Bronze Age Weapons Prompt Surprising Discovery | BBC Timestamp

[@BBCTimestamp]

Were you surprised to find out where the arrow head originated from?

[@eamonwright7488]

The fact it was Switzerland yeah. I had hoped you were going to say Anatolia or Central Asia even! Great video!

[@BBCTimestamp]

@eamonwright7488 Thanks for watching!

[@onbedoeldekut1515]

Shields DON'T need or want to be thick when the wielder wants to be mobile. They're mostly employed against glancing blows, and to provide structural support for the rim, which does most of the heavy lifting regarding strikes against what will be the target of attack, the lesser protected areas.

[@rursus8354]

Not a whit.

[@monsvillerailways5736]

When was this filmed? What specialist still uses CRT Monitors?

[@Nick-zp3ub]

Are we sure the shield was only made of metal rather than wood and leather coated in a thin decorative layer of bronze?

[@carlhicksjr8401]

I should think the shield would be a veneer of bronze over wood as well. I was medieval reenactor for many years and I can't imagine lugging a wholly bronze shield thick enough to do you some good around all day.

[@sibhuskyguy]

@@carlhicksjr8401 i used to do recreation... even a wooden shield of a decent thickness with metal decoration is heavy after the first 20 or 30 minutes carrying it, even if you let your arm hang when not using the shield, after the first 30 or so mins it starts to feel really heavy...totally agree with you.

[@ycplum7062]

Bronze that thin (0.5 millimeter) adds weight, but no additional protection for a shield. You would probably need at least a few millimeter thick layer to do anything. And the metal would be expensive back then.

[@sibhuskyguy]

@@ycplum7062 metal that thin on a leather and wood backing i think would help disperse the force by bending around the blade before it's cut through, i feel like it would only do so much but anything helping dissipate the force is kinda helping with protection.

[@Vtarngpb]

Y’all just a bunch of LARPers lol

[@mikefule]

Although swords would sometimes come into contact with each other, the idea of sword and shield fighting is that the sword cuts at the opponent, and the shield protects the user. The shield is the main defence, rather than parrying or blocking with the sword.

[@carlhicksjr8401]

Absolutely true, but this doesn't mean that you never parried with your sword. It happens fairly regularly. I was a medieval reenactor for several years and fought sword and shield while doing so. Sword parries are one of the basic things you're taught [along with staying behind the coverage of your shield]. In order to strike your opponent, you have to expose your sword side to some level of risk. While good footwork provides most of your defense, a sword parry is also vital.

[@WhichDoctor1]

you say this after watching a vid where a scientist explains that at least 50% of the examples she has examined had evidence of sward on sward impacts

[@mikefule]

@@WhichDoctor1 50% of a small sample of all the blades that were ever used. However, I did not say that they never came into contact. I said that the main defence was the shield.

[@Hornet_Legion]

the empirecal evidence suggest otherwise

[@David0lyle]

I’m only a mediocre mechanic but if I were presented with a knicked sword I would be inclined to hammer the knick out before sharpening it. I would be surprised if damage was particularly easy to find. 🤔 I think they really were good looking but I can easily imagine that they weren’t hard to keep good looking even if they showed some use.

[@bloodvue]

Bronze work hardens and becomes brittle, you bash it straight you are just as likely to make it break off. Leave it until it's no longer useful and you get it recast.

[@SharekGadd]

Are you sure that shield wasn’t backed by wood?

[@carlhicksjr8401]

I should think the shield would be a veneer of bronze over wood as well. I was medieval reenactor for many years and I can't imagine lugging a wholly bronze shield thick enough to do you some good around all day.

[@mr-x7689]

At a point in time where every metal weapon was made out of the same metal, you dont need to worry about backing the shield. Bronze is a hard-ish metal. But not hard enough to penetrate a object of the same metal and hardness. it's like trying to cutt trough a cuttingboard made of plasic using a plastic knife. I'm a traditional blacksmith, with experiense of bronze casting and making bronze blades and axes. Sure the blades get sharp if you do a proper jobb, but the second you use them on ANYTHING they instantly get dull. And if you use two weapons made of the same metal ageinst each other both blades will either seriously chip or bend. The good thing about bronze is that even tho it's hard-ish it's still soft enough that it will bend rather than snap like iron and steel blades would. That means if the blade bends you could just heat it up a bit and just bend it back and re hammer the edge to "work" harden it. But that also means that you cant really cut trough or pierce a shield out of the same metal. The shield would just bend or dent at worst.

[@skyworm8006]

@@mr-x7689 You wouldn't try to hit a shield much less pierce it to begin with. You want to avoid that as much as possible, because it means they parried you and you failed to do anything. A shield doesn't need to be particularly resistant, only solid enough that it won't break easily. And being light enough to use properly is essential, otherwise it's useless deadweight. Striking the person is always the goal regardless.

[@spotontheroad1]

Refreshing to hear something other than "it was for ceremonial or display purposes'. Only people who have never personally made such a weapon from the base raw materials would suggest this because the effort involved is immense, too much just for show.. Ceremony and show is something that comes with comfort and safety, not an environment where daily life is one of permanent struggle to find water, food, shelter and security. These edged weapons confirm that. The skill of the makers is fabulous. It must have seemed like magic to others.

[@Urduhkhan]

The kings, chiefs, leaders, community patrons, they have always liked pretty things. I think the daily struggle argument is overblown. Old peoples, they knew the cycles of life. The berries come out in the spring, the fish run, the deer migrate, etc. In the winter shit's boring, so you make art! Or you mend nets and sharpen your tools and make babies. Once people figured out fire, I think there was a lot of spare time. And the bronze age was basically as sophisticated as modern society, minus electricity. They had parties and good times I bet. Showing off your skills and pleasing the boss is eternal.

[@peterc2248]

We often think that we're special but outside of the technological advances, we're not much different than they were. We have the same basic needs and the same instincts - whether it be killing or kindness. A bit of bling to show off down the mead hall with your mates but a decent sword to go marauding with.

[@carlhicksjr8401]

You show me a mead hall and a sports locker room and I'll show you 100 guys who need a shower and 50 guys who need a drink 🤣

[@helenamcginty4920]

"Not much different"? More like exactly the same. 😂

[@Urduhkhan]

I love these old CRTs. You can tell this was filmed in the 90s.

[@camp44mag]

Who else noticed the screen-saver on the CRT from the ancient days of this c2001 clip?

[@ArcaneUniverse-24]

2:48 - This part really got me thinking... 🤯

[@andybeans5790]

I've never considered a scrap bronze trade, as the time estimate given was just beforehand I wonder how the bronze-age collapse in the Med affected that trade?

[@vudu8ball]

Allways amazes me hoe ancient people moved aroung so much and traveled so fsr.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

If this little bit does that to you, how about the much more ancient humans traveling into south Asia and into Australia...something like 50,000 years ago. What they're showing here is recent history by comparison.

[@Urduhkhan]

That's the power of networking! You take your stuff 10 miles to a hub town, they take it 20 miles to another hub town, they take it to a harbor town 15 miles away, put it on a boat, etc.

[@fiktivhistoriker345]

Imagine the Egtved girl travelling from somewhere around southern germany to denmark twice. And the people who fought at the Tollense came from relatively far south too. And there is an old fairytale about a princess who travelled a long way to get married only accompanied by her maiden servant and her horse.

[@SG-js2qn]

You carry your weapon, hoping you never have to use it. But violent outbursts and criminality are common among humans, with maybe 30% of adults on that spectrum. As for the bronze scrap trading theory, I think another explanation is obvious: the bronze is a relic from an invasion / migration into Britain at 1400 BC.

[@BronzeAgeSwords]

this is a blast from the past

[@brianhiles8164]

There is no sufficient discussion of the matter that ancient bronze weapons, damaged in battle, would be afterwards reforged to mitigate damage. It´s easy to do, in regard of the malleability of even frangible bronze, with the application of heat. The ostensive edge deformation and chipping remaining would, statistically speaking, be that of the blade _not_ having been thus repaired, but buried in the grave along with the deceased warrior, which is how the majority of such weapons have been discovered.

[@charlesphillips4575]

Given how expensive the swords would have been, having them purely for decoration seems unlikely.

[@Lawraven]

How can you tell the difference between actual battle damage and damage that might arise from training? I can tell you from my time in the military that weapons get a great deal of wear and tear merely from training.

[@PanglossDr]

Good point.

[@spikefunakoshi5667]

As metal weapons were expensive to make, training was mostly done with wooden weapons. See Vegetius.

[@raphlvlogs271]

forms of material recycling and reusing have always existed since historical people were more resourceful than modern 1s

[@johnmatthews723]

I have a beautiful middle Bronze Age spearhead from ancient Britain about 1500 BC and it too shows clear signs of having been heavily used in combat….

[@Titus9508]

I can't help wondering, It may have been found with weapons but It's so delicate and light, was it a 'Standard' carried at the front of a procession?

[@brianvannorman1465]

Okay, for a moment I thought the scrap bronze was, maybe, ballast for the ships crossing the channel.

[@portastsic]

Waste We are so used to replacing things rather than fixing things. We have so much waste

[@paulbeesley8283]

The shield is very like one described in the famous children's story "Warrior Scarlet," by Rosemary Sutcliffe.

[@petersack5074]

Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. Of the large number of different types, the best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, and brass, using zinc instead. Both of these are imprecise terms. Latten is a further term, mostly used for coins with a very high copper content. Today the term copper alloy tends to be substituted for all of these, especially by museums. Copper deposits are abundant in most parts of the world (globally 70 parts per million), and it has therefore always been a relatively cheap metal. By contrast, tin is relatively rare (2 parts per million), and in Europe and the Mediterranean region, and even in prehistoric times had to be traded considerable distances, and was expensive, sometimes virtually unobtainable. Zinc is even more common at 75 parts per million, but is harder to extract from its ores. Bronze with the ideal percentage of tin was therefore expensive and the proportion of tin was often reduced to save cost. The discovery and exploitation of the Bolivian tin belt in the 19th century made tin far cheaper, although forecasts for future supplies are less positive. There are as many as 400 different copper and copper alloy compositions loosely grouped into the categories: copper, high copper alloy, brasses, bronzes, cupronickel, copper-nickel-zinc (nickel silver), leaded copper, and special alloys.

[@johnholmes6897]

Being a soldier where very little changes in policy but changes in weapons and some tactics. Most soldiers have their duty uniform and dress uniforms for ceremony and display. So it's possible they did the same thing then. Not to mention there were always units that were for display and ceremony only. The US Army calls them "Drill teams" airforce Thunderbirds Navy Blue Angels and the army even has a Jump team called "golden knights"

[@steven-v2x]

It makes sense that there would be fake shields but not fake swords. If you're going to take the trouble to cast bronze for a sword, you might as well make it useful.

[@MikeDial]

Traders have always had a bigger influence on history than kings and generals.

[@jerrycornelius5986]

Hang on. Most shields including Roman shields were made from leather and wood - light and strong. Bronze is heavy. If the shield was only for display it was because it had too much bronze.

[@rursus8354]

Just because we don't have written direct reports of the trade, doesn't mean that it did not exist! H. sapiens has traded a long time before the emergence of writing systems.

[@PanglossDr]

True. The Great Orme mine started around 2,000 BC. Before that time most of the copper in the West of Britain came from the Ross Island mine in Co. Kerry, Ireland. Most in the East of Britain came from across the channel. There was also a huge trade in Copper and Tin around the Eastern Mediterranean.

[@johnmay1109]

Some food for thought: all metal work was done using charcoal as fuel. A really major industry was the processing of vegetation into charcoal, and distributing it. This still goes on today in a few backwards economies, resulting in huge environmental damage.

[@PanglossDr]

The Great Orme mine started around 2,000 BC. Before that time most of the copper in the West of Britain came from the Ross Island mine in Co. Kerry, Ireland. Most in the East of Britain came from across the channel.

[@chrishartley4553]

In the British Isles at least - and by extension I would presume the rest of Europe- the wood was provided for the coppicing suitable wood. In particular, hazel. Managing a hazel wood into a several year-long rotation provides a sustainable source of material.

[@petrapetrakoliou8979]

metal coat is supposed to be very thin on shields, otherwise they get too heavy to weild.

[@stephencoleman3415]

So 100% chance they didn't add nickel or arsenic? sounds like modern science to me.

[@dennisbarker5986]

Each mine has certain impurities in the metal. Even 99 .999 gold can be tracked from that .001 % impurities

[@janmuyllaert8565]

2.44 " you know , they were used to kill people " what else do you think they were for ?

[@fireofhislove3395]

"Beautiful but absolutely useless" Sums up a lot of the modern era.

[@mrdanforth3744]

Read The Better Angels Of Our Nature by Pinker. The ancient world was far more violent than anything we know today.

[@oldlifter530]

You do know they made effective shields from thin wood and grass in Northern Europe.

[@AlbertaleoAlbertalei]

So, German steel has built its formidable reputation over millenia. 👍

[@jackd.ripper7613]

Or some bronze age kid took his father's sword off the wall and started playing Hercules or something...

[@cliffordchristopher1]

Sometimes i wonder if those ivory towers are a little high.

[@HootOwl513]

Perhaps your ultra thin shield [0:18] was only the veneer of a thicker wooden shield, but organic matter has rotted away. [0:18]

[@Xi_Pooh_Shill]

Half a millimeter? Pretty much like a foil.

[@LonesomeDove-dn8dk]

That's some pretty thick foil you use where you live. Half a mil is thicker than sheet metal and that's plenty thick enough to slow if not stop a cutting weapon. A stone arrow won't penetrate it, but a bronze one from close range probably will.

[@leaedt7614]

Oxford University's department of materials still has computers from the 90's!

[@bigblue6917]

This video is from some time ago. I saw a lecture By Sue Bridgeford back in the 90s after she had done these experiments so the computer was correct for the time.

[@AndrewRoberts11]

The clip's from the "Meet the Ancestors" series (though slightly altered), that was written, filmed, and originally aired, between 1997 and 2004.

[@gullybull5568]

​@@AndrewRoberts11so its innaccurrate outdated and highly speculative at best.

[@AndrewRoberts11]

@@gullybull5568 Newton's Principia Mathematica is still valid after three hundred and something years since FIRST being aired / published, Darwin's On the Origin of Species is still largely valid after almost two centuries, as is the speed of light and electromagnetic rules in Maxwell's century and a half old A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, let alone the over century old scribblings of Einstein. Facts don't change.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

@@gullybull5568 Damn, boy, aren't you embarrassed? I would be, if I said something that stupid in public. AndrewRoberts11 has already corrected you, but I'd like to point out that your anti-science attitude does you no good....

[@LostinBrazilRJ]

Why would you assume they were for show? Every empire, including contemporary British, armed their fodder with cheap, ineffective, weaponry.

[@mistersir3020]

Who proved that a half mm bronze shield is ineffective? The Viking shields were also very thin and made of quite soft wood weren't they.

[@mr-x7689]

Yes and no. Yes they where thin towards the edges as they were tapered. But they were also not really made of soft wood. Sure some probably was, but the quality ones was made out of hardwoods.

[@Raymond-zz5pi]

Maybe, just like gunfighting in the old West, the truth is less heroic. Hollywood and storytellers have convinced us of heroic battles and sword fights. Maybe people were actually less brave. I suspect that there was killing, but much less done face to face.

[@tomellis4750]

What does it mean that the sword damage was not repaired?

[@davidsmith5899]

A thin shield was used to trap swords and unarmed the attacker?

[@dafyddthomas6897]

50% of swords have chip marks consistent with use in battle. Which proves that 50% were "for show". But there are several ways of swords "for show". You talk of "hey, look at me, I can afford an expensive wapon." A better way of showing swords is wav them at the Enemy and the NME runs awayi

[@robcarter3341]

Swords, used for violence? Wut? I've never heard of this "for show" delusion...

[@rogerkarlsson3996]

There are certain ceremonial axes found in Sweden, they're cast with just a 1mm thin layer of bronze ower a clay core, so completely unusable as axes.

[@howardchambers9679]

We buy and sell scrap metal. We also tarmac drives! 😅

[@TineBeo]

Surprise discovery that swords were used for sword fighting... Someone's research grant was a money laundering exercise 😄

[@davephillips9389]

Since bronze is poured into molds, how often were tools and weapons melted down and made into something new, with scrap from multiple places?

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

Interesting thought, but I'd say they probably didn't mix all that much. If they did, I think the scientists studying the metal would have noticed, and I think I'd have run across a comment to that effect by now. I'm not young, and I've been interested most of my life.

[@kenbair]

No sumptuary laws constrain a king; Hephaistos wasn't sparing any cost. Achilles took the field, in epic bling! His enemies must know just whom they've crossed. To flee, or fight once they'd strayed near his path was all the same, before this day is done. This godling, incandescent in his wrath consumed them all, like aspic in the sun. Patroklos stemmed the tide in borrowed gear but failed to fool Apollo, so he died. To counterfeit the prince that god held dear mere armor can't ennoble what's inside. The wine-dark sea, the burnished bronze's sheen... Blind Homer conjured worlds he'd never seen.

[@chuckschillingvideos]

No, a shield is NOT just for "defense" - obviously you have no knowledge of how they were actually used in battle in the days when they were used.

[@LeNomEstYves]

True, I mean he said "mainly used for defense" not "just for defense". But this one is 1/2mm thick. It wasn't used at all

[@chuckschillingvideos]

@@LeNomEstYves You are correct in that. I was, of course, referring to his generalization, which anyone who has studied ancient fighting tactics knows is untrue. Shields make highly effective weapons a skilled warrior can use to his advantage.

[@zen4men]

When the BBC was not raging Woke - ============================ a welcome relief! Not watched the BBC for at least 5 years. /

[@TineBeo]

Celtic culture traded widely. Much nicer island before those Saxons arrived

[@Johannes_Brahms65]

nuclear weapons are for show only too.

[@TheJamesRedwood]

1:18 does not understand the meaning of the word hard. The harder something is, the more brittle it is. Softer metals are not brittle, they are malleable. They don't crack as much as they deform.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

I'm shocked at how many morons this video has attracted. As they said in the video, boy, the edges are hardened, and both chipped and deformed both experimentally, and in the real life examples. Why did you even come here, if you aren't going to watch the video?

[@jtay5426]

The shield was made of thick wood with leather handles, covered in a thin layer of bronze for show, to keep it light and functional. I am surprised at how some people can be so book smart, but so devoid of common sense, yet go to such lengths to make an uneducated moot point about an accent object they know nothing about, or how it functioned in the real world, yet they pretend to know so much, when they don't have a clue, and make a movie to prove it to the world..

[@evelynlamoy8483]

It may seem a silly source to pull from, but in the training arcs of the irish ulster cycle, we get the impression of a culture that puts a lot of emphasis in combat TRAINING. It may be a far stretch to apply it so far back in time, but I don't think its so unreasonable to assert that for every thrust made in actual combat, there would have been thousands of strikes taken in training to stay ready for real combat. So while we do have an overwhelming number of damaged weapons, there is still the lingering question of how often were they damaged in combat, from being used in combat, vs how often were they used in practice or ceremonial combat, or practical use (a robust bronze age sword is a fine machete if you need to clear a bush) Remember, the alien distortion of viewing these people thousands of years removed, with no written evidence can do a lot to strip away their humanity and make it easier to believe they were violent to a ridiculous point. Its always better to take a humanizing lens and try to understand what possibilities are possible, that the evidence materially can't convey to us.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

And you think they used expensive, easily damaged bronze swords in this training, such that they receive damage? When anyone who knows anything about Irish fighters, knows they used the shillelagh for both practice, and non-deadly conflicts. Of course, the average idiot knows nothing about shillelaghs, and only think of a short, stiff walking stick, when they are actually a range of different lengths and whatnot. You've probably heard the word "Donnybrook" referring to a fight--that's because the was a fair held in Donnybrook, and fighting with shillelaghs was a major feature. Sometimes people died in these fights...shillelaghs are capable of splitting skulls, and the ones they used were long and flexible, allowing strikes to bend over the opposing shillelagh, striking the opponent's head. Anyway, that's why you're 100% full of shit.

[@markwoods3689]

to my untrained eye the swords look like they were cast. I wonder if there would be a different result had they been smithed?

[@jtay5426]

This was bronze age tech, the swords were cast from molten bronze poured into a mold, not forged , your thinking of iron age swords developed a thousand years latter.

[@markwoods3689]

@@jtay5426 Th thats pretty much what I said

[@carlhicksjr8401]

I think that our two commentators are forgetting one aspect of warrior culture that would definitely damage swords... TRAINING. After the acquisition of a certain level of skill a warrior of this age no long trained with wooden weapons, they trained with the weapon on their hip. And they trained several times a week, not only to keep their skills up but as a public demonstration of their social rank as a warrior [which, in Celtic culture was just below that of the village chief]. This would then logically lead to a lot of wear and tear on the weapons, armors and shields. I do not mean to imply that all this training was for nothing. I have no doubt that Britannic Celts used their weapons in deadly earnest. But I am saying that all the damage to the gear is not solely from battle.

[@TheEudaemonicPlague]

I'm truly amazed at the number of ignorant people piping up to share their ignorant views! If you have evidence to support your assertion, then you'd better provide it--because you're talking complete and utter nonsense. Even after the Irish had iron weapons, which can take far more abuse, they still used shillelaghs to practice swordsmanship. I'm not going to repeat myself here (because I already explained this in another comment), but, until you learn a few things about this, you should not offer your ignorant opinion. My knowledge of this stuff comes from half a century of reading and paying attention to history. I own books about shillelaghs, that tell everything from how to select wood and make them, to how they were used historically, and currently. Until you've put effort into learning, you'll remain ignorant, and I suspect...will continue to spread ignorant nonsense.

[@ycplum7062]

You do not need to work harden the edges of a display bronze sword.

[@raphlvlogs271]

bronze composition is supposed to differ among each others since there was no standard

[@robertwatson818]

Clearly for display only. How so? It is NOT clearly for display only. Another fabrication by experts.

[@kcgunesq]

What a bunch of navel-gazing academics. Of course swords made from state of the art materials were used for fighting, but the test damage doesn't prove anything other than it could be damaged if it struck something sufficiently hard or if the particular metal work was poor. I don't see anything in her experiment that rules out a couple of kids couldn't have done swinging that sword at a rock or tree. Although i doubt that was the origin of the damage, her test doesn't say it couldn't be.

[@MinnesotaBeekeeper]

A massive amount of copper was mined in lake Superior, Minnesota. To this day we have no idea where it went. The American Indians did not use it.

[@LonesomeDove-dn8dk]

What are you talking about? We have ample evidence of it being traded all over North America and used by natives for over 5000 years.

[@jasonflay8818]

Correction: Native Americans used copper but only in small amounts. The Mississippian Empire ( I'm the only one calling it that but that is what the Mississippian culture was) hammered copper sheets for decorative friezes on my icipal structures. Several were found at Cahokia outside St. Louis. Copper beads were found. Interestingly to date no Native tool production has been found, but copper absolutely was used as a decorative material in the woodland period.

[@mikegonzales8520]

Correction - the native Americans of 9000 years ago used the copper to make tools and then found that the pure copper tools were worse than stone and went back. Metals were used throughout the Americas for religious and decorative uses. Sources: the Dirt Pod podcast and 1491 by Charles Mann

[@jasonflay8818]

@@mikegonzales8520 I stand corrected. I had never heard of this before. Doing a little reading the 'old copper complex' existed during the archaic period but phased out during the transition period. It was very localized and it wasn't adopted by groups out of the Great Lakes region. Well huh. Thank you I learned a new thing today. Good to know, if I do work up that way and come across copper tools they may be prehistoric not historic.

[@jessejamez5985]

is it a reproduction? Human skin oil and sweat are corrosive. What am I missing.

[@ronwilson9815]

Why did he so adamantly claim the bronze could only have come from Europe because of the arsenic and zinc content when copper and tin from Cornwall also had those elements?

[@Fergus316]

I didn’t play it back, but I think it is because of the percentages of each element. They differ according to each mine, so they form a kind of signature.

[@bingeltube]

This video is stinking old and BBC kept quiet about it!!!! In the text accompanying this video it says 2001.