Talk:Sword

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[edit] Remove Famous Swords Section?

We've already got a seperate list of swords here on wikipedia. Arguably, we can keep the Swords in History and Swords in Mythos/Legend, but the Swords of Modern Fiction? Like I said, we've already got a list of famous swords, this is just a very tiny excerpt of that list, and I think we should get rid of it. If you agree/disagree, say so right here. Otherwise I think I'll just remove it in a few months [or whenever I get back to this article and have the same revelation again]. ARBlackwood 10:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with removing most or all of the 'Swords in Modern Fiction' section. Listing every sword that has appeared in a video game or adventure story adds nothing to the article, and easily wanders into fancruft. I recently performed a similar excision on falchion. --Clay Collier 11:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Heh... I was cleaning it up right now and then read this comment. A few more minutes... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 11:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

clean it up and remove the swords from modern fiction, post a lazy link to the full article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.0.237.66 (talk • contribs).

It was cleaned. There are now only a hand full, and the link is there. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 23:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken Picture Link

My browser cannot view the picture of the Roman Spartha replica. Perhaps it would be a good idea to check the link and see whether it works. --UberNauf 14:42, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


"Humans have manufactured and used bladed weapons from the Bronze Age onwards." So what about the stone age? They made knives even small swords.

what was the small and long sword made of?


I've noted that the proper name for the Aztec weapon which is a wooden "paddle" with obsidian "teeth" set into the edge", is a maquahuilt. - WK.


Iron has more carbon than steel. Look it up.

[edit] iron verses steel

Iron has more carbon than steel. The artical is flawed in this one area.

Iron is an element. Carbon is an element. Neither 'has' neither, pure iron has no carbon at all. Steel otoh is not an element but a term that covers various mixtures of iron, carbon and other elements. Now, if the carbon content is too high to do any good, it is common to speak of "iron" again, just in the sense of "inferior to steel", and not with any chemical accuracy. dab (ᛏ) 07:07, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I can't print this article because the Asian characters mess up my printer. I'm using Internet ExploDer 0.6 with an HP Laserjet 6p

[edit] reorganization

we may want to re-organize this article a bit. The "types of swords" section is not very helpful, and it is pointless to have independent great sword, broad sword and long sword articles. Rather, we could have main articles on the individual Oakeshotte types (the myarmouries articles are very good examples for that), and redirect broadsword etc. here for more accurate classification. dab (ᛏ) 08:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think great swords and "long swords" should be the same article. Or great swords and hand-and-a-half swords for that matter.
The underlying concepts are very different. Hand-and-a-half swords are much more like ordinary arming swords than great swords.
However, arming swords (and other types of swords, too) are generally too similar as that seperate articles for each Oakeshotte type could be justified.
I guess keeping seperate articles on the basic types of swords makes sense. Articles on the individual swords of each period could either be included in those or created independantly. -- Ashmodai 14:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

articles on each Oakeshotte type does make sense, as shown by the myarmoury articles, if you only research enough detail. This article is about 'swords' in general, and should treat each type, briefly. If there is a section "longswords" on this article, there is no harm in redirecting longsword here. There is hardly a point in having separate longsword and spadone articles. arming sword, great sword, broad sword etc. could all redirect either here, or to a single one-handed sword article. Let me try and work out a scheme along these lines. The situation as it is is very confusing and unsatisfactory. dab (ᛏ) 16:55, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


I've attempted some cleanup, but it's not finished, of course. The main articles on sword types should go to

All enumeration of various names for swords should go to these articles, and on list of swords (e.g. a Spadone is essentially an Italian Bastard sword).

Special attention must be given to the articles great sword, long sword and broad sword. They are confusing. They should either be disambiguation pages, or discuss terminology, referring to these other articles for the discussion of the swords themselves. dab (ᛏ) 15:26, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] phallic symbol

Article states:

The connection between the phallus and the sword is no more clearly shown than in the Latin word for the natural covering of the penis, the sheath.

Well I would argue that the German Word Scheide is even more graphic, as it stands for scabbard as well as for vagina.
--BjKa 08:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

that's quite nonsensical anyway. Nobody disputes the sword is a phallic symbol, but the terminology is quite innocent, both in German and Latin. We need better resources to explore the phallic nature of the sword, so far that's just random observations. dab (ᛏ) 08:42, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

According to [1], vagina stands for a scabbard in Latin as well, and did not have the anatomical meaning in classical times. However, the etymologies of 'penis' [2] and 'phallus' [3] do not immediately suggest any direct analogies with swords and scabbards. Naphra 14:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wavy-edged swords

Can someone write a section of wavy-bladed swords? --User:Angie Y.

Reply: There is such information in the article titled Flame-bladed sword.

[edit] Symbol of power

'Swords also have served as symbols of power. As they required great strength to wield properly, much like the Norse battle axe, a large broadsword demanded respect in Medieval Europe. They were often incorporated into family crests with this same purpose.'

They don't require great strength. And larger swords like zweihanders were more often used by mercenaries, not those who had great power. removing addition Sethwoodworth 21:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I had it in mind to do that myself. --M.J.Stanham 21:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brittleness of Iron

I understand it, pure iron isn't supposed to be brittle, totally the opposite, in fact. I've heard several historical accounts of instances where soft iron swords would blunt themselves so quickly in battle that they'd be used as blunt objects instead of cutting weapons. One account even mentions warriors hurriedly retreating so that they could stamp their dented and bent weapons straight again under their feet.

Steel is actually much more likely to be the culprit in brittleness. The more carbon there is in a steel, the harder and less flexible it becomes. It's very possible to have such a thing as 'too much' carbon in a steel, especially concerning swords, where the sudden impacts that come with the occupation could easily snap a high-carbon blade in half.

A case where iron might be brittle rather than soft and malleable is if impurities in the iron ore hadn't been smelted out, and messed with the normal properties of the metal, which could be certainly be possible in the Iron Age's infancy. But it's misleading to say iron was put aside for steel because of its brittleness, since this really isn't the usual case.

I don't know. Take it with a grain of salt, and keep in mind I started off with 'As I understand it...' --J rathjens 06:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaking the temper of the metal for the general quality of the metal. A cast iron tub will shatter if you smack it hard enough. Rebar tie wire is soft enough to be bent by hand. The difference is in how the metal is cooled. There is evidence of very good differential hardening and temper in swords of the roman period.Sethwoodworth 16:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...well, I may be missing your point entirely, but cast-iron wasn't an option till the Industrial Revolution, wasn't it?

I'd always understood that the problem with early iron was keeping it hard (because they hadn't realized the benefits of quenching the metal over air-cooling). Maybe I've gone a bit too far back, and the dilemma the article tries to point out is the ancient people's struggle to perfect the quench after they'd used it to make the mettle too hard.

Maybe you could clarify. I admit my ignorance of pre-steel quenching technique. (Thanks for the response, I thought noone would answer!)

J rathjens 06:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


All right, I did a little more research. I think we may have both been misled by the term 'cast iron'...it wasn't until just this morning that I got to thinking about it, and realized that pure iron has a much high melting point than steel. That would mean that industries were spending an great deal more energy trying to melt iron when working with low-carbon steels. Cast iron's apparently an industry term that just got ran with, when in fact it has more carbon than most steels. That may have been what misled the anonymous poster in 'Iron Versus Steel' into thinking iron had more carbon than steel.

http://www.key-to-steel.com/Articles/Art63.htm

As a matter of fact, looking around I see that other wikipedia articles contradict this article's brittleness argument. This [4]shows that cast iron is subject to even more carbon and has a higher potential for being brittle compared to steel (to address the cast-iron tub's example of brittleness). This [5] contends that iron didn't take well to quenching, and that the development and adoption of steel was because of the softness of the metal.

I'd agree that quenching is critical in steels and other carbon/iron alloys, but I can't see that there's a whole lot of evidence to show that there was a problem with brittleness in plain-vanilla iron weapons, unless, like it was mentioned before, smelting wasn't quite up to par and there were impurities still left in the metal.

J rathjens 19:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Fachkunde Metall ISBN 3-8085-1153-2 makes it very clear that cast iron is not suited for tools facing shock forces, but rather tempered steel is used. The adding carbon story is nonsense. You get the carbon out of the cast iron to produce steel. Early Celtic steel, mentioned above with the bending swords, had very little carbon and was not tempered. Wandalstouring 20:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the information, but what I'm trying to address is whether an iron (in the pure-element sense, not an industry term like pig or cast iron) sword would really have problems with brittleness, given that it had been smelted of most impurities.

By pointing out cast iron's properties and the fact that it's actually a very high-carbon steel I meant to show that cast iron can be brittle, because, in steels quenching is paramount and determining whether a metal is fragile or durable.

What I'm getting at is, I'm fairly certain iron swords, which don't contain carbon and don't receive much benefit in edge-retention from quenching, would have more problems with softness and too much ductility than brittleness. That's mentioned in the section "Iron Swords" in the 'Sword' article:

Early iron swords were not comparable to later steel blades; being brittle, they were even inferior to good bronze weapons, but the easier production, and the better availability of the raw material for the first time permitted the equipment of entire armies with metal weapons, though Bronze Age Egyptian armies were fully equipped with bronze weapons.

Ultimately, it won't matter much to the casual reader whether "brittle" becomes "soft" or "ductile", but if you've ever played with iron, you know that the softest iron can practically be dented with a thumbnail. I was almost considering buying an anvil online, when I noticed a comment by a conscientous smith pointing out that the product, being iron (and not of the 'cast' or 'pig' variety), was going to spread, smear, and distort along the face within the first few hammer-strikes.

So, for accuracy's sake I'm bringing the brittleness fact up for review. I'm very new to Wikipedia; I don't think I'd feel very comfortable making the change arbitrarily and out of the blue. If one of the editors who follows the article's progress sees an inconsistency and will make the change, I think it might clear up a small mistake in what appears to be a good article. Maybe the person who researched/contributed the 'brittleness' fact in the article could explain their reasoning or give their sources?

J rathjens 04:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


Iron and 'cast iron' are two very different things. The process of heating iron to a high enough temperature means you are going to introduce large amounts of carbon (mixing charcoal with iron to fire it hot enough and to keep it from oxidizing rapidly in the massive heat) which pushes it past the 'steel' stage. Pure iron is incapable of being heat treated to a noticeable degree, this is because the properties derived from heat treatments comes from the (usually carbon) crystal structure inside the iron structure. At different temperatures these structures change differently. The goal of heat treatments, annealing, quenching, and tempering, are all to change this structure in a controlled way to get the hardness, and springiness you want. Pure iron. Very hard to come by, for the most part can be deemed useless Cast iron. Very high carbon content, brittle, hard to weld by most means. (haven't worked with cast iron) Wrought iron. Semi soft, nearly steel, not really heat treatable. This would be what early iron age swords are for the most part. Modern 'wrought iron' is usually a higher carbon content than a lot of historic stuff, making it mild steel. Steel. Iron with a carbon content of 0.8 to 1.7% (lower bound is likely wrong, upper can be disputed I'm sure) If no one else can provide proper cited works, I'll dig out my tech manuals after exams are over. I'm new and don't like to actually edit.--Talroth 04:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I can relate to your hesitancy with editing. Thank you for the input, but beyond the scientific properties of steel what I'm looking for is, is there historical and/or scientific evidence to justify the article's prior claims that (to paraphrase) early iron swords were brittle, and inferior to bronze?

Like you pointed out, pure and minimum-carbon iron is soft and doesn't take well, if at all, to heat-treatment. Knowing that, the first conclusion I came to was, Hmm, you'd think it'd be more malleable than brittle. Brittle implies hardness, and that would mean carbon, which wasn't recognized to enhance iron's properties until steel rolled around.

Now, though, as I think about it, there could have been some other explanation. Impurities was something I brought up: enough slag or other foreign chemicals and the metal might shatter when asked to endure the sort of impacts territorial to its business. It's easy enough to gauge a metal's properties when you're just working with ratios of iron to carbon; five or six playing off each other would be something else altogether for Bronze Age man. I'm going to revert that edit I made to what it was before (if someone didn't change it back already) and let the masses figure it out. Regardless of how we understand iron and steel to work now, it was a bit cart-before-the-horse for me to make the edit when it's within the realm of possibility that historical cirumstances could have been much less clear-cut. --J rathjens 04:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One of the few weapons that wasn't derived from a tool?

Shouldn't we add that the sword was one of the few weapons invented that wasn't derived from a tool or later evolved from a weapon into a tool? For example, the knife eventually led to the dagger, but both were used for hunting and other uses besides killing other people. The spear was both a hunting device and a weapon. Guns could be considered tools and weapons, since they are used for both hunting and warfare, but guns were invented as weapons before becoming tools of hunting. Only the sword and weapons of mass destruction are the only weapons (I can think of) that have never been used as tools and are still used mainly as devices to kill another human.

SCGhosthunter1 22:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Says who? Chemical weapons come from the same place as insecticides. A sword is just a long knife. Mainly today they are used as ornamentation or for martial arts practice. Mostly the first. Sethwoodworth 10:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Theblindsage 09:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)theblindsage

If you look far enough back into backsword typologies, such as the falx, or falcata, you begin to see associations with a scythe. A lot of swords also evolved from machete like tools, which are effectively axes.

What about missiles? They were never tools, only ever weapons. Yet, they're neither sword nor WMD. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.180.232.189 (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Excalibur image

I'm removing the Excalibur image from the Famous Swords section; it strikes me as merely illustrative (with a lot of D&D-style artistic license) instead of informative. And I'm not too sure about the value of the Ravana painting, either. Naphra 20:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Got Copied?

I couldn't find anything regarding the radius of curvature on curved Chinese blades, so I went looking on Google, and, lo and behold, another place has an article that's almost word for word, probably an earlier revision of this article. [[6]] What happens now? 67.180.178.97 00:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is also possible that the website you referred to copied from Wikipedia. I'll try and get in contact with the webmaster of that page until then I will place a copyvio notice on the page.--Joe Jklin (T C) 07:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
This link clearly shows (at the bottom) that THEY copy from WP (without proper GFDL markings apparently). Somebody should tell THEM. They even took this image. I am not an admin, so not restoring, but noted it on the copyvio page too. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 12:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Good job, I was looking for some sort of Wikipedia reference. The individual pages should really reference Wikipedia with the GFDL guidelines on them. I haven't heard back from the webmaster yet but when I do I will let him know.--Joe Jklin (T C) 13:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC
If you look at the last link of the copy under "REFERENCES and LINKS" there is a link named "Wikipedia GNU credit" which links to the "Wikipedia" page with Jimbo. That page clearly states: "PLEASE NOTE: there are many articles on this website which include content sourced from wikipedia and other copyright free websites, the credit for which is hereby awarded and otherwise recognised by a link to this page, or to the Wikipedia or other wiki site itself, in accordance with the GNU free documentation license." That page further has two links to the text of the GFDL. Also, next to the "Wikipedia GNU credit" link on the copy, there is a link to the original article page on Wikipedia. As far as proper credits and references go, that is about as decent as you can get.  --LambiamTalk 14:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the webmaster appears to have updated the indiviual pages in the last week or so. His links used to be the same as ours (the last one on that page was a wikibook link). So its really not an issue anymore.~ Joe Jklin (T C) 18:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Agree. I'm fairly sure that link was NOT there originally, the page was, and I had verified there was no link to it from Sword before stating above that they copy from WP. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 13:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Justice

The article says that the sword of Lady Justice is a symbol of her neutrality. Well, I would like to dispute that. I had learned from other sources that her symbol for neutrality is in the scales she holds. The sword meaning is that the will of Lady Justice must be carried on no matter who might be displeased by it - in other words, the veredict given by a judge is final and must be done, whether the parts involved like it or not. -Renan Sousa —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.8.249.120 (talk) 02:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Removed junk

There was some vandalism that claimed that the middle ages never happened, and talking to "Nate". Just before the "Bronze Age Sword" piece of article. I removed it. 209.180.232.189 18:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

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