Video: Did the Vikings use decorative swords that were useless in combat?
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
Scientists found that Vikings sometimes carried useless decorative swords that could not be used as real weapons.
It seems rather strange that a Viking warrior would be able to fight with a decorative sword if it could not be used in combat. Why did decorative swords become popular with the Vikings?
For a Viking, the sword was much more than just a weapon. Because swords were complex, they were rare and expensive, and therefore were not as common and used by kings and vikings of high rank and class.
The Vikings believed that a man and his sword were tied together. The sword gave power to the warrior, but the warrior's power could also be transferred to the sword.
This is also the reason why we often see wonderful stories of magic swords in many Scandinavian myths and legends. The Norse people were convinced that some swords were as powerful as the gods. Tyrfeeding and Gram are two famous magic swords in Norse mythology.
The Norse legend of the hero Sigmund and the magic sword in the Branstock tree mentioned in the Sigurdsag, which is part of the Wolsung Saga, show why swords were considered such unusual properties.
Some Viking artifacts remain an unsolved mystery today. One such example is the Ulfbert Sword. It is an ancient artifact far ahead of its time, and we do not know whose name is written on this mysterious ancient sword.
Not long ago, scientists discovered the importance of Viking decorative swords. A neutron diffraction study carried out on three Viking swords from the National Museum of Denmark showed that these weapons were created using pattern welding, a technique in which thin strips of different types of iron and steel are welded together and then folded, twisted and forged in various ways to creating decorative patterns on the resulting surfaces.
All three swords date from the ninth or tenth century AD and originate from Central Jutland in what is now Denmark.
According to Anna Fedrigo, a research assistant at the Technical University of Denmark, this was the first study that allowed researchers to practically understand how Viking swords were made, showing how different materials were combined together.
The scientist says that such swords, covered with beautiful ornaments, became symbols of power and status, and they were almost never used because they were never intended for combat. As the role of swords changed in Viking society, these "weapons" simply became a decorative attribute of power.
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