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Is this a sword I see before me? - Ep 6
314 Plays2 years ago
It's time for another journey back to the past, and this time we go armed! Matilda chats with archaeologist Valerio Gentile all about his research on Bronze Age swords. Were bronze swords used in combat? How does one create a bronze sword? What is the only acceptable type of coffee to drink as an Italian? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this month's episode of Tea-break Time Travel.
Links
- Valerio's Academia profile (with downloadable PDFs of all his papers)
- http://www.leidenuniv.academia.edu/ValerioGentile
- Valerio Gentile
- Email: v.gentile@arch.leidenuniv.nl
- twitter: @valerio_gentile
Contact the Host
- Email: matilda@thearchaeologiststeacup.com
- https://www.thearchaeologiststeacup.com
- insta: @the_archaeologists_teacup
- fb: /TheArchaeologistsTeacup
- twitter: @ArchaeoTeacup
ArchPodNet
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to Tea Break Time Travel, where every month we look at a different archaeological object and take you on a journey into their past.
00:00:20
Speaker
This is episode six of Tea Break Time Trouble. I am your
Meet the Hosts
00:00:24
Speaker
host, Matilda Ziebrecht, and today I am savoring a rooibos tea flavored with orange and lemon, very citrusy. Joining me on my tea break today is Valerio Gentile, a PhD candidate at the University of Leiden. Are you also on tea? I imagine as an Italian, you're probably more for coffee, or are you a tea drinker?
00:00:46
Speaker
I am absolutely a coffee drinker, but today is the year because I run out of coffee. Drinking too much stress?
Cultural Coffee Practices
00:00:55
Speaker
I finished it on Friday and then weekend was in the middle and I still have to go buy it.
00:01:03
Speaker
Although at least in the Netherlands, things are open at the weekend. Here on Sunday, everything is shut, literally. So you can't, if you forget to go to the supermarket, you can't get anything until lunch again, which was our issue today. But luckily we don't really drink coffee in this house, so that was fine. Anyway.
00:01:21
Speaker
Are you, though, out of curiosity, when you drink coffee, what kind of coffee do you drink? Haha, that's a great question. Because despite being Italian, so basically being raised knowing that the only good coffee is the espresso. In grad school and in the PhD, I basically got
00:01:43
Speaker
used to non-espresso coffee and also the idea of sipping and savoring coffee for a longer time. So I recently switched to French press, so I can make the coffee a little bit less espresso, a bit, how would you call it, closer to an Americano, although it's better. And so I'm a French press guy right now.
00:02:07
Speaker
Oh, no. And what does your family think about that? I haven't disclosed that yet. I think when I go back, I think I'm going to buy a French press and actually make everybody drive. It's a different kind of, again, also with tea, you know, there is a ceremony around it in a context. It's a different kind of a different kind of
00:02:25
Speaker
situation. My French press is literally for savoring and reading papers and sipping a copious amount of coffee and it's not just a small cup of espresso, it doesn't give you the same kind of... Fair. Because out of curiosity with espresso, are you you're not supposed to sip it then you're supposed to like down it or?
00:02:45
Speaker
If you sip it, it's anyways three sips. Most likely you just down it or at least just two sips or something. The typical business breakfast in Italy is, yeah, basically you down it in one go and you're the grandson and you're going to work.
00:03:02
Speaker
Fair enough. I have to admit, I'm so I don't know why I just never drank coffee when I was growing up. I really love the flavor of coffee in like cakes and chocolate and those kind of things. But the only time I remember like the first time I properly drank coffee, I was going somewhere really early and it was like 5am and I was with some friends and they were like, we need a coffee. So they went to like a Starbucks and I was looking at the menu going, maybe I should have a coffee because I feel so tired. So I just said, what's the thing that tastes least like coffee on this menu? And I had like a white chocolate mocha or, you know, something like that.
00:03:31
Speaker
And it was so delicious. So basically, I drink coffee as long as it doesn't really taste of coffee. It's an acquired taste like everything. I think almost most of alcohol or cigarettes. Not that I'm advertising any consumption of these things, but nobody likes it at first try, right? True. Yeah, very true. I think I just have a sweet tooth as well. So I'm not willing to try things if they don't initially appeal to me.
00:03:58
Speaker
Anyway, so, good, but we're on T, that's excellent. What kind of T is it? It's mint and something that I don't know to say it in English, but thankfully I know to say it in German, so you might help me. It's that mountain flower, the edelweiss. Oh, I think, yeah, I actually don't know what that is in English. All I know is that it's from Sound of Music because he sings edelweiss, but I actually don't know what it's called.
00:04:27
Speaker
It's an alpine flower and yeah, you can just taste the mint mostly. Yeah, fair enough. Well, it sounds very nice and refreshing. So you are here today, not just for your excellent knowledge of coffee and tea, but
00:04:42
Speaker
But because you are indeed doing a PhD at the University of Leiden, as we mentioned, and focusing on archaeology and the exact topic we'll get into a little later.
Valerio's Archaeological Journey
00:04:53
Speaker
But in terms of archaeology, how did you first get into that field?
00:04:59
Speaker
It's a difficult question in the sense that I don't know. It kind of happened. You woke up one day tied to the share of an archaeology faculty. Partially. I don't know how it is elsewhere. But literally, when you finish high school in Italy, you're like, now what? And then you start collecting informational material to understand what kind of thing you would like to do. And I knew that I was not really the best at math.
00:05:25
Speaker
Not that then math didn't hit me right back when I started really doing archaeology for real. But anyways, I was hoping to do less math. And to some extent, I succeeded. I also know that I had a fascination for the past. And I also like the idea of maybe you can call it a non choice at this point. But I like the idea of being a jack of all trades. And if there's something that really looks like a Swiss knife of disciplines, I guess is archaeology. True.
00:05:54
Speaker
So I liked it because of that. And again, how do they first get into archaeology? I think I don't know if it was archaeology, but I always got a fascination for the past.
00:06:05
Speaker
So maybe I don't know why I become an archeologist, but I could have become easily a paleontologist or a historian as well. But I always remember to be taken to museums and the museums that I liked the most were the ones about the past. And I wanted to visit archeological sites, maybe browse books about ancient Egypt or Middle Ages and things like that. So all the Romans, because you know.
00:06:32
Speaker
So I was curious because, are you from, I can't, I know that we should have talked about this. Valerio, by the way, is a friend of mine. So I feel like I should know most of these things, but I realised that actually we talk about very random stuff and I don't know that much about your upbringing, etc. But are you from Rome?
00:06:49
Speaker
I was not born in Rome and I lived my school years in a smaller village in another region, but it's very close, it's like 100 kilometers from Rome. But I always had relatives in Rome and I then did my university in Rome. So I actually, I spent almost my, basically all my life until I moved to another country in between this country village and Rome, because also in pre-university times I was visiting very, very often.
00:07:16
Speaker
Okay. And so I'm curious because I mean, I guess, to be fair, I guess in every country, you're surrounded by some kind of history. But then if you think of somewhere like Rome, it's like the first thing that comes to your mind, even if you're not interested in history or the past is, you know, ancient Rome and all of that kind of thing. Is it
00:07:35
Speaker
When you're surrounded by that constantly growing up, is it something that then just becomes kind of blase? Or is it something that you actually, it does make you more interested in it? For me, it's difficult to answer this question, because again, of course, then I began an archaeologist, so it's hard for me not to notice things, even if when I go for a run for a walk. But I guess some Romans, despite being a
00:07:58
Speaker
being very proud, they seem to take some stuff for granted. But again, maybe a side effect of this is that I have not become a Roman archaeologist. So probably because I had too much exposure.
00:08:16
Speaker
No more, no more Rome. Well, I can remember, I've actually never been to Rome. I need to at some point, but I remember going to Greece at some point and yeah, just traveling around loads. And at the part, I was always really interested in the past when I was younger, but I can just remember, I think I was there for three weeks with a friend. I was very young. I was like 17 and I can remember by the third week, you know, it was kind of like, oh yeah, cool. Another temple. Yeah.
00:08:38
Speaker
another column. And so I can't even imagine how it must be like to live around it, you know, and just see it every day. Yeah. And I think partially was also during literally my archaeological training, like at the beginning, in fact, I'm actually really scoring things as I'm talking to you, because sometimes pass. But I think at the beginning, I was not too much not into Rome. I
00:09:01
Speaker
It was always not exactly Rome, but maybe italic tribes and periods, like literally when Rome existed, but it was not big. And then I moved slowly, basically went to early Iron Age and then Bronze Age. Who knows, maybe you will find me in 10 years just doing polylytic archaeology.
00:09:22
Speaker
But I was at the beginning a bit fed up with digging. Every time I was basically digging something up, it was like through layers and barriers of Roman trash. So I was like, I want something else.
00:09:40
Speaker
But I think Roman archaeology is also one of the few areas in the world where it is predominantly studied by Italian or even Roman archaeologists as well, right? Because I guess one of the things with archaeology that I find at least is that it's so international. So it's quite normal to have, you know, like I am Scottish living in Germany studying Arctic, you know, things in your Italian living in the Netherlands studying Dutch, well, European, shall we say Bronze Age, whereas
00:10:07
Speaker
In Roman archaeology, obviously, there are still a lot of international influences, but would you say the majority? Obviously, you don't know because you're not in it, but I'm just curious if you do know. The majority of it is still Roman or Italian archaeologists? I will not say the majority. I would say there's a fair representation about Americans or Germans or actually anybody. It's big. And I mean, there are actually different different attitudes towards the discipline that you can track down to certain nationalities. But
00:10:35
Speaker
Now, I'll spend my afternoon thinking where Italians are represented the most in archaeology, so it's probably either classics or Middle Ages, I would say. Middle Ages, really. I don't know why, but I wouldn't have thought that. I would always think, yeah, indeed the classics.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those funny things as a non Italian or I guess as someone I guess whenever I think of Italian history or prehistory, I always think indeed of the Roman or the sort of ancient history. It's really hard for me to picture like Italy in the Middle Ages. I can't even... No, exactly. Okay, so let me just make this like unpaid advertisement for the Minister of Tourism in Italy.
00:11:17
Speaker
Also in Rome, I mean, okay, for sure, yeah, Roman stuff is cool, but also later stuff, medieval stuff or early modern stuff are great to look at in Rome, but also it's worth a visit in Italy just to look whatever happens after 1000 AD and nothing before and it's still worth it. So think about it even if you don't like antiquity.
00:11:43
Speaker
sounds good for those listening. There you go. I mean, I'd assume if you're listening to this podcast, you have a remote interest in archaeology. But if you know you you've accidentally clicked on your way to some sort of tea podcast, then there you go. Go visit Rome and check out the medieval history. I also now want to actually I need to go at some point.
00:12:01
Speaker
Anyway, sorry, you're not a Roman archaeologist as we've established. Sorry for grilling you about Roman archaeology. You're based in the Netherlands. Is your topic specific to Dutch or are you European in general?
The Mystery of Bronze Age Swords
00:12:14
Speaker
It's very European. And I studied material for... The reason why I studied is also because it's European. It's a widespread phenomenon, so I'm curious. But most of my sample comes from the Netherlands, although I study objects also from other countries.
00:12:30
Speaker
not nice. And I mean, you've had then quite a broad experience, I guess, in the different cultures around Europe, if you had your initial foray was more focused on Roman, and then have you had other areas that you've researched throughout your archaeological career?
00:12:47
Speaker
In my, as I said, in my undergrad, I was more of an early Iron Age or even late Iron Age kind of person. So my thesis for my bachelor's stopped at around 600 BC. So way more recent stuff. It went basically from the 10th to the 6th century
00:13:16
Speaker
BCE, while basically I stop now around the 10th or the 8th century BCE. Yeah, you're just going further back and further back. Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm saying eventually I'm going to just turn into a paleontologist.
00:13:30
Speaker
And so, seeing as you then are just going further back and further back, but if you could travel back in time to a particular point, this is my standard question that I ask all the guests, where would you go and why? This is something, of course, that I get asked many times but also wonder myself and it's just, actually, you know, going back
00:13:49
Speaker
And not to, again, shoot myself in the foot because I said Middle Ages are really cool. I think the only thing I can agree on is I'm going to travel somewhere that is busy. But it's very hard for me to pick one because again, would you not want to see Rome? Would you not want to see Egypt? But would you not want to see anything in Central or South America?
00:14:16
Speaker
Or, again, I do bronzes. So I'll be very curious if my theories and my interpretation are correct. But again, would you not want to meet any Neanderthal tribe? So it's very difficult. Yeah, that would be cool. So I guess just to go back and see like everyday life then.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yes, no, for sure. Basically, I do ethnography back in time. Yeah, archaeoethnography. Well, I guess, yeah. Oh, yeah, no. The more I talk about this, I always used to be of the school of thought of like, no, I wouldn't want to time travel because, like, it's the past, it's been, you know, we shouldn't go back. But then the more I talk to people on this podcast, the more I'm like, oh, yeah, actually, that would be really cool. Oh, but I would not want to intervene at all. No, no, but it's more the, for me, it's the
00:15:02
Speaker
the fact that archaeology is such a great thing because you don't really know what happened, you know? And so then going back and actually seeing it would almost, yeah, I guess instead of the last episode, like take the magic away, in a way for me, which, but I don't know if it would, but I guess that was always what I thought.
00:15:20
Speaker
You do have a big point, and I think you're right to some extent. But also, I mean, I'm not very optimistic most of the time, but let me be optimistic. I think the wonders that we could see and discover, if we could actually throw it back in time, would exceed maybe the fall from grace that we would have, knowing that something that we thought was symbolic and super ritual was actually completely functional and not poetic at all.
00:15:49
Speaker
But so many stories we never heard of, so much music we never heard of, or some gatherings we could not even fathom happened. True, the sort of intangible parts would indeed be really cool to see and experience, that would be nice.
00:16:07
Speaker
Before we look at today's object, or talk about today's object type, I should say, we're first going to journey back in time, indeed. We're going to go back to the Bronze Age, so around 5,000 years ago, to the 5,000 BCE, I apologise, to the city of Megiddo in northern Israel. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correct, but in my defence, they probably wouldn't have called it that either.
00:16:27
Speaker
The city is wide and sprawling, there's clusters of houses scattered between large open spaces. It's the start of the day, the streets are slowly filling, getting busy, as the inhabitants go about their business. And towering over them is the shadow of the huge temple, with the faint sounds of sung prayers drifting above the chatter of the crowds. But another sound also pierces the chatter, a loud hammering as a copper blade is struck.
00:16:49
Speaker
The shape of this blade was actually originally cast, so not hammered out like we would know it from modern blacksmiths, but a little extra work is required to sort of finish it and finalise it before it can join the others that are left out to cool, their edges glinting in the sunlight. Exactly whether this would have happened is unsure, but archaeologists from this region have indeed claimed that the earliest known sword was found at the site of Tel Megiddo, although it is also unclear whether it's a sword or it might have been a dagger.
00:17:16
Speaker
I'm sure Valeria will explain the differences between these far better than me momentarily. But today, indeed, we are focusing on swords, particularly on bronze swords. And we'll get into the details of that soon with our guest expert here. But first, I would like to have a look at the most asked questions on the internet about this object courtesy of Google search. So the first one that came up was, are bronze swords strong? A question for me, okay.
00:17:42
Speaker
on the internet. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, first of all, I let's say I am an enthusiast and a scholar of source and other weapons, but I mean, don't take my word for for like the Bible.
00:17:55
Speaker
I feel like we should add that as a caveat to every single paper that anyone ever publishes. Exactly. I'm quite well read about this, but don't take my word for it. Okay, so strong is a complicated adjective, because it's not very well defined. I mean, maybe is it like hardness, what this person wants to know and stuff like that. And also the point is this kind of measurements are relative.
00:18:18
Speaker
Like something can be harder or softer or stronger or weaker than something else, but it would be good to know what's the comparisons.
00:18:28
Speaker
I guess the way I would interpret this question might be because you think of like a steel sword as something really strong and everything, whereas bronze, I guess, is a softer metal than that? So are the swords also softer or are they worked in a particular way that makes them equally strong or how's the difference between? For sure, bronze is less hard material than steel and also less elastic, but
00:18:54
Speaker
Are bronze swords strong enough? May I add, they are strong enough to be used. I don't know if maybe we're going to end up talking about it later, but I can add that in terms of properties, the latest bronze swords do not really have much to envy to the early iron swords.
00:19:18
Speaker
Oh, wow. So yes, in general, historically, we see an improvement in the properties. But yeah, bronze also pretty good or we're pretty good for the dime.
00:19:29
Speaker
The next one that we have isn't really a question, but it was just bronze sword weight. So I guess, are they heavy? Are they light? Again, I guess your listeners are going to roll their eyes at the end of this podcast because I'm going to keep on answering anything else. This is a complicated question. I think you're such a politician, Malaria.
00:19:50
Speaker
Because, for example, what's a sword weight? Are we counting the organic material that compost the hilt and the pommel, for example? But roughly, just picture, it also depends so much by the length. And a little bit also by the composition, of course. But because, again, we're going to get there, but bronze is an alloy, so whatever you put in has different weight. But picture 500 grams.
00:20:18
Speaker
as a sort of like standard thing, which is not necessarily an average. And then you can find sources like 400 and sources are 700.
00:20:29
Speaker
But it's that range more or less. That's pretty, I would say that's pretty light. I mean, I'm just thinking I only did a little bit of historical sword fighting back in my day at uni. And the ones we were using, I remember being, I can't actually remember how heavy they were, but I can remember after an hour of flailing around with them, I was exhausted. So I can imagine. Yeah, I mean, you get exhausted also because of the different kind of balance that some swords have. But this is my knowledge is mostly of course, about
00:20:59
Speaker
swords that are archeological and not hilted and so on. But also bronze swords weigh not as medieval weapons because they are shorter on average. So it's simply smaller and so they weigh less. I can look up more actually.
00:21:17
Speaker
I mean, I was not far off because I had it and the replicas we used around for some experiments are the type that replicates the longest kind of source we actually ever found in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. And so they are long and together with the hilt, they weigh between 800 and 850 grams.
00:21:40
Speaker
And these are the longest, and also the difference between the ones that weigh the most and the ones that weigh the least is like less than 10 centimeters of length, like 6 or 7 centimeters of length of difference. So you can imagine that a slightly shorter sword are like 700 or 600 and so on. Okay. And you say 6 or 7 centimeters, so how long, for example, like the longest-ish sword that was found, how long would that be?
00:22:09
Speaker
Oh, I remember I answered this question. Let me get back to maybe another later to give you exact measures. But the functional one or the most common ones hardly ever exceeded one meter. They mostly are below one meter of length. But there are some barriers which are extremely long and narrow, which are longer.
00:22:30
Speaker
Oh, very cool. I didn't realize that there were thinner, longer ones from the Bronze Age as well. I always assumed there were these leaf-shaped sword kind of things, like the elven swords. That is a very late Bronze Age design, most at least Bronze Age design, but there are also thin examples. But I mean, also the fact that this kind of design didn't have much fortune also makes you guess whether it was really like a so effective design.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, very cool. The next question hopefully won't require a politician's answer, although maybe it will. It's how were bronze swords made? Okay. Well, I could make it in the sense that there are very different ways of making it. But in general, what you need is first of all bronze, which can come either in the form of bronze that already made ingots or other items you just want to recycle.
00:23:26
Speaker
or in its constituents because, again, bronze is an alloy. So technically bronze is a mixture of copper and tin, but of course there can be also other materials added to the mix. For example, towards the late bronze we see an increasing amount of lead in this alloy which
00:23:47
Speaker
possibly made casting more easy. And again, what you need to do is then you heat it up to the extent that it becomes liquid, and then you pour it into a mold. You cast it. And this mold can be either made of stone or sand or clay, but also actually bronze itself. Oh, really? Yeah, because it's
00:24:15
Speaker
I mean, although of course you need to heat up bronze high enough to melt, then when you pour it, it's not enough to melt your own mold. Hmm. Yeah, I guess I just... But I never... To my knowledge, I don't know any mold for swords made of bronze. There are other kinds of... for other objects, but for swords, I think the only ones we have is hints of clay, fragments of clay, and otherwise sword molds are...
00:24:45
Speaker
usually made of stone, the ones we find. But again, you put them in, put bronze in, and then once it cools off, you free the cast sword, and then you need to basically polish it and remove all the sprues and the excess of material. You hammer it to actually get better shape, but also compress the grains to make it harder.
00:25:10
Speaker
If you think you want to make it, for example, the hedge thinner, you want to anneal it also, because if you keep on hammering, the bronze accumulates stress and then it breaks. So you want, after a certain cycles of hammering, you want to anneal the object, which means heat the object up, not to the point of melting, but heat the objects over for roughly 600 degrees.
00:25:33
Speaker
so that the internal stress is relieved and the grains are realigned but the overall thickness is more or less retained and then you go back to hammering again until you reach the final shape and thickness you want and also hardness you want because
00:25:52
Speaker
Basically, if you hammer it, you harden it, but if you kneel it, the bronze goes back to its original hardness, so you lose what you've done, except from the shaping when you hammer. Like a computer game and you just go back to their first level. So basically, okay, to make it very, very simple, you're making an ornament or something, it's very lucky that you're the last
00:26:13
Speaker
thing you're going to do is probably a kneeling because you shaped it and then you just make it, you heat it up and you make it more flexible again and less, less, less hard because you don't need it. And maybe if you're doing something with an edge, maybe the last thing you do after the butter cycle is I'm wearing it so that it retains the hardness of the grades being compact.
00:26:36
Speaker
So basically once you have achieved this, you sharpen it. And then hopefully while you were doing this, somebody else was taking care of crafting a hilt for the sword, which often you would fix by the use of rivets. Made from metal as well? The rivets are often made of metal, yes.
00:27:02
Speaker
And out of curiosity, so you mentioned that the working of it by hammering can make it more, I guess, brittle and make it break. If, for example, say you cast your sword and it doesn't turn out right, there's a crack in it or there's something's gone wrong, right? Can you reuse that bronze or can you only use the bronze material a certain amount of times before it just gets too broken or brittle or something? Like how many times can you heat it up to the point of casting?
00:27:29
Speaker
To the point of casting, virtually endless times, although there are some indications that the more you recycle, the more you're going to lose some trace elements into some sense of Sudin, the team content gets a little bit less. But I don't think it's a problem that is going to emerge right there.
00:27:48
Speaker
So, but yeah, I mean, just to tag into archaeology, there are some research made about to quantify the extent of recycling to objects that basically track how much elements are lost during these phases of recycling over and over again. But no, you can, that's a good thing of bronze is that if something goes wrong, you can just start over. But also, even if you get tired of your brooch, you can turn it into an axe whenever you want.
00:28:19
Speaker
Oh, that'd be nice. But in terms of like the archaeological evidence, then how would we see that? Again, like that, for example. Yeah. But also because we often find some stashes of some hordes of fragmented material, which again is another big topic, because it can also very likely be offerings, visual offerings and stuff like that. But some others
00:28:46
Speaker
are, for example, found within workshops, metalworking workshops. And in general, even if these could be also visual offers, this does not mean that they were not scrapped in the first place, offered but still scrapped. But we see many times this collection of literally scrap objects or broken objects, which are meant to be put back in the crucible and met again.
00:29:11
Speaker
No, very cool. That was my extra questions. That wasn't from Google, but thank you for answering those Google questions. I think you were able to expertly answer them, better than me anyway. But in terms of your work and sort of what you are specialized in then in terms of your research, so what exactly is it about bronze swords that you're looking at?
00:29:31
Speaker
All right, so I studied swords and also other weapons, like mostly most of the bronze weapons in the Bronze Age, but swords definitely play an important role because of also the ideological aura around the sword. Why I like them, or at least why I'm interested in them, is that because from a functional perspective, or more likely a practical perspective, it is interesting to explore
00:30:01
Speaker
literally what people were doing with weapons and in what context, in periods in which you don't have writing.
Symbolism and Warfare in the Bronze Age
00:30:10
Speaker
So you basically start to picture warfare or how violence was framed within ideology and so on. And also going back to ideology and swords and weapons seems to permeate
00:30:24
Speaker
Bronze Age worldview as a whole. It's not necessarily a martial thing, but again, they appear many times in rock art. I'm not an expert in rock art, but I dare to say probably it's the most recognizable piece of material culture you will see in rock art and depictions, also in terms of frequency. And there are, for example, lots of so-called ritual sacrifice or offerings of these weapons in rivers and bogs.
00:30:49
Speaker
which is completely non-functional in rational behavior to our standard, which begs the question why these objects acquired the significance and what did they stand for?
00:31:01
Speaker
That would be a really interesting, I think those, I mean, the term ritual, right? We could get a whole discussion about that, but like the, those sort of indeed bizarre deposits almost that make you, like you just said, it's sort of a, why were they being deposited here? That would indeed be something really interesting to go back and look at. But has there been, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, because it's not, is it just swords? I mean, what other kinds of objects are being deposited with them in these sort of ones? I don't know if this is. It's a good question.
00:31:29
Speaker
So the phenomenon of deposition in other places, deposition of objects in other places, is a characteristic of the Bronze Age, although we do see depositions also during the Neolithic in some parts of Europe. But of course not of bronzes. But bronze objects were somehow irrationally deposited. I mean, I'm using irrationally within the context of our Western consumerist mindset.
00:31:58
Speaker
They were deposited across Europe in many natural places, like again, as I said, bogs and rivers were also sometimes rocky areas or top of mountains and so on. There were not necessarily only weapons, there are mixed hordes or some hordes were composed only of ornaments, for example, so the puzzle is more complex. But there are also specifically
00:32:21
Speaker
martial depositions, because there are some horse which are composed only of weaponry, sometimes actually even destroyed and bent or burned altogether. But there are also single depositions in which people, we know that they deposited dead and not much else, like just a sword or anything else. And there are also different contexts sometimes, like, for example, in the Netherlands,
00:32:48
Speaker
it is more likely to find source deposited in large rivers than in bogs and small streams, while for access it would be maybe perhaps a different, completely opposite kind of scenario in which you would find them more in less big streams, but more into the smaller water bodies.
00:33:12
Speaker
Okay, and I like you mentioned very briefly just then the whole thing of all, you know, but of course we see it as irrational, but that's just because of our kind of modern mindset. I mean, we've talked a bit in the other episodes as well about the fact that, you know, we are in our modern context as well. I mean, in terms of studying then a subject such as swords, there's so much
00:33:32
Speaker
like loaded bias and assumption, I guess, about what we consider a sword to be and how we consider swords to be used. Do you find any evidence sort of to work against that? Or how does that play into the archaeology of swords or of combat? Oh, it's very interesting to see what what swords does to what a sword
00:33:53
Speaker
does to people, but not necessarily from the practical perspective in the sense that... What kind of research are you doing for that? I do conduct experiments, but in the sense that even nowadays, sword has become extremely symbolic and it was symbolic when it was used. For example, in the Middle Ages, it appeared again in the pictures and heraldry and so on.
00:34:21
Speaker
But also nowadays, when warfare is most definitely not carried out with swords, swords have a big, big impact on us and in our symbolism.
00:34:36
Speaker
forget about science fiction, which is big also in technological sorts and so on, but also if you find any heraldry about law enforcement or just law or government or even like medicine or something like that, there is probably a sword used to fight against something evil, for example. So it's very interesting that even
00:35:00
Speaker
If most of us never hold a sword, we still see something that is powerful in the symbol. And I see these, I'm not necessarily saying that there is the same attachment of significance and meaning, but
00:35:15
Speaker
Source seems to be a powerful symbol in the Bronze Age because, again, for the treatment in terms of the physicians, but also their presence in particularly lavish graves, and also the existence of completely non-functional aggrandized version of source, which were clearly something that was meant to be a symbol or ceremonial, that they exist and they did not make aggrandized, I don't know,
00:35:41
Speaker
brooches or anything. You could say the only thing, brooches are only, I suppose, in some ways. Oh, no, you do have, I guess, the big, I'm thinking of like the big Celtic brooch. And that's not in the Bronze Age. But no, but we have big, big brooches. We do have them. But it's not like that they are a big version of something small. They're just that that's their design. But we don't have like a much bigger, unfunctional version that should suggest that it's a symbol of something.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah. And how can you, I mean, you mentioned functionality and sort of symbols. So is there, is there, she says, knowing the answer, kind of, is there a way that you could see if a sword was used in the past? Yeah, I mean, I would hope so.
00:36:25
Speaker
At this stage, yes. Yes, for those who don't know what we're talking about, maybe you could elaborate on what you're doing. So again, one of the question, I think now that we've discussed about it, the audience might be mature for learning what they do in the sense that they can easily put the business together. The question is exactly,
00:36:46
Speaker
Why these weapons were deposited in these rivers instead of being recycled? Why specifically those weapons and not others which were probably recycled? And one of the questions is, is it because they were used just before or sometime before or multiple times? And the way I'm going to try to figure it out and trying to figure it out is by using experimental archaeology and micro-ware analysis that if you follow Matilda, you probably know a lot about it already.
00:37:16
Speaker
What I do is performing experiments with replicas of Bronze Age weaponry, see what kind of traces are developed according to certain activities on the bronzes, study those replicas and those traces under the microscope, building a reference collection,
00:37:37
Speaker
that then I use for when I go to a museum and study archaeological material, I compare the traces that I found on archaeological material to this reference collection to reconstruct more or less the biography of the weapon I'm looking at.
00:37:51
Speaker
Is it clear? Yeah, I think so. Well, I mean, the problem is I'm biased in this, I guess, because it's very similar to what I do, but I do it on bone tools rather than on bronze swords. You're creating these little, these little traces through the experiments. Do you then see sort of the same traces on the archaeological collection? Are you able to say anything about that at the moment or is that still? Yeah, no, no, I can say that and I also published some of it.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yes. I might not be able to say yet to what extent some traces are more prevalent than others, which can be indicative of different contexts and so on. But who knows? Maybe I will soon. And we can even rerecord this. But I can tell you, yes, that many, many, many weapons do bear traces of combat, or at least traces which are compatible with combat activity.
00:38:46
Speaker
On top of that, you need to add the fact that not necessarily each compact activity leaves a mark on the sword. If you stop somebody in a soft tissue, you will not...
00:38:59
Speaker
you will not create any trace on the sword, so I will not be able to identify it, but yet this sword would have been through combat. Likewise, also, Bood is difficult. I mean, sometimes can leave marks, but it's difficult to find marks produced by Bood, intact with Bood.
00:39:19
Speaker
And also combat, per se, sometimes some collisions of bronze against bronze because of the angle, because of the strength, do not leave very evident marks, which, if you consider also that most of the weapons are not in perfect preservation. I'm talking about the archaeological weapons. So they are corroded, and you lost part of the surface and part of the edge.
00:39:41
Speaker
The fact that you can find a considerable amount of use word traces or combat related or combat compatible use word traces is telling. So it's likely, or it's possible, shall we say that there were many more, but they have just corroded away. Yeah. I mean, you could even dare to say, and again, I'm not going to publish this, but I'm saying like the technical corrosion finds its way into cracks. It's easier corrosion to attack.
00:40:08
Speaker
the portions of the bronze which is already damaged. So you could even say that the Moscow rooted items, the ones which do not bear traces, were in fact the ones who bear the most.
00:40:23
Speaker
I think, I mean, hey, you've published it here now. We're all going to go around and say no, but I heard this archaeologist on the podcast saying that. I would say that it's a possibility that some of them which do not bear traces of use might actually have been because of use, but maybe not all.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, no, but that's really cool that indeed because like you say metal preserves kind of notoriously badly in most contexts, it does indeed corrode very easily. Would you say that bronze corrodes like in relation to something like steel or iron? Does it corrode a lot more or is it generally better in terms of preservation?
00:41:00
Speaker
I will not say if corrosion is... I mean, I'm not a conservator, so I don't know if I'm using the term correctly, but I don't know if they corrode less, definitely they oxidize less, like bronzer coproloids oxidize less, and they preserve their structure more. The reason also why there is a lot of use where
00:41:21
Speaker
not a lot actually, but some use where studies are coming out recently about bronze implements, but not too many about iron and implement is also because of that. But technically, you would I also had the opportunity to study some later sorts and
00:41:39
Speaker
If they're well preserved, you could see the marks. In general, yes, to just give the audience like a straight answer. Yeah, bronze tends to preserve better. Okay. Yeah. I think we've learned through this entire episode, never ask for Larry or something. I'm sorry.
00:41:54
Speaker
No, it's good. But I think that this is important. Like you mentioned a couple of times already in this episode, one of the things about studying objects in the past and focusing indeed on the archaeological objects is, I mean, like you say, the fact that you're looking at these traces.
00:42:09
Speaker
to 90% or whatever of the traces might have been corroded away. I mean, that's just an abstract number that I pulled out of my head, but it's sort of even the evidence that we have, we can't ever be sure that that is all the evidence. I mean, you know, well, it's definitely not all the evidence, but like we can't be sure that we're not losing the majority of the picture just because it hasn't preserved well. So I think it's, yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker
I don't know, I think that it's always important as an archaeologist to add those caveats in and hopefully audiences listening to this or reading papers or anything will then understand that just because one archaeological evidence sort of says one thing, that doesn't mean that that's it. And that's the entire picture. Yeah, don't trust me.
00:42:52
Speaker
You know what I mean. And so you already mentioned that kind of Bronze Age swords, the sort of fascination with them came from the fact that there's no kind of historic record to go alongside them. But you also mentioned that the styles of the swords changed quite a lot within the Bronze Age already. I mean, how much variation do you see and do you think it's related to the changes in use? Do you think it's just changing style or fashion over time?
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah, there is, it's a multifaceted answer. In the sense that yes, there is both similarity and difference. And that's what's fascinating in the sense that of course, there is like an evolution, or at least a change over time, and also some regional changes.
00:43:38
Speaker
But there are also some types of weapons which are completely widespread. You can find them from Greece to some items even in Egypt, but also the same time you can find them in Scandinavia. So there are some objects which you think, OK, this is a design that really works. And a lot of people have used and found reliable and comfortable to use, or compatible to use according to their own needs and tactics. But there are also some differences.
00:44:08
Speaker
Overall, as you said before, you can say that this leaf shape is the one that may be in different kind of variation from England to Poland, for example. But more or less, they were similar, but they're also a source which will define a carved stone shape.
00:44:26
Speaker
which is basically a little bit tougher towards the end. And again, especially at the beginning, we see much exploration down towards the kind of rockier kind of design of like long or less long, but very narrow kind of blade. So there is a change.
00:44:43
Speaker
With that, just out of curiosity, you mentioned the long thin blade. I mean, because you were talking before about the fact that it's a sort of hardening and annealing and hammering process is quite sort of almost delicate to make sure that you have that balance of it being just hard enough, but not overworked with something like a rapier with a really thin blade. Does that mean that that would require a lot more, open quote, skill, close quote, to make?
00:45:07
Speaker
Possibly like you could say maybe that also the spread of a certain dimension in thickness, but in thickness, but also in length was also the result of Smith's thinking, okay, yeah, this is just much easier to do. But in general, it's also a problem of the material per se, like, uh, the more you make a bronze object long, the more you need fake to not bend on its own. Because again, it's, uh, it's not the hardest.
00:45:34
Speaker
But you can do the same consideration for any kind of material, like you can cut a piece of cardboard and you can see how long you can get it until it goes, it curves down, basically. So that's one of the reasons why they are so short, or not so short, it's one meter, a little less than one meter, the longest. But yeah, for sure skill is required also to do this kind of consideration.
00:46:04
Speaker
It's also, it's also about a lot about different ways of use. So for sure, you cannot use one of those leaf shaped swords you were mentioning before and those kind of ravers in the same way. So it's also, I guess, then you, you, you end up with the chicken and egg question is whether they changed the sword and the first, because it was easier to make, or at least more functional. And then they changed their combat style, or they actually adjusted the sword to their new developed combat style or context of use.
00:46:34
Speaker
you
00:46:35
Speaker
Which is interesting because I know that so from sort of medieval, which I believe is also from my memory, what your, the experiments were kind of based on with the historic texts that we have, which do actually say the kind of different positions and stuff. Do you think that that would have also been happening in the Bronze Age? Like there would have been almost the kind of set combat style or learned thing. I suppose a lot of people when they think about prehistory, even something like the Bronze Age, which is a bit more recent, I suppose.
00:47:05
Speaker
all automatically assumed that there wasn't really kind of armies or there wasn't sort of combat schools or anything like this but what can you what can you say about that? Were there things like that or was it indeed a little more disorganized?
00:47:19
Speaker
Ah, these are also another question that could require a whole podcast. Because it's warfare in the Bronze Age and tons of books have been written about it. So first of all, they were Bronze Age army for sure. And we know it precisely because of we find there were people during the Bronze Age, they were writing and they were in the Middle East in the or the Near East according to what they call it. Anyways, Mesopotamia, Egypt,
00:47:47
Speaker
These people could write and they were or even depict scenes of battles with armies of soldiers armed with bronze weapons. So at least in some part of the world, they were most definitely armies.
00:48:00
Speaker
Now, the question is, were there armies in central or northwestern Europe? This is a very fascinating and also quite complicated question because it also begs the question, were there political systems capable of raising armies in these areas similar to the states that were actually in the Levant and that we know were capable of raising armies?
00:48:30
Speaker
We seem to have find in recent years evidence of large scale conflicts of with hundreds and hundreds of individuals involved. So there is a suggestion that maybe if not armies at least like a
00:48:45
Speaker
an alliance of many tribes could perhaps come together at a certain point for large-scale conflict. This has been said about combat schools. I don't know if there are combat schools in the sense of literal teaching, but we know
00:49:00
Speaker
Yes, most of the archaeologists listening, but also crafters, the event counter, there are ways of doing things which change. So as much as a pot very much looks the same, there's no way to tell if the pot has been made according to the same technique. So maybe even if the same kind of weapon is found,
00:49:22
Speaker
in much, much different countries, much different regions, very far away, you can not definitely, most definitely say, yeah, they were used the same way, they were probably used.
00:49:34
Speaker
differently. And also we need to keep in mind context, like maybe again, some some weapons were used for open warfare, some others as a primary weapon, some others not some for dueling. So it's a lot of questions we are still have to answer, we still still have to answer.
00:49:54
Speaker
I do, I always say I gave a workshop recently on my core analysis and one of the things I mentioned was like, yes, when you do any kind of research with sort of, especially prehistoric objects, I would say you end up getting more questions. Like the more research you do, there's so many more things. Just to also give less of a bleak scenario that we don't know anything. So let's say my research continues. I mean, I hope it could, if we continue, it would be concluded. But then I need more people
00:50:22
Speaker
joining the effort. Let's say altogether we basically need to map a lot of the bronze weapons in Europe, for example. And we also managed to find an agreement on how do they find races and quantify them.
00:50:36
Speaker
Yeah, again, but then you could see patterns, even if we, for example, within the same type of sort in different places of Europe, do you see distribution of certain traces in terms of frequency, but also in terms of what type of trace? And then you could maybe see, indeed, different ways of using the same item.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that would be very cool. That would almost be like time travel in a way. I also really liked the idea that you sort of alluded to before as well, that, you know, you say Bronze Age, but like you say, that can mean so many different things depending on where you are. I mean, 5,000 BC or 3,000 BC was very different in like the Netherlands to in Mesopotamia. I mean, it just looked, it was completely different. Yeah. Society.
Sword Distribution and Gender Roles
00:51:23
Speaker
So I think, yeah, like you say, context.
00:51:24
Speaker
But indeed, we know, not in 3000 BC, but maybe in 1000, there was communication. You could see objects. Again, there is one specific type of sword, which you can find from Scandinavia to Egypt, with different kind of density, of course.
00:51:43
Speaker
Yes, which also begs the question, was there because of trade or was there because of mercenaries? Like this spread, like was the same kind of people traveling across Europe or was the sword traveling across Europe? Then you get into material agency and all this whole fun material culture theory, which I guess, like you say, is probably for another podcast episode.
00:52:03
Speaker
But yeah, and you talked about your future of research and what people should do to join the movement. But if anyone else wants to start a similar kind of research project or look into swords, I mean, it's such a cool topic. I can imagine that you get so many people interested probably in pursuing this line of research. What advice would you have? What tips would you have? Do you have any suggestions apart from, you know, don't do it.
00:52:30
Speaker
Well, you can do it. The first thing is you're lucky in the sense that when I started, one of the reasons why I had to do this experiment is that I did not have an irreference collection. And so I didn't know what a sword mark against another sword colliding against another sword would look like.
00:52:48
Speaker
And now whoever wants to start now will have not only my contribution to this, but actually several other people, not several, but a few other people are trying to do this. So they have more information to work on, which is good. But again, we need basically field agents, like again, not the everywhere. So if you're somewhere in a country that nobody has ever looked at those swords, that just you should go and check them and report them.
00:53:16
Speaker
report what you find. So my advice is read something that you finally have available, which is these experimental papers. And then as you probably can relate, just practice a lot. I mean, you need to train your eyes to spot things on the microscope. And if you want to do exactly my type of research, but otherwise there are different kinds of things you can do with metal weaponry, which is, for example, understanding
00:53:45
Speaker
their composition and their material properties and maybe compare them again to different types or the same type across places and so on. And actually since you mentioned a lot of people coming to me to talk,
00:54:03
Speaker
there's also not only I mean I study warfare and what it means and I study also who could potentially have handled these weapons of course and a lot of questions come from people who asks about the identity of the warrior and what what does he mean to be a warrior and interestingly there are a growing number of women interested in this and also wondering wondering if for example
00:54:33
Speaker
were their female warriors and so on. So again, these cold wars would be another aspect of warfaring the Bronze Age people might be interested in studying and researching.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, no, it sounds amazing. I mean, it sounds like there's so much potential indeed for even just what we've talked about today. There's, you know, we had one hour and we already made, I think, about 50 different comments of, but that's, you know, that's a topic for another podcast. So yeah, definitely a lot. So you have me as a fielder, whenever you don't really know who to invite and what to talk to, then you always have a back up. Well, we could do Valerio's episode part 24.
00:55:12
Speaker
Sounds good. But we have now been talking for quite a while, so that probably could mark the end of our tea break. And perhaps we should, it sounds like you've got a lot to do, a lot to research in the future of swords. So thank you very, very much for joining me today, Valerio. Thank you for having me. And yeah, if anyone wants to find out more about Valerio's work or the history of swords or anything like that, check out the show notes. I'll put some lovely links on the podcast homepage. I hope that you enjoyed our journey today, everyone. See you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Trucking.
00:55:44
Speaker
I hope that you enjoyed our journey today. If you did, make sure to like, follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll see you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Trouble.
00:55:56
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.