Tests have found that it is made from an early type of arsenic-copper BRONZE alloy and dates as more than 5,000 years old.
The 'sword' was part of a medieval exhibit in a Venice monastery museum when earlier this year a student noticed that it might be wrongly dated & labelled.
This particular relic comes from the ancient city of Trebizond in Northeastern Turkey.
So there you go - you never know what's around the corner waiting to be found eh.
So the oldest bronze "edged weapon" at 5,000 y.o from Turkey can meet the oldest known hand gun from China - also made from bronze .. that is a mere 732 years old:
Heilongjiang Bronze Hand Cannon From Before 1288
The slow development of ballistic weapons that follows-on from edged flint cutting tools has logically opened the media's doors to neurotic gun-banners who myopically focus on DANGER from portable firearms .. but they might better raise their eyes toward the upper atmosphere above Antarctica - or indeed to beneath our surrounding seas .. where they might observe REAL DANGER from recently developed & deployed nuclear powered cruise nuclear weapons. - try this linked story for illumination;
With such government maniacs running our planet .. it's surprising that the population retains any sanity ..
Marty K.
Gidday Marty, I have some reservations about the dating of that "sword". Based on shape style and size it looks to me as if it was made using the lost wax casting process which would make it more like 3000 years old so, taking into account the chemical analysis of the alloy I suggest it is likely a re-make of an older item. one of these days when you are in town stop by and I will show you some of my bronze age weapons.
ReplyDeleteHi Marty,
ReplyDeleteCheers for the image of the Chinese Handgonne, never seen that one before. You MUST censor it or a seven year old may build himself a functioning firearm ... and it will all be your fault! You'll also enjoy this now defunct website which is forever preserved by the Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110520015418/http://musketeer.ch/blackpowder/handgonne.html
Stuff written by retired engineers is always interesting!
And yes, we can't do much about the gigatonnes of nuclear threat... so we focus on puny firearms. Not entirely irrational, but madly out of proportion!
About the bronze, here is a history of bronze, seems weapon/tool bronze was usually cast in its final shape. Even bronze hair pins were cast in their entirety. Just the easiest way. Softer bronzes could/would get hammered into shape to create bronze armour.
http://www.makin-metals.com/about/history-of-bronze-infographic/