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Post by zaskar24 on Jan 28, 2018 10:27:27 GMT -5
The XIIIa with the faceted pommel is exactly the one that I was talking about. Thank you for the additional information on the Byzantine swords as I mainly focus on northern Europe as that is where my ancestors come from. Also interesting information on Celtic Iron Age swords, than you for that as well.
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Post by kemp on Jan 29, 2018 1:56:48 GMT -5
The XIIIa with the faceted pommel is exactly the one that I was talking about. Thank you for the additional information on the Byzantine swords as I mainly focus on northern Europe as that is where my ancestors come from. Also interesting information on Celtic Iron Age swords, than you for that as well. Happy to help out. You might like to check out myArmoury.com. The features page contains historical background, research and articles on swords, medieval battles and armies. myarmoury.com/features.htmlThe XIIIa from Glasgow Museum also features on the Oakeshott Type XIII Spotlight page of myArmoury. myarmoury.com/feature_spotxiii.htmlCheers
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Post by kemp on Jan 29, 2018 13:45:05 GMT -5
An excellent and comprehensive study on swords from the medieval Carpathian basin and the Balkans can be found in the book. ‘Mediaeval Swords from Southeastern Europe : material from 12th to 15th century’ by Marko Aleksic, an archaeologist and sword researcher, published in Belgrade 2007. peregrinuspublishing.com/In English, also available in PDF format, and there are good comments and reviews on the book at myArmoury. The focus is on sword finds from southeastern Europe, Serbia and the central Balkans in particular, but also includes Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.
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Post by kemp on Jan 29, 2018 13:50:59 GMT -5
According to Aleksic, the origin of the long hilted swords depicted in Byzantine frescoes can be found in 5th - 7th century Persia of the Sassanid dynasty, and that the Sassanid also influenced Chinese swords of the Tang Dynasty. Sassanid Sword
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Post by zaskar24 on Jan 29, 2018 14:07:38 GMT -5
An excellent and comprehensive study on swords from the medieval Carpathian basin and the Balkans can be found in the book. ‘Mediaeval Swords from Southeastern Europe : material from 12th to 15th century’ by Marko Aleksic, an archaeologist and sword researcher, published in Belgrade 2007. peregrinuspublishing.com/In English, also available in PDF format, and there are good comments and reviews on the book at myArmoury. The focus is on sword finds from southeastern Europe, Serbia and the central Balkans in particular, but also includes Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. I do not have this book, though I will be purchasing it. I already have records and have been on myarmoury for over a decade, where I am familiar with the XIIIa in question as well as records. Once again, thank you for the input on this. Some great information.
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Post by kemp on Jan 30, 2018 3:12:31 GMT -5
I will be posting some information here based on the work of Marko Aleksic, general posts for anyone that might be interested in the subject. The work covers in great depth on late medieval era swords, which makes perfect sense since that was when mining and trade really took off in the southeastern European states.
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Post by kemp on Jan 30, 2018 3:26:41 GMT -5
Marko Aleksic works off the typology created by Ewart Oakeshott to identify the sword types found in the Balkans, and records that the XIIIa and XVIa swords were the most popular two handed types in the Balkans, but this is also true for Europe generally in the 14th and 15th centuries. The chart below gives us a basic illustrated reference to Oakeshott’s sword typology, and where we can place the XIIIa and XVIa sword types. Type XIIIa sword, basically a cut oriented type of sword having a wide blade whose edges run nearly parallel to a rounded, or spatulate, tip. Fullers generally run to around, or just over, half the length of the blade, creating a tip area that is wide and flat and is optimized for shearing blows. The grips range from 6.5 inches to 9 or 10 inches, while the blades reach lengths of 37-40 inches. In southeastern European swords for cutting predominated, but the XVIa sword was in some ways a compromise between cutting and thrusting capabilities. The XVIa made possible for swifter movements and better maneuvering with a point acute and light enough to enable thrusting, wide blade near the upper part, with the lower part with a flat hexagonal or diamond cross section. The fullers on some of the south eastern European XVIa finds extend a little further down the blades then on the XVIa generally. There is also a long hilted sword type XIIa dated around the same time as the above swords types, but not a large number of swords are attributed to this type, and Aleksic states that the type is less frequent than the XIIIa and XVIa. Aleksic further notes that for type XIIa blades there is also a problem of distinction with the other types, notably with XVIa. Oakeshott himself had reclassified many type XIIIa swords with greater profile taper and more acute points as XIIa.
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Post by zaskar24 on Jan 30, 2018 10:49:13 GMT -5
The Type XII and XIII families are by far my favorite blade types. I was aware of Oakeshott reclassifying blades from the time that he published The Sword in the Age of Chivalry to the time when Records was published 27 years later as I have read both, though it has been a number of years. Guess it is time to get them out as well as my copy of the Archaeology of Weapons and read them again.
Did you see that Maciej Kopciuch of Art of Swordmaking is working on a new typology to supplement Oakeshott's?
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Post by kemp on Jan 30, 2018 14:20:57 GMT -5
The Type XII and XIII families are by far my favorite blade types. I was aware of Oakeshott reclassifying blades from the time that he published The Sword in the Age of Chivalry to the time when Records was published 27 years later as I have read both, though it has been a number of years. Guess it is time to get them out as well as my copy of the Archaeology of Weapons and read them again. Did you see that Maciej Kopciuch of Art of Swordmaking is working on a new typology to supplement Oakeshott's? Maciej Kopciuch, the Polish crafstman/swordmaker and historical enthusiast. A very skilled individual in his craft, reminds me a little of German sword maker Steffan Roth. I don't think anyone will supplement Oakeshott's typology in its entirety,, but even Oakeshott had said that his classification was far from complete, or that some of the blades could be reclassified. Marko Aleksic has added a few new types and sub categories and I will touch upon that later. Swords that fall within the same classification will still have noticeable differences, for instance two swords identified as XIII may vary in some aspects, for instance one may have a noticeably more acute point, but the system developed by Oakeshott is still an excellent one in that it gives us general guidelines for the identification of medieval sword types. I also like the XVIII swords from the 14th and 15th centuries.
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Post by kemp on Jan 30, 2018 14:32:06 GMT -5
Croatian Greatsword by Maciej Kopciuch Italian longsword by Kopciuch
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Post by trescuinge on Jan 31, 2018 22:04:31 GMT -5
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Post by kemp on Feb 1, 2018 14:48:35 GMT -5
Interesting. The article notes that the guard with the slopping quillons and upturned finials is identical to guards found in archaic Chinese swords Then again, it also bears striking resemblance to some of the early Celtic sword finds. Note the antique to the right of the modern repro. We also can't discount the influence of the Scythian steppe culture on both Europe and Asia. Early bronze age dagger/short sword from the Ordos culture, this was located in China, dated 5th to 4th century BC.
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Post by kemp on Feb 1, 2018 22:58:19 GMT -5
A bit of an intermission from my main topic in relation to hand and a half/two hand ( double edged) swords of southeastern Europe. People normally associate the long gripped curved blades with east Asian swords such as the dha and Katana, amongst others, but Europe also had two handed sabers, mostly in Switzerland and southern Germany. Unlike the usual one hand gripped sabers associated with cavalry, the larger versions would have been used by infantry and soldiers such as the famed Landsknechts. Antique Saber dated around 1530, probably Swiss in origin. Here is a modern reproduction piece
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Post by trescuinge on Feb 2, 2018 16:35:35 GMT -5
A bit of an intermission from my main topic in relation to hand and a half/two hand ( double edged) swords of southeastern Europe. People normally associate the long gripped curved blades with east Asian swords such as the dha and Katana, amongst others, but Europe also had two handed sabers, mostly in Switzerland and southern Germany. Unlike the usual one hand gripped sabers associated with cavalry, the larger versions would have been used by infantry and soldiers such as the famed Landsknechts. Antique Saber dated around 1530, probably Swiss in origin. Here is a modern reproduction piece Good looking swords. Do you have any particulars on their length, weight, or point of balance?
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Post by kemp on Feb 2, 2018 17:40:52 GMT -5
The antique from the Wallace collection has a blade length of 39.96” ( 101.5 cm ), blade width 1.5” ( 3.8 cm ); and weight 3.6 pounds ( 1.62 Kg ), but I could not get any details on the point of balance. I know on the medieval XVIa cut and thrust swords the point of balance is closer to the hilt, as opposed to the more cut specialised XIIIa, but that’s a slightly different kettle of fish when compared to the long hilted saber variants. A collector on myarmoury commissioned Arms & Armor to create a sword based on the original saber. Stats: Overall length: 49.25" (125.1 cm); Blade length: 40" (101.6 cm); Blade width: 1.5" (3.8 cm); Weight: 3.7 pounds (1.68 kg); Point of Balance: ~5.5" (13.97 cm); Center of Percussion: ~24.75" (62.87 cm) The edge geometry can be best described as ‘apple seed’. Craig Johnson, the maker of the sword at Arms & Armor, noted that even though the sword was slightly curved it was very much combat oriented in the manner of a longsword.
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