about swords, iron/steel and some physics

[Crispvs]

As someone who is certainly not a chemist I have found this fascinating thus far. There is just one small contribution I think I should make:

"high status examples as the "sword of Tiberius"."

The 'Sword of Tiberius' is not a high status weapon. The apparent richness of the scabbard led art-historical types to assume it was a gilded presentation scabbard decorated with specially made portraits of Tiberius which must therefore have been one of a limited set of 'presentation' swords in special scabbards, perhaps even presented by Tiberius himself. Unfortunately the reality is a little less glamorous. The scabbard is actually made from tinned brass, like so much other ordinary Roman military kit and the portraits are stamped, rather than individually worked, just like plenty of other known pieces of Roman sword scabbards which have clearly been 'mass produced' by being stamped (just like plenty of portraits of Tiberius between a pair of cornucopia which have been stamped into belt plates). Several surviving scabbard parts from Vindonissa can actually be shown to have been made in the same formers as each other. It was only the apparent richness of the scabbard to untrained eyes which led to it being dubbed 'the Sword of Tiberius' and being awarded the status of a high status item, rather than the perfectly ordinary item it really is. Sadly the BM have yet to update the card in the cabinet it is housed in, even though staff there tell me that they are well aware of the fact that it is not a high status weapon.

Sorry to pull this excellent threat OT, but I felt it should be said. As far as I know, we do not have an identifiable example of a high status Roman sword to check the composition or quality of. In fact, as far as I know, the only sword which can be identified as having belonged to an officer (let alone a general) of any ancient army was the one from the siege mine at Dura, and that belonged to a Persian officer. :neutral:

Crispvs