Large Pictures 1 Chapter 11.3

Here are some replicas of old pattern welded swords. They were made by master smith
Patrick Barta. This link leads to a huge picture.

From left to right:

9th century AD. Found 1876 near the village Turcianská Blatnica in Slovakia.
Now in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest. The original looks like this
6th century AD. blade: Vehmaa, Finland; pommel and scabbard fittings: Aker, Norway; grip: Roes, Norway
around 575 AD; Valsgärde grave 7/I, Sweden


Link to text

From left to right:

Around 575 AD. Valsgärde grave 7/I, Sweden
Around 500 AD. Found in Pleidelsheim (grave 71), next to my home town, Germany
3rd century AD. Roman sword of Podlodow type. Podlodow museum, Poland.


Link to text	Source: From the Internet pages of Patrick Barta; http://www.templ.net; with permission.

The time line of Danish bog treasures or war booty sacrifices. "Defined dates" means that a radio carbon analysis
or some other quantitative analysis like dendrochronology has been done. Undefined dates means that I have found
relatively precise dates somewhere but without a clear reference to how they were obtained.
Different places are often treated as groups; this is indicated by a certain color. The "Vimose 3 group", for example is
dark yellow and includes Thorsbjerk and Porskjær. Some places belong to two groups.
Archaeologists like to define certain periods, like B1a, B1b, and so on; they are given relative to the normal time scale.
The major non-Roman cultures / ethnities / tribal entities are also given. While the Merovingians ruled the "South", the
"North" experienced the "Vendel period" (There are no "Vendels", however). All these cultures were into pattern welded
swords. The Vikings came after the "Vendel period"; they are outside the scale of the drawing.


Link to text	Source: Constructed with data from "Sieg und Triumph" and from all over.

The "common" classification of swords from about 0 AD - 500 AD and mostly found in Northern Europe, e.g. in
Danish Bogs, Scandinavia, Poland, ... (the "Barbaricum).
Refer to the main text for the abbreviations.


Link to text	Source: Based on figures in Illerup Ådal; Vol. 11, 12

A map of (Northern) Europe, defining some terms and showing where swords of the "Canterbury-Kopki" type had been found.


Link to text	Source: Based on a figure in Illerup Ådal; Vol. 11, 12

Typical hilts during certain periods.


Link to text	Source: Based on a figure in Illerup Ådal; Vol. 11, 12

A rather badly corroded part of a sword from the Nydam treasure.


Link to text

Percentage of sword type within a certain time period.
The color gives the type, the length of the lines the percentage assigned to a certain time slot.
The position of the lines on the time scale is more or less arbitrary within the proper time slot(s).


Link to text	Source: Based on a figure in Illerup Ådal; Vol. 11, 12

An excellent overview ot the patterns found on swords from Danish bogs
These swords are from around 150 AD - 400 AD; see the picture right above.
All except the ones with red names were fond in Illerup Ådal
Details to some of these sword in this link.


Link to text	Source: Based on a figure in Illerup Ådal; Vol. 11, 12

Here are two large versions of the "Illerup" sword with an incrustation of the god Mars:



Link to text	Source: Internet, from (Danish) museum site

We can see that the blade is indeed riveted to the tang and that the incrustation is
rather not from (pure) copper but possibly from two metals, one being brass (?).
In particular, however, it becomes very clear that the cutting edges were made from faggoted steel.
It also appears that the part containing the figure consists of homogeneous iron or steel that was
welded to the main blade.

Plate VI "Damascened Swords of Iron 1 (Nydam)" in Engelhardt's 1856 book