Sharpening the gladius/Flesh wounds

[john m roberts]

Isn't it likely that the blades were ritually "killed" prior to deposit by banging them together edge to edge?

[M. Demetrius]

While it doesn't mean it didn't happen, I have never read of Romans "killing" their swords. I think they viewed them as tools, not entities.

[ParthianBow]

Excellent replies - many thanks. All provide good imagery to use in a novel - the men sharpening swords outside a latrine, men with their own sharpening stones, and unit armourers too. Thanks a lot to everyone for their contribution...

[john m roberts]

While it doesn't mean it didn't happen, I have never read of Romans "killing" their swords. I think they viewed them as tools, not entities.

The Scandinavian bog finds were Germanic sacrifices, though some of the gear was of Roman origin.

[Medicus matt]

Isn't it likely that the blades were ritually "killed" prior to deposit by banging them together edge to edge?

That's what I thought as well. Edge to edge contact hard enough to repeatedly leave those sorts of notches doesn't seem very likely to me unless it was deliberate and part of the ritual of deposition, like bending them.

[Gregg]

I would tend to doubt that the notches in the blades indicate ritual "killing" of the weapon. From what I understand, weapons were "killed" (severely bent or broken) to prevent them from being used again. There is nothing about these notches that would have prevented the sword from being reused. Also, not all the swords deposited in the same bogs have this damage, and of those that do, some have very few notches. For instance, one sword from Nydam has only a single notch, while others have none at all.

Back when I was a kid, a friend and I used to bang around a couple of cheap iron Spanish medieval broadsword replicas. The kind of damage we did to the edges was almost identical to the type of damage seen on these late Roman swords. This may suggest that untrained Germanic warriors tended to slash wildly at each other. But it may also be a commentary on the poor quality of steel on these swords.

Gregg