Another seax

[dave74]

Had been playing around with this one trying to get the wide shallow fuller between the narrow ones. A little tricky but,think when it's all cleaned up it will come out alright.
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[richard robinson]

looks good Dave, nice to see someone else using chainsaw bars???


regards
Richard

[dave74]

Yep,just have to find some more chainsaw bars made out of this :lol:
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[AlexV]

Like it!

[Diocle]

Yep,just have to find some more chainsaw bars made out of this :lol:
[attachment=8762]011_2014-01-20.JPG[/attachment]

This is an awesome work! Compliments!

I've seen many Langobard Scramasax of even 70 or 80 cm. from many italian italian sites, but looking at the damascening (is it right? my English is horrid!) of the surface of the iron is really fantastic. Again compliments!

[Robert]

Hi Carlo,

The ones you looked at, did these also show damastierung (I use the German word :-) ) in swirling patterns or only long lines or not at all.

[Diocle]

Hi Carlo,

The ones you looked at, did these also show damastierung (I use the German word :-) ) in swirling patterns or only long lines or not at all.

Salve Robert.

No, sadly they didn't!
Neither the modern replies nor the ancient exemplars at the MAME in Rome, or at Bergamo or Udine, the ancient Langobard Scramasaxes and Swords are rusted and it's hard finding traces of damastierung, even because the forging of Langobard Scramasax was simpler than the technique used for the swords, it 'was manifactured forging and hammer shaping a single metal lingot.' , and exactly for this reason I was surprised watching the wonderful seax by Dave! The damastierung was reserved to the swords! this is proved by analysis on the blades found, so when I saw the balde of Dave I was wondering about the English Seaxes and their role inside the ancient Anglo-Saxon military tradition.
The Scramasax was a weapon 'with robust blade, with a thick back, more or less curving towards the point. Usually it had on both side of the blade, a wide groove limited by two parallel furrows along the upper part of the blade. Sometimes this decoration is replaced by two or more parallel grooves.'

In the Langobard area the matter is pretty complex: The Seax has been found mainly in Northern Italy sites, so probably the weapon had Eastern (avar) origins. The weapon was suspended to the second belt called 'migration belt' and the sword was suspended at the main belt, the dimensions of the Scramasax changed through the time: In the VI century they were pretty rare and short in lenght (30 or 40 cm.), then in the first half of the VII century the blade grew up to 50 cm., becoming almost a small sabre, then during the second half of the century the dimensions grew to 70 or 80 cm. alongsides the increased importance of the role of cavalry in the Langobard warfare, from the cuts in the bones that have been found, perfectly suited to the shape and the dimensions of the Scramasax, we have to suppose that an 80 cm Scramasax was a deadly weapon for mounted use.

The intriguing part of this story is that even if the weapon was in some respects a 'prestige' weapon (this is attested studying the ritual of the Langobard burials) for the best mounted warriors, the tecnique of fabrication and forging remained simpler than that of the swords, so for this reason, my surprise and interest for the work of Dave .... The whole problem of the social stratification in the langobardic society, its development and its connections with the quality, kind and amount of weapons and armours in the burial is the most complex and important question in the study of the History of the Langobards in Hungary and then in Italy.

I quoted the work of Marco Balbi, 'L'esercito Longobardo 568/774'

Sorry for the space I'm stealing here, now I shut up and give back the scene to Dave and his wonderful work!