Amateur archaeologist in Switzerland unearths 2k-year-old Roman dagger(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Amateur archaeologist in Switzerland unearths 2k-year-old Roman dagger
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/discovery-of-roman-dagger-leads-to-hundreds-more-artifacts-in-switzerland-180979122/
51 comments
It is a "pugio", a sort of small dagger sidearm for Roman soldiers. I can't think of any reason to refer to it as a short sword in English as that conjures up the image of a much larger weapon. These are essentially the same as the daggers used to kill Julius Caesar, for example.
It's possible the author thought using "dagger" twice in two sentences sounded clunky.
Short swords do 40% more damage than daggers on average (1d6 vs 1d4) and this matters less over time as strength is maxed and magic bonuses are applied. If this Roman was at high level, the two words were effectively interchangeable for him.
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Most of the complex classifications for swords is a modern development, that's often fairly arbitrary. Maybe short sword isn't the best term, but it is a short-sword
Agreed it looks way more "chopppy" than "stabby" to me.
It's impressive to see the difference between the dagger as it was discovered and as it's been restored, but I'm really curious to see what it would look like in "like-new" condition.
Here is another one restored to a better shape [1], close-up [2]. I must admit it doesn't look as perfect as replicas (e.g. in movies), obviously we have much better and precise technology/craftsmanship these days. Probably "as new" may not differ that much from what we restore to.
1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeology-intern...
2. https://www.archaeology.org/news/8493-200302-germany-roman-d...
1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeology-intern...
2. https://www.archaeology.org/news/8493-200302-germany-roman-d...
The quality of metalwork back then was incredible.
Every so often I stumble on images of various hoards, and the gold work in particular is just awesome. Gold ages well, so there is that, but the workmanship is just incredible. The Great Torc from Snettisham is a good example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Torc_from_Snettisham
Every so often I stumble on images of various hoards, and the gold work in particular is just awesome. Gold ages well, so there is that, but the workmanship is just incredible. The Great Torc from Snettisham is a good example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Torc_from_Snettisham
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Still looks pretty impressive, especially considering what they had to work with!
I can never get over how real sword (or dagger) handles look so painful to wield. Maybe it's that most of them have lost some leather wrapping or else were just ornamental...but I've seen several that just looked guaranteed to hurt the wielder with each swing.
That's because most of them had leather wrapped hilts and after all these years the leather is long gone leaving just the tang and any decorative embellishments that it had.
You should see the other guy.
I wonder what archaeologists 2000 years from now will unearth as news-worthy.
A still working Apple II that was forgotten in a bunker.
Probably objects that make you imagine about what day-to-day living was like in the past.
If VR becomes widespread, perhaps the first VR headset. Or perhaps niche, quaint items with great craftsmanship (no longer used at all in the future), like a high-quality metal mechanical pencil, fountain pen, or ballpoint pen.
Early commercial spacecraft (SpaceX) would also be a certainty, as the expansion of humanity across space is near-guaranteed (as long as humanity doesn't destroy itself). Perhaps also today's fashion (thinking of fashion museums).
If VR becomes widespread, perhaps the first VR headset. Or perhaps niche, quaint items with great craftsmanship (no longer used at all in the future), like a high-quality metal mechanical pencil, fountain pen, or ballpoint pen.
Early commercial spacecraft (SpaceX) would also be a certainty, as the expansion of humanity across space is near-guaranteed (as long as humanity doesn't destroy itself). Perhaps also today's fashion (thinking of fashion museums).
A few years ago in Amsterdam , The Netherlands a construction company had to dig a tunnel through a former canal. The canal existed for few hundreds of years and was only a decade ago filled and a road was build on top of it.
They found about 700.000 artifacts from the middle-ages till modern times. Speer arrows, swords, guns, money, credit cards, music cassettes, smoke pipes etc. I believe there is a exposition dedicated to those findings. Very interesting.
Bitcoins ;)
Fidget spinners
Space archaeology will be really interesting. So many satellites and other things to be found scattered around Earth, the solar system, and beyond.
Someone some day will perhaps dig up a completely buried Mars lander under windblown sand, or send their fast vehicle out to capture images of the Voyager probes.
Someone some day will perhaps dig up a completely buried Mars lander under windblown sand, or send their fast vehicle out to capture images of the Voyager probes.
There's a fun little TV series about this. At first it seems silly but it gets quite good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
Sometimes thought it is a bummer living in the states, less of an opportunity to go find some 1000+ year old relics knowing full well the likelihood of that happening is slim even if I lived in another country with bronze/iron age.
People lived in the US 1000+ years ago, and I feel pretty confident that if you know where to look, relics can still be found.
Yes, but they were not nearly advanced enough for metallurgy and the like. Their artifacts, while no less important, fade away far quicker.
The oldest copper artifacts we have are from the old copper complex around Lake Superior, and more recent metalworking traditions were present throughout much of the Americas.
Perhaps you are not deeply familiar with this realm, but trivial (native) copper working is not generally considered metallurgy.
For an amateur but no less correct source, wikipedia provides a good quip for us:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am...
Archaeological evidence has not revealed metal smelting or alloying of metals by pre-Columbian native peoples north of the Rio Grande; however, they did use native copper extensively.[32]
Which then further cites: George Rapp Jr, Guy Gibbon & Kenneth Ames (1998). Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: an Encyclopedia. New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 26.
I do not own this book, so I apologize I cannot verify the citation.
For an amateur but no less correct source, wikipedia provides a good quip for us:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am...
Archaeological evidence has not revealed metal smelting or alloying of metals by pre-Columbian native peoples north of the Rio Grande; however, they did use native copper extensively.[32]
Which then further cites: George Rapp Jr, Guy Gibbon & Kenneth Ames (1998). Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: an Encyclopedia. New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 26.
I do not own this book, so I apologize I cannot verify the citation.
I didn’t realize how easy native copper smelting was until I watched some of those primitive YouTube channels where they make a water filtration system and smelt some copper using a hand made smelter. Linked below if anyone is interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0BjU20kU5E
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0BjU20kU5E
It's not exactly easy - requires good quality coal, and fine tuning to get the right airflow to coal ratio to create a sufficiently hot furnace without becoming oxidizing. Those guys describe having to try multiple times before working out a successful process to produce copper, documenting a couple of their experiments in videos. They've nicely fully documented their final configuration in this video - some high quality experimental archeology work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYaJuab5riE
Keep in mind that you have to be wary of poisonous fumes - hopefully the elements giving their copper alloy a brassy appearance don't include lead, or worse, arsenic.
Keep in mind that you have to be wary of poisonous fumes - hopefully the elements giving their copper alloy a brassy appearance don't include lead, or worse, arsenic.
Native copper working is considered metallurgy in archaeology. If you disagree, feel free to take it up with the archaeometallurgists.
Moreover, purification from ores was done. The so-called copper bells of the southwest were mainly produced from ores rather than native copper and were often alloyed with arsenic or silver to modify the color. The main center of production was paquimé (~180mi west of the Rio Grande), but the cultural area extends well over the border into AZ, NM, and CO.
Moreover, purification from ores was done. The so-called copper bells of the southwest were mainly produced from ores rather than native copper and were often alloyed with arsenic or silver to modify the color. The main center of production was paquimé (~180mi west of the Rio Grande), but the cultural area extends well over the border into AZ, NM, and CO.
Stone artifacts last longer than metal ones.
It’s the other way around - stone lasts, while advanced metallurgy (iron) has a tendency to rust away.
My understanding that advanced stone, shaped with metal, lasts. However, simple stone tools (think axes, hammers, flint arrowheads etc) tend to get easily lost. This is made furthermore difficult by the difficulty (impossibility?) of distinguishing them on tools like metal detectors
No, they're quite easy to find if you know what you're looking for and you look in the right places. Lithics in the ancient world were a bit like plastics today: ubiquitous and highly disposable.
For particular lithics industries/tools and certain situations you might get some amount of reworking, but ultimately people were producing new tools very frequently. That means that any area in which you might find them on the surface will usually have some and a long term production site will have overwhelming artifact density. They can occasionally look like normal rocks, but once you train your eye the worked faces become visually distinct.
For particular lithics industries/tools and certain situations you might get some amount of reworking, but ultimately people were producing new tools very frequently. That means that any area in which you might find them on the surface will usually have some and a long term production site will have overwhelming artifact density. They can occasionally look like normal rocks, but once you train your eye the worked faces become visually distinct.
I think most folks would have more fun with a metal detector and a map of Civil and Revolutionary War military camps and battlegrounds, or even just poking around ghost towns or old farmhouses, than looking for pre-Columbian artifacts, up here north of the Rio. It's largely disappointing and if you actually manage to sort-of prove that the broken barely-recognizable spear point you found came from some named group of people circa 800 CE, you'll inevitably find that we know almost nothing about them and that what we do know makes them sound exactly like every other group around that time, since we just don't know much about any of them besides trite generalities.
I would reckon the chances are higher to still find something in the states.
The "old world" had quite a head-start in digging up stuff and is also much more densely populated, so more people have been digging up old stuff for longer.
The "old world" had quite a head-start in digging up stuff and is also much more densely populated, so more people have been digging up old stuff for longer.
There are many places you can find 10k old relics in the USA. Arrow and Spear heads are common, as well as petroglyphs.
BUT!! The US has great magnet fishing - tons of guns thrown over bridges. (Be careful though - WWII guys threw contraband over these bridges - grenades etc).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9D1hcwq-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9D1hcwq-8
There are likey a lot of dinosaurs still left to be found in the central plains :)
Has the genocide of Native Americans become so complete that we forget about their existence mere days after Thanksgiving?
Population density of Native Americans was low and their wares were not particularly durable. Good luck finding something.
Stone and ceramic are very durable (the latter tends to break into potsherds, but doesn't rust away as iron does). And population density doesn't need to be particularly high to be able to locate settlements and dig up artifacts.
This is simply not true. There are many places where you can go where the impacti of the Native Americans is still very obvious. There are places where you can find hundreds of religious carvings, arrowheads, obsidian artifacts, ect.
Well that's odd. I clicked on the 'Crap Ses Gorge' link to learn more about the place and... it's a Strava segment?
Get some WD40 on that & it'll be as good as new.
The impressive thing to see is the thin lines of silver/bronze decorative designs which must have been made by hand but has a machine like finesse.
Any more-expert folks here, to have a sense for how big a deal that is (in the context)?