History Channel Query

never too sharp

never too sharp

Joined
Mar 7, 2007
Messages
3,951
I was watching an History Channel program a few minutes ago, and at one of the commecial breaks they came out with this fact: many ancient swords were found along riverbeds, and no one knows exactly why. That isn't verbatim - I've already forgoten the exact wording, but it's close enough.

Why is this? At first I thought of dead soldiers being sent down the river with thier armaments, but that is limited to only a few cultures(there was no cultural reference in the original statement). So, short of soldiers getting abushed at the water's edge, I can think of nothing. I'm totaly vexxed.

Please help me out here, lets throw some ideas around and see what happens.
 
It might be because in some ancient cultures, they were offered to a deity as a votive offering.

The Celts/Gauls did it. Many Celtic artifacts have been found in europe and attributed to this practice.

The Sacred River spiritual motif can still be observed today with the Ganges River in India.
 
National Geographic had a bit on this not too long ago, and Wolf_1989's explanation is the favored theory. Even so, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it--and it wasn't just the Celts who did it, either: some swords (if I recall) were found in rivers as far East as Bulgaria.

Interestingly, a lot of traditional practices still appear today of course in greatly modified forms...and even ones we don't do, we still remember. Curiously, no one knows what this sword-thrown-into-the-river tradition is supposed to be: there's no current tradition approaching anything like that, and no recollection of why it was done all over Europe.

A last point of interest: these weren't broken or ruined swords. Many of the swords were still in good enough condition for us to determine that people frequently threw brand spanking new swords into the water, often made to a very high degree of quality.

We really don't know why.
 
Also, don't forget that several ancient cultures (western, primarily) cremated their dead. Warriors (or possibly, chieftains) were sometimes placed in a boat along with treasured and necessary possessions for the next life. The boat would then be set afire and pushed out into the river enough for the current to catch it and start him on his way.
 
A large percentage of swords that have been found--as I recall the story--show little or no use whatsoever.

They're also not randomly placed, but frequently are found in clumps...but over a long period of time. Battle swords would, I would think, show more use, be more haphazardly placed (along with one presumes what would be human remains), and would also be from roughly the same point in time.

DaleFuller brings up the point of cremation. Of course, a burned sword would show significant evidence of burning (even centuries later). And while many of the Northern ancient cultures cremated, they (a) didn't all do it on water, (b) didn't do it extensively across Europe, and (c) the sword-thrown-in-the-river phenomenon continued long after cremations were replaced by (largely) Christian burials.

Mind you, I'm stretched as far as I can go on this subject--had I known never.to.sharp would ask that question, I'd have paid much better attention when reading the article! :)
 
geologist in the house!

we like to call pre-historic men cavemen but that doesn't mean they liked living in caves. ask yourselves, would you like to live in a dark, moist place full of rats, cockroaches and snakes? their remains and artificts are best preserved inside caves is all. but they preferred to live in the bright outdoors.

now, rivers are nature's garbage chutes. assuming something is small or light enough to get carried by flood water, it ultimately finds its way to rivers and maybe the sea. violent floods or even a strong current during a hard rain will transport boulders in rivers far but once the current subsides, the heavy material settle to the bottom of the river, get covered by silt, and wait for the next strong current to either uncover them or transport them again.

as you can see, rivers is where things get washed into, buried, and then get uncovered again. a sword that was burried in a ditch or a grave will stay buried unless man digs them up.

oh, there ought to be more swords found in caves and graves but there aren't that many caves.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top