about swords, iron/steel and some physics

[Dan Howard]

I am loathe to bring up the "ceremonial use" cop-out but, in this case, it might actually apply. The problem with Celtic swords is that a lot of the examples we have today were religiously sacrificed. We don't know how many of them were functional swords and how many were made for the sole purpose of being sacrificed. We know that some of their sacrificed swords were never meant for combat because they were not finished - they are unsharpened, or missing rivet holes, etc. It is possible that the high percentage of low quality blades reflect the fact that our sample does not include many swords that were ever intended for battle.