HOME WEB NEWS IMAGES CLASSIFIEDS YELLOW PAGESPOLLS - SURVEYS WIKI COUNTRIES PHOTOS US UK INDIA
Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages
 1
|
Swords made of iron (as opposed to bronze) appear from the Early Iron Age (ca. 12th century BC), but do not become widespread before the 8th century BC.
Iron has the advantage of mass-production due to the wider availability of the raw material. Early iron swords were not comparable to later steel blades; being brittle, they were even inferior to well-manufactured bronze weapons, but the easier production, and the better availability of the raw material permitted large scale production.
Eventually smiths learned that by adding an amount of carbon (added during smelting in the form of charcoal) in the iron, they could produce an improved alloy (now known as steel). Several different methods of swordmaking existed in ancient times, including, most famously, pattern welding. Over time, different methods developed all over the world.
Contents |
The Proto-Celtic Hallstatt culture (8th century BC) figured among the early users of iron swords. Celtic swords reach their classical shape in the La Tene culture (5th to 1st centuries BC).
The Scythian/Persian Acinaces appears from ca. the 6th century BC. In Classical Antiquity and the Parthian and Sassanid Empires in Iran, iron swords were common. The Greek xiphos and the Roman gladius are typical examples of the type, measuring some 60 to 70 cm. The late Roman Empire introduced the longer spatha (the term for its wielder, spatharius, became a court rank in Constantinople).
Chinese steel swords make their appearance from the 3rd century BC Qin Dynasty. The Chinese Dao (刀 pinyin dāo) is single-edged, sometimes translated as sabre or broadsword, and the Jian (劍 pinyin jiàn) double edged.
The Roman Iron Age Germanic sword (from ca. 1st c. AD) is based on the spatha and evolves into the Viking sword in the 8th century.
With the Celtic expansion of the 5th century BC, iron swords became common all over Europe, evolving into regional types including the Roman gladius and spatha, and the Greek xiphos and eventually into the Roman Iron Age Germanic sword.
There are two kinds of Celtic sword. The most common is the "long" sword, which usually has an abstract anthropomorphic hilt made from organic material, such as wood, bone, or horn. These swords also usually had an iron plate in front of the guard that was shaped to match the scabbard mouth. The second type is a "short" sword with either an abstract or a true anthropomorphic hilt of copper alloy.
Scabbards were generally made from two plates of iron, and suspended from a belt made of iron links. Some scabbards had front plates of bronze rather than iron. This was more common on Insular examples than elsewhere; only a very few Continental examples are known.
Polybius (2.33) reports that the Gauls at the Battle of Telamon (224 BC) had inferior iron swords which bent at the first stroke and had to be straightened with the foot against the ground (a practice also known from the Eyrbyggja saga). Plutarch (Camillus) likewise reports on the inferiority of Gaulish iron. These reports have puzzled historians, since by that time the Celts had a centuries long tradition of iron workmanship. Celtic studies scholars have speculated that the Greek observers misunderstood ritual acts of sword-bending, which may have served to "decommission" the weapon. Bent swords have been found among deposits of objects presumably dedicated for sacred purposes.
Ancient Greek terms for swords include:
Terms attested in Mycenaean Greek, thus establishing continuity from the Bronze Age sword, are xiphos (Mycenaean qsiphos, attested as qi-si-pe-e) and phasganon (Mycenaean phasgana, attested as pa-ka-na).
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
