Posted on 10/24/2015 5:33:35 PM PDT by ETL
Goran Olsen was enjoying a leisurely hike recently in Norway when he stopped near the fishing village of Haukeli, about 150 miles west of Oslo. Under some rocks along a well-traversed path, he made a discovery that's now the envy of every detectorist in Scandinavia: a 30-inch wrought-iron Viking sword, estimated to be about 1,200 years old, CNN reports.
One would think a sword that old would be so decrepit it could never be wielded again, but a Hordaland County archaeologist says it just needs a little polish and a new grip to be good to go.
"The sword was found in very good condition," Jostein Aksdal notes, per the Local. County conservator Per Morten Ekerhovd adds, per CNN: "It's quite unusual to find remnants from the Viking age that are so well preserved … it might be used today if you sharpened the edge." The extreme weather in the area likely had something to do with the sword's relatively unscathed condition: The mountains are covered in snow and ice six months out of the year, and there's no humidity in the summer, so the sword would have been protected.
No one's sure what the blade's backstory is yet, but scientists are already thinking beyond winter and into the springtime thaw. "When the snow has gone in spring, we will check the place where the sword was found," Aksdal says.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Did he pull the sword from a stone?
Leni
“I wonder what kind of handle it had and how it was attached. I don’t see any thru hole that would firmly hold it in place.”
It could be rigged up with simple duct tape.
The Vikings were among the fiercest warriors of all time. Yet only a select few carried the ultimate weapon of their era: the feared Ulfberht sword. Fashioned using a process that would remain unknown to the Vikings’ rivals for centuries, the Ulfberht was a revolutionary high-tech tool as well as a work of art.
Considered one of the greatest swords ever made, it remains a fearsome weapon more than a millennium after it last saw battle. But how did Viking sword makers design and build the Ulfberht, and what was its role in history? Now, NOVA uses cutting edge science and old-fashioned detective work to reconstruct the Ulfberht and finally unravel the “Secrets of the Viking Sword.”
NOVA Special: Secrets of the Viking Sword (54min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6woycxQzA0
Kewl.
There can only be one.
I watched that episode and was fascinated. When he “quenched” the sword in oil, it was like something out of a fantasy film.
It was in the last place he looked.
Or a member of ISIS... they like their decapitating cutlery on the dull side.
pine pitch and powdered charcoal make a mighty fine glue.
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