Viking swords etc, page 5



	The COA is for a fake cuneiform tablet actually, but the seller of this $600 atrocity provides similar with all his wonderful antiquities.

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From Harry Flashman

27th Feb '10

But please note , he would not have yet seen "S"'s response on the previous page.

But here, below, addresses the issue of the frequently found offset arrangment off the hilt/blade in Viking swords particularly.

I hope it was clear that I believed the piece in question was absolutely not authentic, however, in making that point, I wanted to both validate and acknowledge the questioner's own doubts, while also attempting to pass on some gen'l information so that the potential buyer would have some basis for independently judging pieces in the future. I therefore hope that I did not overstep (or become too pedantic) in discussing the various points of concern with the item. Of course, that discussion was offered prior to Steve's telling us that the piece (and/or an identical piece) had a "Certificate of Authenticity", which, obviously, overrides all doubts and clearly establishes the piece's legitimacy, since we all know that, altho' you can fake an artifact, you can't fake a "Certificate of Authenticity" (yes, Steve, I caught the joke...).

A certificate does provide reassurance to many! (Unfortunately)

With regard to the "offset" issue, let me simply note that I'm not aware that it is a significant issue with ancient swords, tho' some of the comments here suggest that, apparently, it is present in enough examples to raise some questions. I suspect, frankly, that there may be a number of reasons for it with, perhaps, one primary reason covering the majority of cases.

Let me also assume that the question involves this apparent "offset" in traditional, two-edged swords and excludes any "offset" such as we would expect to see in a single-edged weapon, such as the Falcata (or later Falchion), the Dacian Sica or Falx, the various forms of Saxes/Seaxes/Scramasaxes/Langseaxes or specialty swords such as the German "Grossmesser", in which this kind of "offset" is both an expected and desirable feature which improves the force of the blow along the sharp edge of the blade. In a two-edged sword, however, such an offset would throw off the blow and make the weapon less wieldy. I'll further assume that we are not discussing any seeming offset on blades which had been deliberately "slighted" or bent, incident to a ritual burial (the reasons for which remain uncertain, tho' the practice was not uncommon).

With those clarifications, let me say that the most commonly offered explanation for this "offset", namely that it is the consequence of differential (and excessive) sharpening of one side of the blade, seems to me the least satisfactory explanation of it. Granted, there are historical (i.e., post-Dark Age) references to that kind of "differential sharpening" and, in fact, as late as my own military service, it was not uncommon for soldiers using a two-edged knife to keep one side razor sharp and finely honed, for combat purposes, while the other edge was more roughly sharpened for utility use. I assume (but do not know) that "Dark Age" warriors may have done something similar. However, the usual consequence of excessive sharpening (even with a skilled sharpener using modern equipment) is not a seeming offset at the point where the blade meets the hilt, but rather a "waisted" appearance to the sword, since it is very difficult to sharpen a blade near to the hilt and much easier to sharpen (and/or over-sharpen) the blade along the center portion of it.

Another explanation, occasionally offered, is that this "offset" is a deliberate act, by the bladesmith, to adjust the balance or "trim" of the weapon. Lacking, as they did, "the perfection of the machine", it was certainly possible that, once the blade was formed, it was found to be slightly heavier to one side or the other, prompting the bladesmith to compensate by adjusting the tang away from the blade's centerline, in order to better balance it. Let's say that that is "possible", tho' I consider it unlikely. During the "Dark Ages" a sword represented an economic investment similar to someone, today, purchasing a top-of-the-line Porsche. Given that, I would no more expect to see this kind of "jury rigged" fix on an ancient sword than I would expect to find "Bondo" on my brand new, Porsche Carrera GT. Could it happen? Sure. Would it be common for it to happen? I'm guessing not.

I certainly do not think that any swordsman would specify this offset, say, as an example, for the purpose of improving the cutting power of one side of the blade, even while retaining the advantages of a two-edged weapon. I've had the great good fortune to be friends with the founders of the "Academia Duellatoria" as well as to be trained by such modern sword masters as Anthony DeLongis and I can assure you that any advantage in the cut that such a design would give you would be more than offset by the skewed balance of the sword and the resultant loss of responsiveness, particularly in the recovery. Certainly, there is no reference in the old "Fechtbuchs" and other historical fighting manuals to such a "lopsided" fighting technique, which is not to say it never happened, but having slashed with (well, at least having been slashed at by) some of the best, I simply don't buy the notion.

Of course, there is always the possibility that this apparent "offset" is the consequence of differential wear or differential "rot" on one side of the blade, but one would have to examine any particular blade to see if that explanation held up.

What I THINK is the most likely explanation is to be found in the basic construction of these blades. As I noted in my original discussion, most blades, during this period, were "pattern-welded" (what we think of as "Damascus steel", tho' that term is actually more specific than "pattern-welded"). This means taking alternating bars of iron and steel (steel being iron alloyed with carbon) and pounding and folding the pieces together, so as to create a swirling admixture of the two metals. Pattern-welding creates a very nice blade, susceptible to finely calculated tempering, which gives the blade significant flexibility and resiliency. However, while a "pattern-welded" edge sharpens very nicely it also tends to wear down fairly quickly. Therefore it was common for bladesmiths to "rim" the edge of the blade, all around, with a thin band of steel, which would be "forge welded" to the body of the blade to create a nice, hard cutting edge. Unfortunately, it also left a "joint" between the steel blade edge and the "pattern-welded" body of the blade - a weak point, susceptible to wearing or rotting or breaking away, leaving what looks like an "offset" in the tang's positioning, should one side "delaminate". One can test that postulation by examining the tang's placement relative to the blade's fuller (assuming that the blade is fullered). If the tang is centered relative to the fuller but not to the blade edge, then I would guess that proves the "delaminated edge" explanation (at least as to that blade). If, however, the tang is offset as to both the edge and the fuller, then one would have to look for a different explanation.

One last possibility comes to mind, namely the possibility of "repair" or "re-engineering". These blades were expensive and were expected to do duty for a long time ("Here is the sword of my father and his father before him..."). It is certainly possible that, during the course of a sword's use, the guard might break or bend or the handle/hilt break, or the whole assemblage get knocked loose. It would not be unreasonable, in such a situation, for the sword's owner to take the blade down to a bladesmith and/or cutler to have it repaired and updated (possibly even using "found pieces" from some other sword). Note that something of the sort is suspected in the case of the "Sword of Charlemagne". In such a situation, the smith/cutler might need to adjust the alignment of the tang to accept the new "furniture" (or to rebalance the blade to match the new furniture), resulting in this "offset" in the remodeled blade.

Those, at least, are my hypotheses on the matter. There remains the possibility, of course, that all those explanations are complete "hoo-ey" and I won't be offended if someone more knowledgeable cares to correct me.

I suspect that we have probably exhausted the question whether this piece is a genuine ancient sword or not. We generally don't get comments offered after a few days have passed.

So perhaps , if possible we could move on to an examination of the inscription on this piece if "S" is able to obtain good enough photographs.

From Harry

1st March '10

It seems to me that in this case many prejudices are set into the demonstrations, that is the cultural prejudice that all already known forms create a paradigm for what is not known yet, and that everything that differs from this "paradigm" must be rejected as false...The fact that a sword appears very old doesn't imply that fine crafts couldn't be within the skill of the people who forged it, as the construction of the guard and the pommel tend to suggest.

This point certainly, merits a general discussion, namely our reliance on known exemplars to determine authenticity. Invariably, we start any analysis from the assessment of whether or not it looks like what we already know. Such an approach necessarily causes us to discount pieces which break or shift the paradigm and that may not, in fact, be an appropriate response.

Obviously, there are points of analysis which do not depend on or which transcend simple comparison (e.g., on the sword in question, the tang and pommel are simply non-functional, regardless of what they may look like or not look like), but there is a lot of weight given to these comparisons and that weight may, in fact, be excessive and cause us to discount genuine pieces simply because they do not fully conform to what we expect.