Swords, Knives, Daggers-Historical evolution

Notebook: earthyflavorance's notebook

Created: 05-05-2011 01:03
Author: Gurpreet Singh at earthyflavorance.biz
Tags: daggers, knives, swords
URL: www.swordsknivesdaggers.blogspot.com

V isit our site for our collection of S w ords, Kniv es, Daggers at http://earthy flav orance.biz/sw ordskniv esdaggersw eapons.aspx

In this article, I have attempted to dwell into the “evolution” of Swords, Knives and Daggers, which are all Melee
weapons, or cold weapons.

Ancient weapons were evolutionary improvements of late Neolithic implements, but then significant improvements in
materials and crafting techniques created a series of revolutions in military technology. The development of metal tools,
beginning with copper during the Copper Age (about 3,300 BC) and followed shortly by bronze led to the Bronze Age
sword and similar weapons.

Kragehul I (DR 196 U) is a migration period lance-shaft found in Fyn, Denmark. It is now in the collection of the
National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. The spear shaft was found in 1877 during the excavation of the
classic war booty sacrificial site Kragehul on southern Funen. The site holds five deposits of military equipment from the
period 200 to 475 AD. The spear shaft probably belongs to the latest deposit.

The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, from the late 3rd
millennium BC in the Middle East, first in arsenic copper, then in tin-bronze. The oldest sword-like weapons are found at
Arslantepe, Turkey, and date to around 3300 BC.[3] However, it is generally considered that these are longer daggers,
and not the first ancestors of swords. Sword blades longer than 60 cm (24 in) were rare and not practical until the late
Bronze Age as at longer lengths the tensile strength of bronze starts to decrease radically, and consequently longer
blades would bend easily. It was not until the development of stronger alloys such as steel, and improved heat
treatment processes that long swords became practical for combat. They were also used as decorations

The hilt, either from organic materials or bronze (the latter often highly decorated with spiral patterns, for example), at
first simply allowed a firm grip and prevented the hand from slipping onto the blade when executing a thrust or the
sword slipping out of the hand in a cut. Some of the early swords typically had small and slender blades intended for
thrusting. Later swords were broader and were both cutting and thrusting weapons. A typical variant for European
swords is the leaf-shaped blade, which was most common in North-West Europe at the end of the Bronze Age, in the
British Isles and Ireland in particular. Robert Drews linked the Naue Type II Swords, which spread from Southern
Europe into the Mediterranean, with the Late Bronze Age collapse.

Swords of the Migration Period (4th to 7th centuries AD) show a transition from the Roman era Spatha to the "Viking
sword" types of the Early Middle Ages.

The blade is normally smooth or shows a very shallow fuller, and often has multiple bands of pattern-welding within the
central portion. The handles were often of perishable material and there are few surviving examples. Surviving
examples of these Germanic Iron Age (Vendel period) swords had blades measuring between 28" and 32" (710 and 810
mm) in length and 1.7" to 2.4" (45 to 60 mm) in width. These single handed weapons of war sported a tang only some
4" to 5" (100 to 130 mm) long, and had very little taper in their blades ending in usually rounded tip.

The francisca (or francesca) is a throwing axe used as a weapon during the Early Middle Ages by the Franks,
among whom it was a characteristic national weapon at the time of the Merovingians from about 500 to 750 AD and is
known to have been used during the reign of Charlemagne (768 - 814). Although generally associated with the Franks,
it was also used by other Germanic peoples of the period including the Anglo-Saxons, and several examples have been
found in England. Francisca was used as a projectile to be thrown on signal, in the first charge and thus shatter the
shields of the enemy and kill the men. Franks threw their axes immediately before hand to hand combat with the
purpose of breaking shields and disrupting the enemy line while possibly wounding or killing an enemy warrior. The
weight of the head and length of the haft would allow the axe to be thrown with considerable momentum to an effective
range of about 12 m (40 ft). Even if the edge of the blade were not to strike the target the weight of the iron head could
cause injury. The Franks were not the first to utilize the Francisca. The Francisca was also used as an intimidator in
that upon throwing of the Francisca, the enemy might turn and run in the fear that another volley was coming. Another
feature of the francisca was the tendency to bounce unpredictably upon hitting the ground due to its weight, unique
shape, lack of balance and slight curvature of the haft, making it difficult for defenders to block. It could rebound up at
the legs of opponents or against shields and through the ranks. The Franks capitalized on this by throwing the
franciscas in a volley in order to confuse, intimidate and disorganize the enemy lines either before or during a charge to
initiate close combat. Today, the francisca remains in popular use as a throwing axe in competitions or as a weapon for
reenactors of medieval warfare
reenactors of medieval warfare

The “Seax” is said to have originated with the Anglo-Saxons”. The Anglo-Saxons, better known as the English, were
originally named after the knives they carried. These were the "Saxe", which incidentally still means "knife" in modern
North German dialect, North Germany being where the ancestors of the English came from. So, the "Saxons" translates
into modern English as the "knife-men

Seax (also Hadseax, Sax, Seaxe, Scramaseax, Scramsax and Sachsum - in Old English means knife or cutting
tool. In modern archeology (and further in this article), the term seax is used specifically for the typically large knives
that were worn by men in the 5th to 11th century, in the region roughly enclosed by Ireland, Scandinavia and Northern
Italy. In heraldry, the seax is a charge consisting of a curved sword with a notched blade, appearing, for example, in the
coats of arms of Essex and the former Middlesex.[3]

Amongst the shape and construction of seaxes there is a lot of variation. The most frequent characteristics are:

* A tang in the centerline of the blade, inserted into an organic hilt (wood, horn)
* A large single edged blade
* The blade is worn horizontally inside a scabbard attached to the belt, with the edge of the blade upwards.

In Germany, the following types are defined for seaxes between roughly 450 and 800 AD, in chronological order

* Schmaler Langsax (narrow long seax)

* Kurzsax (short seax)
* Schmalsax (narrow seax) - Often have braided bands or snakes engraved in the blade, and frequently include metal
bolsters and pommels. Both the edge and the back are curved towards the tip, which is generally located above the
centerline of the blade.
* Leichter Breitsax (light broad seax) - Similar to narrow seax, but frequently lack metal hilt parts, and have simpler
decorations on the blade, such as parallel lines. Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally
located at the centerline of the blade.
* Schwerer Breitsax (heavy broad seax) - Have simple decorations on the blade if any, and long single-part organic hilts
(>20 cm). Both the edge and the back curve towards the tip, which is generally located at the centerline of the blade.
* Atypischer Breitsax (atypical broad seax) - Same as heavy broad seax
* Langsax (long seax) - Blades are 50 cm or longer, often with multiple fullers and grooves, patternwelded blades, and
long hilts similar to broad seaxes. The edge is generally straight, or curved slightly towards the tip. The back either
curves gently, or with a sharp angle towards the tip, which is located below the centerline of the blade.

The general trend, as one moves from the short to the broad seax, is that the blade becomes heavier, longer, broader
and thicker. Long seaxes, which arrived at the end of the 7th century, were the longest of the seax. These were
narrower and lighter than their predecessors. Initially, these weapons were found in combination with double-edged
swords and were probably intended as side arm. From the 7th century onwards, seaxes became the main edged
weapon (next to a francisca), sometimes in combination with small side-knives.

The rest of Europe (except for parts of Scandinavia) followed a similar development, although some types may not be
very common depending on location. In England long seaxes appear later than on the continent and finds of long seaxes
(as opposed to knives) remain very rare in comparison to finds of swords throughout the period

Another typical form of the seax is the so-called broken-back style seax. These seaxes have a sharp angled transition
between the back section of the blade and the point, the latter generally forming 1/3 to 3/5 of the blade length. These
seaxes exist both in long seax variety (edge and back parallel) and in smaller blades of various lengths (blade expanding
first, then narrowing towards the tip after the kink). They occurred mostly in the UK and Ireland, with some examples in
Germany around 8th-11th century. Some examples have patternwelded blades, while others have inlays of silver,
copper, brass, etc

Daggers and dirks have the longest association with combat knives dating to antiquity. The English may have been the
first to combine utility with defense when they introduced the "kidney dagger" in 1350. French and Italian daggers of the
14th century were the first to introduce the tapered and double edge point as a response to improvements made in
armor design and the need for penetration.

The rise in use of firearms led to the decline in combat daggers, until 1827 with the introduction of Jim Bowie's Bowie
Knife. The Bowie knife proved to be a capable design, replacing tools and weapons such as the tomahawk and in some
instances a sidearm (as firearms were not 100% reliable) on the American Frontier. In the early 1900s the large Bowie
Knives were made in smaller sizes as knives became regarded as tools and eating utensils more than as weapons.

With the evolution of modern trench-warfare and close combat warfare, many special extreme-ops knives have been
designed and used. We shall be taking these up in our next blog.