?
its not like these things are machine made. everything is hand carved, hand made etc.
Some wood maybe carved into mushrooms easier.
some wood may be more suited to smaller handles.
Also maybe a storage related thing too.
@@Winston-lf7sb On the one hand there can be lots of variation due to the fact that these are all made by individual artisans. On the other, the styles are so close that clearly everybody knew what the standard pattern was. I also expect an individual might be measured and fitted for their sword, and that you would use a different blade for people of different height, say.
Makes good sense.
Studied kashima in my younger days/ so not just an 'i think', a little practicality also.
Pommel does suggest angled thrusts with shield work as a 'core use'. The bronze material suggests cutting would be prioritised over clashing/slashing.
The deep belly of the leaf (offering a curved edge) suggests cutting rather than chopping to me too.
The engagement of back and core in cutting (not slashing!) couples with experience of curved blades. I agree the way the sword is intended to be held tells how it is intended to be used.
Thanks for a thoughtful and thought provoking piece.
The other one of your two bronze swords (NOT the mushroom pommeled one) with the stepped profile taper, reminds me of many Chinese sword blades of the same general period. You can see that abrupt decrease in width on bronze Chinese swords such as the Sword of Goujian. Although it seems to be much more pronounced in the European swords.
Man, I really, REALY would love to see this theory tested out using a figure-8, or dipylon " Boeotian" shield to see how they work together as a combined armament
the bronce age in britain spans 1700 years, why should there not be a variety in sword hilts? look at all the variety from the roman time to the Napoleonic era....
@@marting1056 there are a few "clusters" of surviving bronze swords from places like Ewart Park that tend to be much more contemporaneous.
And it probably won't surprise you to hear that the Ewart Park swords are more similar to each other than they are to swords from other periods and regions.
I suspect at least part of it is that bronze is softer. It likely dulls much faster when thrusting
Swords only were common in the mid 2nd millennium BC in Europe
They might have had different swords for military and civilian use. You'd almost certainly want a shield in combat, and they'd have developed a martial fighting style around using a sword and shield together. But they'd potentially be a pain to carry around in your day to day life. If you still wanted to carry a sword for self-defence or as a status symbol, you might want something with a flatter pommel so it'd be easier to carry at your side, and might use a different fighting style when using it. Slingers, archers and charioteers might also have wanted a more conveniently-shaped sidearm if they could afford them. It's also pretty clear they had cultural significance beyond their use as weapons, as they were often thrown into bodies of water in a ritualistic way and some sword-like objects have been found that wouldn't have been suitable for combat. If you wanted a sword as a trade gift or a ritual offering, you might not bother with a bulky wooden pommel.
Citizen levies. Most folks would have one sword, *if they owned any* - swords are expensive and very single purpose. And, the *spear* seems to be far more common as a "civilian defense weapon", at least outside major cities. Spears help keep the threat (whether man or beast) at a distance, are a lot cheaper, and can be used as a walking stick.
@@geodkyt Yep, that fits with the findings of the Hjortspring Boat where the majority had spears and a big shield, and a wee knife, with two carrying more slender shields with a wooden boss, (I made a rough replica whilst 'shielding' during lockdown). Only these two warriors carried swords.
All the best.
@@geodkyt We don't know very much about how people organised themselves politically prior to the Roman conquest. It'd be nice to think that their weapons provided some clues.
Now i want to know more about bronce age spears.
I mean, ALL (ok just most of those) of those swords, as beautiful as they are where still (just) backup to weapons. Mostly to the spear.
@@maxdoblinger1749 There were bronze head maces & bronze D-shaped axes as well, quite common in the armies of Egypt, Mittani, Babylon, Assyrians etc.
The bronze swords start to gain more importance in the Phalanx fighting system, they are the perfect side weapon when the spear breaks. Do note that the Phalanx spears have 2 points, one is the proper spear point, the other is called the saureoter, or otherwise the spear-foot, this is used to rest the spear & can also be used in battle.
@@maxdoblinger1749 More specific bronze age spear information: (2300-1100bc). We have a lot of information and various surviving blades from Greece. The Greeks colonized all of the Mediterranean, they got involved in the Troy war, their win was acknowledged & they were welcomed as 5th state by the 4 great empires of the Bronze Age, they got involved with the Sea People and ofcourse the great City-States that came after that.
The blade design is usually leaf shaped or a tear-shaped blade with a more elongated spear & all the various variants. The spear blade has 2 small holes at the base, this is where the cord is threaded to the pole. There is also a 1600bc specimen with 4 holes for the cord.
Interestingly there is also a silver blade specimen from Troy.
Some blades are even decorated in the form of an animal.
As for the blade length, again we have various lengths like..
Prepare for a long one!
Group A spears are are from 15.5cm to 38cm, with flat/narrow tang.
Group B spears are also called shoes, these have a hollow where the wood goes in. Their length us from 11cm to 18,6cm.
Group C spears have a forged,fissured tube and go from 14,4 to 60cm. Very common in Mainland Greece (example Mycynae) they are found from 1600 bc onwards.
Group D spears are similar to Group C but the fissure is shorter, now we are going more to 1000bc, they go from 14cm to 40cm. Some variants have also the willow leaf shape & even 2 holes for the pins/nails. Common in both Mainland & Aegean. Group E spears (1500-1100) are long, narrow with a tongue-like blade & blunted points, going from 16,8 to 32 cm. Common both in mainland and islands. Group F spears are oval with a rectangular/flat shape rib, the blade is long and narrow. From 17cm to 45cm, mostly in the islands. Group G spears (2000-1100)have convex angles, oval shapes, but larger than group F and different shapes of the rib, going from 13.2 to 45cm. Group H spears are like Bayonets, they go from 12.5 to 57cm, found all over, especially in Rhodes. Group I spears (1400-1100) are the oval-leaf, from 15.5 to 21cm. Bellerephon's, the Chimera Slayer's spear was that type.
Group K spears (1400-1100,) have a large, casted tube and a teardrop blade, the 2 holes for the pin/nails with several different tip points, they go from 10 to 21cm. Group L are leaf-bladed with the tube casted or fissured. Similarities with the Group D spears, from 19,5 to 32cm.
Group M spears have the lanceolate blade, like a man's "organ". From 9 to 24cm, usually in the mainland.
Group N spears have various designs, most likely javelins & few spears.
Last but not least we have the Saureoter, or Spear Foot, used to rest the spear on the ground. Also used in battle when the primary spear blade shaft is destroyed. They range from 8 to 14.5cm.
Hohoho! And we have the last one, the Shepherd Crook's Spear (like a fish bait) found in Cyprus. Quite possibly the predecessor of the Bill Hook and every such weapon used in naval battles (Longhkodrepanon, Spear-Sickle by the Eastern Romans). The current theory is that it has Egyptian influence, as the Crook Sceptre was a symbol of royal power, also used by the shepherds.
As for the Spear Shafts, we have short & long (for 2handed spears) and for Javelin Shafts, we have short, short & heavy (more penetration) and light (for distance). Light was used mainly in Late era & was used a lot for warfare.
Trivia from Illiad: Hector's Spear was around 4,8m (11 forearms long).
More Trivia: The Javelin is called in Linear B as A-ko-te-u with no ideogram. The similarity with the greek Akontion/Akontio is astonishing.
For more info check Hoeckman, Casolla Guida, Gallin Fonseca, Stocker, Davies etc.
@@GeoGyf Rome had to learn it from someone, Alexander maybe?
@@slthbob First of all Rome rose from obscurity in 80bc when they subjugated the Samnites. The Bronze period is 900-1900 years before that.
@@GeoGyf right over your head by about three feet... my apologies
Thrusting seems like a strong option at first, until you consider that the impaled enemy probably still has weapons in their hands after thinking about it, hence musashi emphasizing the importance of cutting.
Extremely good video, as usual Matt!!
What I want you to cover next is the Bronze Age bronze bra. I know this existed because it was on a page in a history book when I was 11 or 12 at school and I studied that page pretty intensely. So much so that I would even call myself a Bronze Age bronze bra specialist. So I almost insist that you cover the Bronze Age bra in a future video and what sort of protection you can say it afforded.
Nice analysis & great physical demo of the comparative handling of the talwar vs bronze sword.. Good stuff Matt! 😊
Interesting, some good ideas there.
I've always thought that if you want to work out how something was used, you look at all the sources, then the archeology, then you get as accurate a replica as you can and try it out to see what works and what doesn't.
Your comments about how a weapon feels in the hand, almost telling you how it want's to be used are spot on. I got to hold a reenactors Mainz pattern gladius a few years ago and he was kind enough to let me try it out a bit. And it didn't feel like a thrust-centric sword at all. It felt like it wanted, with it's waisted, flaring blade, to be hacked into something. Yeah, that long, broad point would make a nasty stab, but it felt like a hacker. (He agreed), and the Adamliski monument shows us Roman troops doing just that. Backed up by a source from one of Rome's wars against Macedon, where we're told the Macedonian troops were horrified by the cutting wounds the Roman swords had inflicted.
Maybe the differences in Bronze age swords come down to date, region, culture or even just personal preference? After all, a sword back then was an elite warriors weapon.
Yes! Bronze age content!
First time viewer. Vids like these are why I still watch youtube. Thanks for not padding it with stock photos and canned music.
I'd love to see more bronze age weapons! Great video, interesting ideas. I did wonder immediately if the movement-restricting pommel may have meant it was used similarly to the talwar, but then I only have cursory knowledge of swords in general, and the talwar in particular. Interesting to think about!
Very interesting as always thanks Matt!
Really interesting theories and explanations. Thank you for sharing!
This is kind of the wrong place or topic to ask a question . But since I don’t know where to ask , so I have two questions.
1 where is the appropriate place to ask general questions.
2 I was watching Rashamon ( Akira Kurosawa, Tashiro Mifune 1950 ) and the bandit appears to have a ‘ European’ looking sword , is this a Japanese sword or is it foreign, not necessarily European?
It's a Chinese jian.
@@scholagladiatoria thank you!
Thank you for sharing your very expert opinions. This is the second video of yours I have seen. Cheers.
Something to say about Mycenaean bronze swords. Many have survived and most of them are exceptionally long and often have huge pommels. From surviving clay tablets we know that this type of sword was called ''Fasgano''.Certainly was a thrusting weapon, used in angled thrusting attacks over or from the side of shields. The Mycenaean infantry used particularly large shields and are depictions of battles or duels on vases and golden rings where the warriors clearly thrust over the shields with long swords aiming mainly for the throat of the opponent.
Hi Matt,
As it happens Neil Burridge is my best mate and spends some time with us in the Highlands every year.
I have a collection of many of Neil’s BA swords, a Clonbrinn type leather shield and a Yetholm type spear which we explore with the National Museum of Scotland using the concept of ‘convergent evolution’ to ascertain its use; i.e. if it looks like a partisan, handles like a partisan it was probably used like a partisan. Previously it was held to be ceremonial bling or somehow like a assegai! (About ten times too heavy for the latter.)
The use of BA swords has to been seen in the context of the shields and the Ewart Park, with the big pommel, was contemporary with the Clonbrinn type leather shield. The visual reference is Greek vases which show the shields used edge-on and with angled thrusts as you suggest. We discussed this with the NSM Curator of the BA, Matt Knight, some years ago with reference to the wonderful Yetholm type bronze shields. Like the Clonbrinn they have a small boss which would fit tight around the hand allowing a relaxed grip. Theses bronze shields are very light and thin but the hammered in ridges with mini-bosses between them add to the structural strength and mean that if the shield was used edge on a striking weapon would tend to ‘skip’ over the surface. The clincher is that the folded edge, sometimes folded around a bronze wire, is two to three times thicker than the rest of the shield, arguing for usage along the lines demonstrated by Roland Warczecka for Viking shields. The Yetholm type shields are around the same size and, if anything, lighter despite being bronze.
These shields, if the archaeologist Marion Uckelmann is correct in her dating, are contemporary with the Type IV ‘rapiers’, I have two of these in my collection of Neil’s truly excellent (because of his obsession with morphological accuracy) swords. These type BA swords are optimised for thrusting and have no pommel.
The sword types contemporary with the Trojan War - in terms of the accepted dating - tend to either be optimised for thrusting (N.B. the Merneptah period illustrations of the ‘Sea Peoples’) or Naue II type swords, reminiscent of short, parallel-edged Viking swords, and optimised for cutting. These might have been used with tower shields but the illustrations tend to show round shields.
I think that the Carps Tongue type swords are not cavalry swords but an attempt to produce and optimum cut and thrust sword for very dynamic combat on foot.
The later Hallstatt C Mindelheim sword, which Neil also makes, looks more optimised for cavalry use, although we are probably talking ponies.
Years ago I was interviewed by Lindy Beige with some of my collection and this can be found on RUclips. You and I have actually met both at the Royal Armouries and in York, around twelve or so years ago!
I love your stuff by the way.
All the best from Mick Skelly.
The Bronze Age is far and away my favorite period of history, so would love to see you analyze more weapons and gear of that era. My personal favorite as most beautiful sword in human history is the Celtic “antenna” sword, particularly the corcelette type from Bad Schussenried. I assume those would have been used much like the mushroom pommels.
Would also love to see you discuss my favorite armor, the Dendra panoply.
Definitely more videos on Bronze age swords!!
I haven't read the study but I know that Robert Brooks and his club were part of a study trying to recreate Bronze Age sword technique and came up with some interesting points. I think what you say here is at least plausible, just difficult to prove anything. Always fun to try, though!
I've been listening to audiobooks on the Bronze age collapse / end of Empires of late. One thing mentioned is that some early Iron age and late Bronze age swords were of the same design. But in different materials (obviously). It's probably the case that many of the fighting disciplines / martial arts were already established in the Bronze age. It'd be interesting if you and Tod could collaborate and pitch some period replicas against each other to investigate how the different materials led to advantages and thus the birth of the Iron age.
Very excited for more bronze age content!
I think that bronze swords probably used a system or systems of fighting that were very different than those used with iron and steel swords. The material is fundamentally different, and can't handle the same stresses. They also had thousands of years do develop fighting systems that were based on the use of swords made of bronze, and the sword patterns developed to take advantage of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of bronze. My guess would be that they did not use the blades for parrying, and probably tried to avoid blade on blade contact as much as possible, relying on shields for defense. And based on both the pommel shape and how bronze reacts to torque, I would also think that slashes and cuts were emphasized more than chopping. Mostly because bronze blades can bend when they hit something solid. Whereas using the edge for a drawing cut would avoid that possibility. Stabbing, especially on the bronze blades with a thickened midrib would also be viable, as you have a lot more material to counteract the possible torque. This is all completely my own opinion. However I have spent a good amount of time using bronze swords to see how they react to impacts and cutting, so it isn't just wild supposition.
the finds in the battlefield of Tollense show marks on the found blades that are identical to sword to sword contact in test fighting with recreated blades even edge to edge. if you are in a fight for life, you don´t care as much for edge damage, you try to survive
@@marting1056 I think the original commenter's point was that and I'm just talking out my ass here cuz I don't know jack about sword fighting, Later sword fighting techniques with iron or steel parrying and what not was encouraged while with bronze it was like a last resort type thing.
When I last looked at the bronze swords in the British museum there was one with clear cut marks notching the blade edge. Evidence that it had been used to parry another blade. I thought that could support the hypothesis that the fighters had been 'fencing' rather than 'hacking'.
Their is a counter point to stabbing. Both these sword don't much of a hand stop. Thrust to be very no committed and very liimited targets. If you thrust into reistent and your comes to a stop, with a double edged sword with no real guard and a smooth grip, there a high likihood of cutting your palm on your own blade.
@marting1056 yes, and I am not saying that those kinds of contacts didn't occur. Especially when you are fighting. But I am speculating that that was not the ideal. Just as it was discouraged in places like India and parts of North Africa in more recent history. If you compare the microscopic pictures of the edges of historical bronze blades to those of recreations used to fight experimentally, there is very clear evidence that such contacts did happen. But what does happen frequently when you chop on bronze sword into another, like you do with a steel sword, is that the blade bends. Not just chips, or takes edge damage. But bends. Sometimes it can be returned to straight or almost straight. Sometimes it can't. The thing about bronze though, is that unlike iron and steel, it is pretty easy to recycle. So those blades that bent too severely would be melted down and used for other things. We don't have as much evidence as we could, simply because most of the broken or damaged weapons were recycled.
Having just watched your video analysing spear fighting in movies, including the Hector vs. Achilleus battle in Troy, I'd really like to see a deeper dive into that, i. e. all the weapons and armour used therein, how realistic it is, etc.
I seem to recall reading that cavallery was quite rare in the Bronze Age, because horses had not yet been bred to be big enough by then (hence the prevalence of chariots). That would be another interesting aspect, both regarding the point raised in this video and the movie, which features extensive cavallery scenes, if memory serves.
Thanks, a great and informative video. I would appreciate it if you could expand on their sharpness and durability.
I have specifically wondered about those pommels myself, so I'm interested in this discussion. I think my main doubt about this theory is that if it's a dedicated cutting weapon it is surprising that it isn't curved. Perhaps it would be worth looking into whether it was hard to make curved blades with bronze, or when curved blades first appeared.
Another thing I find curious about these swords is how small the grip is. I don't have big hands, and they look uncomfortably small to me. Yet the Celts were reportedly quite large and well fed.
It's possible that there is some other context in which the sword is used, like duelling, and that it was used in a different way in that context. There could be techniques that you only used in that context, which benefitted from a different form. Let's say they didn't use shields in duels, that might change the way a sword was handled. Or if a duel was usually to the blood rather than the death, maybe the big pommel was like a safety feature to prevent you using the point.
Or maybe they were dual-wielded. I actually dislike this idea, I've never been comfortable with double weapons, but it would lend itself to a slashing style that might benefit from a more secure grip.
Finally, it's possible that sword didn't just have a pommel, so much as that it was fitted with a pommel suitable to it's intended use. If you had a private blacksmith who does bespoke commissions, it's quite possible that you went to him to have you sword modified and updated all the time. Look how people love modding their weapons in games.
Fantastic work as always Matt, thank you
Very interesting! I remember seeing bronze age swords in museums in Greece, with big pommels made of marble. Were they trying to shift the mass of the sword to the back, in the same way a rapier does, in order to have more control of the point, perhaps?
Matt, please do a video on the Khanda.
I think tip cuts or strikes where the end corners hit first would be particularly deadly. Maybe even effective against some mail armours?
Something tells me those swords are mostly used for draw cuts and stabbing as hammered bronze is very sharp but absolutely not a friend of chopping at all.
Edit: It'd be fascinating to see how the Antenna-pommels figure into this idea.
I agree and I think that stylistically sword use might relate back to the palstave and refined to enable both push and draw cuts. From my own handling of palstaves, BA 'rapiers' and including leaf-blades of various types.
All the best.
@@mnk9073 they almost certainly *should* be used for thrusting and draw cuts, and the disk pommels seem to indicate that sword makers took pains to steer sword users in that direction.
However, some of the surviving Ewart Park swords have been damaged in a way consistent with being used in a chopping motion, and badly at that.
Being a crappy fencer is historically accurate.
When he's holding that shield at 7:07 he looks like Patches from Dark Souls
Haven't watched the video yet, so sorry if this comment makes little sense (and also because I might have to comment again later).
Anyway, had to get it out of the way. Several years ago, when I was studying archaeology, we had a course on typology and how to identify artifacts by type. We had a bunch of iron axes and knives, but mostly bronze axes, spears and swords. One of mine was a bronze sword which was in very nice condition - it had some edge damage (pretty much the same as you'd see on an iron blade) that we deduced from the patina was propably original. But more excitingly, it had some residue that my professor said was most likely blood.
So, I can't really tell you much about how they were used, but I can say with very high certainty THAT they were used and that at least one person in Bronze Age Europe had edge-to-edge contact with another weapon and edge contact with some body containing blood - I like to think it was from a battle, but who knows, it was about 3200 years old if I remember correctly. Beautiful blade too, very light and nimble - if we'd fitted a new handle and slightly touched up the blade, it'd been ready to go again. Very small handle though, I could barely get my hand in and I don't have large hands.
I love that you point this out, they say "bronze was too soft and people hadn't developed fencing yet" so they were used as show weapons or with simple technique - but then the finds exactly show they would have been used much as later items of the same type.
The small handle works well with a finger over the ricasso and sometimes a thumb along the blade with the handle in your palm.
All the best.
At different periods in Irish history different sword types were used, I would be interested in your take on the Irish Scian.
Awsome, I've always wondered how bronze age swords were used given their design and material
Great food for thought video ! Thx. Oh and I never realized how rather beautiful a bronze sword could be 👍
I forget the author, but at least one Roman source says that Gauls would deliver massive brutal cuts that could chop a man in half. If i remember correctly, the context was actually meant to be somewhat disparaging of their technique but it could still be indicative of a Celtic preference for strong, full powered cuts even after the bronze age had ended.
@@Jtbrahh I do remember that the Romans transition from the smaller gladius to the larger spatha (for the reach). The Gaul influence shows, but the Spatha is a good thrust sword as well. There is also a cavalry Spatha version.
Their shields also changed to large oval-like shields and they employed shield walls as well, much more effectively than other people (because they also used ranged weapons extensively, especially the second line).
Their battalions at that time were called Fulcum (Foulkon/Phoulkon in the Eastern Roman Empire).
The Eastern Roman Empire/Kingdom of Romans later transitioned to the straight-double edged Spathion (Goth/Vandal influence and the Romaic Sabre, the Paramerion (Hunnic influence).
The Paramerion is the highlight, it has a crossguard, it is lightweight therefore agile sword, agood chopper as well. It is really an advanced sword for its time & perfect for defence in castles, castle-cities (like the Mediterranean islands) and in close melee.
I don’t think it’s specifically cultural. Armor was relatively rare in pre-Roman Europe. When the only defense you run into are wooden shields, then chopping weapons are REALLY good at destroying human anatomy.
Thank you good sir, I love your channel and your work. I wish I could have you train me in sword play. Please do not stop making content. Blessings.
Very interesting indeed ! Yes , I would certainly like more bronze age swords videos !!! 😃
Very interesting thoughts, thank you. Do you think the large pommel is also a kind of hand protection (from the front and from below), as some of the cuts you showed seem to lead with the hand more than cuts with other types of swords (hilts)?
Excellent video, cheers 🍻 !
I think the shape of the blade also applies here. The one you have that has no mushroom shaped pummel as a thick base of the blade and the tip goes into a finer shape. If you were to draw that back you wouldn't need as much leverage if your sword were to have become dull during a extended engagement. The material of bronze age weapons dulled faster and chipped and such, so being able to draw the blade out of a foe if you've stabbed them, or across them if you are slashing is extremely important in spite of the dull blade. The one that has the large pummel could be easier to draw out of a foe that it gets stuck in. Keep in mind also that the armor used at the time was often wicker. It's possible that after stabbing through the wicker into someone, the wicker itself would shift and grip the blade from the sides so that you're not only contending with the material you have already cut through. Drawing that blade back out for the immediate next fight would be tough, but the mushroom handle would let you do so quite easily without having to grip the handle with your own hand strength alone. since the sword was also a sidearm back then to a spear or even a sling, maybe they just didn't want to lose their side arm during battle since it's their last resort in the first place.
An interesting piece of evidence on the use of these swords can be found on the agate found at the Griffin Warrior site in Pylos from around 1500BC. The hero of the piece is stabbing along a line that is not a straight thrust as you suggest using a type A sword with "horns", a crossguard that angles backwards towards the pommel. What appears to have gone unnoticed, even misrepresented in the official sketches I have seen, is that the warrior has looped an index finger over the guard. This is done to allow the type of straight thrust that the pommel would seem to disallow. What seems to allow this is that the grip itself is longer than one would expect. With these swords and later xiphoi there is an excellent notch to place the thumb on the blade, which is another way of extending for a stab. The grip needs to be long just to index the blade, because otherwise the crossguard hits your wrist and keeps you from aligning the blade. It is almost like a dual-purpose grip based on where you hold it. I would love to see you test a reproduction of these swords.
In fact, it would be interesting to compare the lines of attack used commonly with spears with those used with these swords.
I think that you will find that the bronze swords without pommel tabs still had large pommels. They were just attached to extensions of the grip slabs, instead of to a pommel tab integral to the tang.
Didn't use up as much of the precious bronze that way.
If I remember well, Barry Molloy did quite a good job on BA swords, I think he showed 2 main uses according to the shapes...
Thanks for mentioning the shield effect on thrusting, although I would have included the under the rib thrust from below. Very useful in shield wall combat, Also lots of vital points where a two inch thrust is generally lethal. Then the heavier point that makes it a good chopper assists on the thrusts from above and below.
Thanks for the video ⚔️
Hello Matt. Thanks for the video.
Have you ever noticed a significant difference in terms of "fancyness" between disc-pomelled and less-pomelled bronze age swords? I might be wrong, but one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when looking at these swords was "the one without the mushroom hilt looks easier to carry on a daily basis. One might keep it close to the body without the hilt getting in the way".
Could it be a situation where the "battlefield swords" are made to guide the user when fighting with a shield (eventually with the same thrusting angles the soldiers would use with their spears, which could be their usual weapon) and the "status symbol/self defense swords", used when you may not have a shield, and thus would benefit from more flexibility?
I also think of ergonomics reason. Being forward heavy blades, swings could impart strain on the wrist and forearm, having it locked using the pommel means most of the tension would be imparted on the back muscles and upper arm.
12:09 I remember, if memory serves me, in the Illiad, Menelaus using a bronze sword in anger and breaking it against Paris' helmet...
From what I can tell, with these swords you can't end your opponent rightly.
Apply at appropriate points
"Pointy end goes into the other man" -Zorro
Not with THAT attitude
The comment I was looking for.
@@loganfong2911 you can kill a man with a stick, where is Yr reasoning with Yr statement please
I wouldn’t expect the very earliest swords to be extremely sophisticated in design.
I was thinking that there must be a similarity in the use of BA swords an tulwars for quite some time now. Not only because of the pommels but also because the fact that there are metal hilted bronze sword types, which share the construction weakness with tulwars in seemingly insecure connection of blade and handle (riveted vs glued in blade) ). On the other hand, I think that sword types seemingly lacking larger pommels could be just a result of different (wood on wood) construction. For example, Gündlingen swords (iron age, but often made of bronze) lack the substantial pommel-securing tang Mindelheim swords possess, but both types apparently had the large "Mexican hat" type of pommel...
Tests using replicas made by Neil Burridge have been undertaken in an interdisciplinary study. In 2020, the results were published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory under the title: “Bronze Age Swordsmanship: New Insights from Experiments and Wear Analysis” by Raphael Herman et al. The paper is available online as a free download.
Please consider doing a video on the Xiphos. It's not bronze age, but has always been a favorite of mine. Thanks for this video, of course. 🍻
One Idea: If you hold the sword in reverse grip, you could put the palm of your second hand on the mushroom for thrusting.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
This is really interesting, a lucky find for me.
I study the Chinese bronze age. Most of their swords were short. Since bronze is rather brittle, I assumed the swords were used for thrusting and slicing, not chopping. You have given me a lot of interesting information to work with. Thanks.
This is a great topic. YI wonder if you could look at some of the bronze age civilizations that had a written language, like the Minoans, China, Japan and Egypt.
9:54 But was this their only weapon when fighting on horseback? Or did they have some lances and these "sabers" were only used for close combat?
Bronze age riders had spears that they could throw or break in impaling attacks, the blade was usually the secondary weapon.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Ron’s swords featured. If we go further back, there are even examples of short stone swords or large stone daggers. I would love for you to examine. It’s always been of interest to me to know about the very first swords, you are definitely the person, I would love to hear from examining the subject.
The Bronze swords are made by Neil Burridge, not anyone called Ron? All the best.
@@michaelel650 that was an autocorrect for bronze
@@michaelel650 I appreciate the correction. Autocorrect is the bane of my existence. Cheers
Do you have a _kopis_ type sword? I’ve always been fascinated by them. I recall reading a study in the metallurgical qualities of the _kopis_ they found that the incurving cutti g edge served to keep the edge under compression as it was hammered out, which increases the hardness while maintaining toughness, since bronze tends to become brittle as it is work hardened.
I’ve got the same Burridge sword, and I love it. I came to the same conclusions about use, but I think you missed a use of the hilt. The problem with bronze is that it’s softer than steel. Because of this, I think of the Thames sword as a double edged talwar or maybe a smatchet . If an edge gets dinged or bent, you can readily flip it over and use the other edge. The grip is square in cross section, there’s a ridge where the edge is, and the pommel holds your hand as you spin it. As a result, you can spin the sword really quickly without looking at it., and know exactly where the edges are by feel. You can also spin it 90 degrees , and then it seems just perfect for stabbing up through a rib cage. Anyway, I’d recommend playing with rotating a mushroom hilt bronze leaf blade and seeing what you think. Cheers!
One thing that can’t be overlooked would be the effect of the material qualities of bronze itself on any fencing system developed to use bronze weapons.
The European Bronze Age is so underrated! I wish there was more research into it. Thank you for theorising about the uses of these swords
The flat backed pommel reminds me of the pommel on a rondel dagger. Could it be designed that way in part (instead of being rounded like the other one) so that it's a better surface to put the palm of your secondary hand, in order to add more pressure for a two handed stab?
I think it might be interesting to see if pommel type correlates at all to blade profile. It seems to me of the bronze swords I have seen in pics from museums that they very much suggest form follows function. So in bronze it is much more pronounced either/or cut vs stab, and much less some of both.
It looks like a nice, comfy disk. Maybe it's for allowing the other hand to push down. Like the rondels have?
I always assumed a total lack of hand protection meant you were standing off and thrusting with your shield far in front of you, so this totally changes my mental picture. Fascinating!
Very interesting.
How do the bronze blades fare in direct thrusts, as allowed by the smaller type of pommel? I could imagine them bending if hitting shields, ribcages and so forth - but I have never tried (and they can be bent back in shape of course)
In classical FMA, the pommel of long blades is used for pummeling. After cutting the leading weapon arm of an attacker, the FMA defender can quickly move into short distance and use the pommel to smash the face, to block an attack or to scoop a blade away from the defender.
Perhaps the disk pommels were given to the lower rank infantry that were trained in large groups to keep things uniform and simple, and the flat and disk pommels were used by more experienced veteran warriors.
If it was mainly the lower ranks/ militia, that would make sense because most of them would have much stronger back muscles and it would be more akin to using other tools or farming implements that they would have been used to.
Could the big mushroom pommels be meant for pommel strikes? I would guess that battles often got really up close and personal when they had big shields and short swords, and in a battle like that people had plenty of opportunities for hard hammer strikes to the head.
You could certainly do that, though a wooden pommel would probably be a bit more fragile than the metal pommels of medieval swords.
It could also have been used to brace your shield (and simultaneously chamber a cut), or to push your opponent's shield if you got close enough.
Whether or not combat regularly closed to the distance where pommel strikes would be attractive in the bronze age is a genuinely good question. I think the prevalence of shields would suggest "yes," but the lower levels of armour being worn would suggest "no." Closing to a distance where your shield was in contact with the enemy's shield and then displacing it (by some means) to open them up for a cut seems quite plausible.
really interesting; i made a replica of the Llyn Fawr sword (different pommel, thought equally with a disc shape), which would suggest a slashing/stabbing technique of the kind you describe, and the blade of the other would seem to favour a more extended focus on the tip as a thrusting weapon. would the greek kopis use a similar slashing technique, with that very secure grip?
Hi. Different idea brought on by earlier discussions of wearing swords. Could the smaller palmels be for wearing, either in a position (general) or station (Noble) way and the larger palmal for those who would only carry in battle?