Ulfberht Swords - new onfo !

The Northern European-looking swords found around Northern Europe originated in Northern Europe? Imagine that!
 
Ack I hate those websites like that.

Loaded down with thousands of ads; takes all day to load and it locks my computer up anyway.
 
Historical research often goes to great lengths inventing complicated, far-fetched narratives in attempt to explain what's blatantly obvious. Historians need to better employ the principle of Occam's Razor, in which the simplest, most direct answer is quite often the correct one.
 
Disappointing to me that they build their article around wikis instead of the root publications. It is ok for the casual browser I guess and at least it gets more exposure of the information out there. It does offer the truly interested a place to start.

Case in point for the superficial. My nieces boyfriend hears me filing a sword blade in the middle of the night. Christmas day I am gifted a 2x6 carborundum combination Norton and 4ozs of Norton mineral oil. Well meaning I am sure but a month ago he had watched me use a water stone to do my kitchen knives. Anyway, I linked him some information on a fellow's full bore togi-dai for polishing upscale swords (Chris Osborn). Superficial to a tee, he liked it via his phone and simply replied "neat" "did he make it himself?" (the link included an expansive description of Chris building it). A thoughtful gift of little thought. Never enough stones and I have another lifetime supply of mineral oil for stuff like old fans. The stone will never see oil in my hands.

Go back to monumental building efforts (say the great pyramids) as lowly as some laborers might have been; figure maybe one in a dozen (or more) looked up at the end of the day while kicked back inbibing what they might and thought (or shared) "what we did". It is a philosophy that is drastically lacking in the fast food information mentality with marginal focus. All any can do is hope some look further in this life of we-ists, me-ists and I-isms as some sort of zen plateau.

Ah well :)

GC
 
From what I gathered from that article, only the hilt, guard etc. (not the blade), seemes to originate from Europe. The style in which the blades are forged at typical scandinavian, that's not news. However, I believe they imported the crucible steel ingots for the blades from the middle east, and forged the swords themselves, in scandinavia.
 
If the ingots were imported from the same source in India as Damascus swords were, it should show in the chemical analysis of the metal.
 
I recently posted some info on Hypefreeblades about iron making in Sri Lanka. This is an area that hasn;t in the past received much attention though obviously should. A comment made was that perhaps tehnology spread from east to west instead of west to east mostly from the water route ,Sri Lanka east rather from the land route like the Silk Route. We still have lots of questions about iron technology so keep and open mind !
 
I recall watching a documentary on these swords on, I think it was the Smithsonian channel...

Turns out, the ones inlaid with +ULFBERH+T are authentic, and the ones inlaid +ULFBERHT+ are period forgeries, likely trying to capitalize on the then highly regarded +ULFBERH+T swords. Still great swords, just not as good of steel as the genuine ones.

It was determined there too, that the steel ingots came form the middle eastern region, while the sword itself was constructed in the Nordic countries, as was expected.

**EDIT**

It was a special episode of NOVA, not Smithsonian.
 
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JasonJ said:
I recall watching a documentary on these swords on, I think it was the Smithsonian channel...

Turns out, the ones inlaid with +ULFBERH+T are authentic, and the ones inlaid +ULFBERHT+ are period forgeries, likely trying to capitalize on the then highly regarded +ULFBERH+T swords. Still great swords, just not as good of steel as the genuine ones.

It was determined there too, that the steel ingots came form the middle eastern region, while the sword itself was constructed in the Nordic countries, as was expected.

**EDIT**

It was a special episode of NOVA, not Smithsonian.
Click to expand...
You are thinking of Secrets of the Viking Sword

Richard Furrer with Kevin Cashen making a sword and a small host of others contributing.

[video=youtube;nXbLyVpWsVM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbLyVpWsVM[/video]

Cheers

GC
 
JasonJ said:
It was determined there too, that the steel ingots came form the middle eastern region, while the sword itself was constructed in the Nordic countries, as was expected.
Click to expand...

I'm hoping that no one here confuses consensus opinions of existing data with definitive proof. It appears that the metallurgical research is ongoing and all of the experts quoted in Secrets of the Viking Sword said only that it was "likely" that the steel came from the middle/near east. I believe that conclusion was based upon microscopic examinations of the swords' crystaline structures. This latest round of speculation comes from examining the metal isotopes found in a single sword that was discovered in the Weser River in 2012 using an atlas of lead isotopes put together quite recently. This sword would not have figured in the earlier study.

Adding to the confusion, the Weser River Ulfberht is an "ULFBERHT+" sword rather than an "ULFBERH+T." Make of that what you will.

Also, for all we know the "ULFBERHT+" swords may have been the ones to originally bear the mark and the superior "ULFBERH+T" were from a competitor with better steel sources, but of a lesser name. All we can do is speculate about what the data means.

I'm still leaning towards the idea that the best of the swords were made of imported steel by a very skilled Northern European smith, but there's a lot of room still for new discoveries that change the consensus opinion and make us rethink the history.
 
Considering people themselves haven't changed all that much, are we seeing proof of the first documented "asian knock off" here? :D
 
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