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Sword

Sword

A sword (from Old English [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sweord sweord]; akin to Old High German swerd, lit. "wounding tool", PIE
- swer- "to wound, to hurt") is a long edged bladed weapon, consisting in its most fundamental design of a blade, usually with two edges for striking and cutting, and a point for thrusting, and a hilt. The basic intent and physics of swordsmanship remain fairly constant, but the actual techniques vary between cultures and periods as a result of the differences in blade design and purpose. The names given to many swords in mythology, literature, and history reflect the high prestige of the weapon (see list of swords).

History

Bronze Age

Humans have manufactured and used bladed weapons from the Bronze Age onwards. The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, from the early 2nd millennium BC. The hilt at first simply allowed a firm grip, and prevented the hand from slipping onto the blade when executing a stab. Bronze Age swords with typical leaf-shaped blades first appear near the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and in Mesopotamia. Swords from the Nordic Bronze Age from ca. 1400 BC show characteristic spiral patterns. Sword production in China is attested from the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty.

Iron Age

Iron swords became increasingly common from the 13th century BC. The Hittites, the Mycenean Greeks, and the Proto-Celtic Hallstatt culture figured among the early users of iron swords. Iron has the advantage of mass-production due to the wider availability of the raw material. Early Iron swords were not comparable to later steel blades, being brittle and soft, they were even inferior to good bronze weapons, but the easier production, and the better availability of the raw material for the first time permitted the equipment of entire armies with metal weapons. steel Iran, during the Sasanian Dynasty.]] Eventually smiths learned that by adding an amount of carbon (added during smelting in the form of charcoal) in the iron, they could produce an improved alloy (now known as steel). Several different methods of swordmaking existed in ancient times, including most famously pattern welding. Over time different methods developed all over the world. By the time of Classical Antiquity and the Parthian and Sassanid Empires in Iran, iron swords were common. The Greek Xiphos and the Roman Gladius are typical examples of the type, measuring some 60 to 70 cm. The late Roman Empire introduced the longer Spatha (the term for its wielder, spatharius, became a court rank in Constantinople), and from this time, the term "long sword" is applied to swords comparatively long for their respective periods. Chinese steel swords make their appearance from the 3rd century BC Qin Dynasty. The Chinese Dao (刀 pinyin dāo) is single-edged, sometimes translated as sabre or broadsword, and the Jian (劍 pinyin jiàn) double edged.

Middle Ages

pinyin The Spatha type remained popular throughout the Migration period and well into the Middle Ages. Vendel Age Spathas decorated with Germanic artwork (not unlike the Germanic fibulae fashioned after Roman coins). The Viking Age sees again a more standardized production, but the basic design remains indebted to the Spatha. It is only from the 11th century that Norman swords begin to develop the quillon or crossguard. During the Crusades of the 12th to (13th) century, this cruciform type of arming sword remains essentially stable, variations mainly concerning the shape of the pommel. The swords were made to be thrust, a stab is more fatal than a slice and difficult to parry, however when a knight thrusts his sword his defense is completely down and a stab is easier to dodge than a slice. Single-edged weapons became popular throughout Asia. The Korean Hwandudaedo are known from the early medieval Three Kingdoms. Derived from this is the Japanese Katana (刀; かたな), production of which is recorded from ca. 900 AD (see Japanese sword).

Late Middle Ages and Renaissance

From around 1300, in concert with improved armour, innovative sword designs evolved more and more rapidly. The main transition was the lengthening of the grip, allowing two-handed use, and a longer blade. By 1400 this type of sword, at the time called langes Schwert (longsword) or spadone, were common, and a number 15th and 16th century fechtbuchs teaching their use survive. Another variant was the specialization on armour-piercing swords of the Estoc type. The hybrid of these two sword forms, the highly-tapered longsword known as the bastard sword, became popular during the 1500s due to its formidable abilities both in cutting and in thrusting into armor. In the 16th century, the large Döppelhanders concluded the trend of ever increasing sword sizes (mostly due to the beginning of the decline of plate armor and the advent of firearms), and the early Modern Age returned to lighter one-handed weapons. The sword in this time period was the most personal weapon, the most prestigious, and the most versatile for close combat. But it came to find a greater role in civilian self-defense than in military use as technology changed warfare.

Modern Age

The rapier evolved from the Spanish espada ropera in the 16th century. Both the rapier and the Italian schiavona developed the crossguard into a basket for hand protection. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the shorter smallsword became an essential fashion accessory in European countries, and most wealthy men carried one. Both the smallsword and the rapier remained popular dueling swords well into the 18th century. As the wearing of swords fell out of fashion, canes took their place in a gentleman's wardrobe. Some examples of canes—those known as swordsticks—incorporate a concealed blade. The French martial art la canne developed to fight with canes and swordsticks and has now evolved into a sport. The sword served more as a weapon of self-defence than for use on the battlefield, and the military importance of swords steadily decreased during the Modern Age. Even as a personal sidearm, the sword began to lose its pre-eminence in the late 18th century, paralleling the development of reliable handguns. handgun in the American Revolution.]] Swords continued in use, although increasingly limited to military officers and ceremonial uniforms, although most armies retained heavy cavalry until well after World War I. For example, the British Army formally adopted a completely new design of cavalry sword in 1908, almost the last change in British Army weapons before the outbreak of the war. The last units of British heavy cavalry switched to using armoured vehicles as late as 1938. Cavalry charges still occurred as late as World War II during which Japanese and Pacific Islanders also occasionally used swords, but by then an enemy armed with machine guns, barbed wire and armoured vehicles would usually completely outmatch swordsmen.

Terminology

Image:Sword_parts.jpg The sword consists of the blade and the hilt. The name scabbard applies to the case which houses the sword when not in use.

Blade

Three types of attacks can be performed with the blade: striking, cutting, and thrusting. The blade is usually double-edged; when handling the sword, the long or true edge is the one used for straight cuts or strikes, while the short or false edge is the one used for backhand strikes. Some hilt designs define which edge is the 'long' one, while more symmetrical designs allow the long and short edges to be inverted by turning the sword. The blade may have grooves or fullers for the purpose of lightening the blade while allowing it to retain its strength, in the same manner as an "I" beam in construction. The blade may taper more or less sharply towards a point, used for thrusting. The part of the blade between the Center of Percussion (CoP) and the point is called the weak of the blade, and that between the Center of Balance (CoB) and the hilt the strong. The section in between the CoP and the CoB is the middle. The ricasso or shoulder identifies a short section of blade immediately forward of the guard that is left completely unsharpened, and can be gripped with a finger to increase tip control. Many swords have no ricasso. On some large weapons, such as the German zweihander, a leather cover surrounded the ricasso, and a swordsman might grip it in one hand to make the weapon more easily wielded in close-quarters combat. The ricasso normally bears the maker's mark. On Japanese blades the mark appears on the tang under the handle.
- In the case of a rat-tail tang, the maker welds a thin rod to the end of the blade at the crossguard; this rod goes through the handle (in 20th-century and later construction). This occurs most commonly in decorative replicas, or cheap sword-like objects. Traditional sword-making does not use this construction method, which does not serve for traditional sword usage as the sword can easily break at the welding point.
- In traditional construction, the swordsmith forged the tang as a part of the sword rather than welding it on. Traditional tangs go through the handle: this gives much more durability than a rat-tail tang. Swordsmiths peened such tangs over the end of the pommel, or occasionally welded the hilt furniture to the tang and threaded the end for screwing on a pommel. Modern lower quality replicas often feature a "screw-on" pommel or a pommel nut which holds the hilt together and allows dismantling.
- In a "full" tang (most commonly used in knives and machetes) the tang has about the same width as the blade. In European or Asian swords sold today, many advertised "full" tangs may actually involve a forged rat-tail tang. From the 18th century onwards swords intended for slashing, i.e. with an edge, have been curved with the radius of curvature equal to the distance from the swordman's body at which it was to be used. This allowed the blade to have a sawing effect rather than simply delivering a heavy cut. European swords, intended for use at arm's length, had a radius of curvature of around a meter. Middle Eastern swords, intended for use with the arm bent, had a smaller radius.

Hilt

The hilt is the collective term of the parts allowing the handling of the blade, consisting of the grip, the pommel, and in post-Viking Age swords usually a crossguard (called cruciform hilts). It may also have a tassel or sword knot. The tang consists of the extension of the blade structure through the hilt.

Typology

Swords can fall into categories of varying scope. The main distinguishing characteristics include blade shape (cross-section, tapering and length), shape and size of hilt and pommel, age and place of origin. For any other type than listed below, and even for uses other than as a weapon, see the article Sword-like object

Double-edged swords

Sword-like object (flexible sword)]] As noted above, the terms longsword, broad sword and great sword (and Gaelic claymore) are used relative to the era under consideration and do themselves designate a particular type of sword.

Single-handed

- Bronze Age swords, length ca. 60 cm, leaf shaped blade.
- Iron Age swords like the Xiphos, Gladius and Jian 劍, similar in shape to their Bronze Age predecessors.
- Spatha, measuring ca. 80–90 cm.
- The classical arming sword of the Crusades, measuring up to ca. 110 cm.
- The late medieval Swiss baselard and the Renaissance Cinquedea essentially re-introduce the functionality of the Spatha.
- The cut & thrust swords of the Renaissance, similar to the older arming sword but balanced for increased thrusting.
- Light duelling swords, like the rapier and the smallsword, in use from Early Modern times.

Two-handed

- The longsword (and bastard sword) of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- The 16th century Zweihänder.

Single edged weapons

Zweihänder One strict definition of a sword restricts it to a double-edged weapon used for both slashing and stabbing. However, general usage of the term remains inconsistent and it has important cultural overtones, so that commentators almost universally recognize the single-edged Asian weapons (dāo 刀, Katana 刀) as "swords", simply because they have very similar prestige to the prestige attached to the European sword. Europeans also frequently refer to their own single-edged weapons as swords--generically backswords, including sabres. Other terms include falchion, scimitar, dussack, Grosse Messer, cutlass, or mortuary sword. Many of these essentially refer to identical weapons, and the different names may relate to their use in different countries at different times. A machete as a tool resembles such a single-edged sword and serves to cut through thick vegetation, and indeed many of the terms listed above describe weapons that originated as farmers' tools used on the battlefield.

Training swords

In both Europe and Asia, wooden "swords" were created to practice fencing without the physical danger of a real sword. These were known as wasters in Europe and bokken in Japan. Special sparring weapons, such as the bamboo shinai and the steel federschwerter, were also devised and used. Certain martial arts styles, such as kendo, use shinai as their primary weapons, both in training and in competition.

Classification

Jan Petersen in De Norske Vikingsverd ("The Norwegian Viking Swords", 1919) introduced the most widely-used classification. Ewart Oakeshott in The Sword in The Age of Chivalry (1964, revised 1981) introduced a system of classification for medieval sword blades into types, numbered X – XXII as a continuation of Wheeler's system.

Punishment devices

- Real swords can be used to administer various physical punishments: to perform either capital punishment by decapitation (the use of the sword, an honourable weapon on military men, was regarded a privilege) or non-surgical amputation.
- Similarly paddle-like sword-like devices for physical punishment are used in Asia, in western terms for paddling or caning, depending whether the implement is flat or round. For example, the Chinese movie Farewell to my concubine (1993 - see IMDb [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106332/combined]) shows how a flat, not even very hard type of paddle, called the master's sword, is used intensively to discipline young opera trainees both on the (usually bared) buttock and on the hand (even drawing blood).
- The shinai, a practice sword, is also used in Japan as a spanking implement, more common in prized private extracurricular schools (illustrated in these 1975 and 1977 articles [http://www.corpun.com/jpsc7508.htm] & [http://www.corpun.com/jpsc7706.htm]) than the US school paddling; in fact hundreds of cases of illegal corporal punishment were reported from public schools as well.

Symbolism

- The sword can symbolise violence, combat, or military intervention. Jesus' statement, "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword" uses the term in this sense. Another example of this metaphorical significance comes in the old saying "The pen is mightier than the sword" -- attributed to Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In the following cases, the sword stands for arms in general, and has often been retained as a symbol even after it had in operational practice been replaced with firearms etcetera.
- Swords form a suit in the Tarot deck (replaced by spades in the French deck of playing cards).
- The sword often functions as a symbol of masculinity and particularly -since its form lends itself to this, especially in erect position- as a phallic symbol of virility. For example, "sword swallowing" is used as an euphemism of fellatio.
- Swords are also used as emblem or insignia (in or on formal dress such as uniforms, badges, various objects, even coats of arms), especially:
- as symbol of power, such as a Sword of State and a Sword of Justice (both can be used as regalia);
- as symbol of armed force, or of a corps entitled to use force as the strong arm of the law, as in military and police insignia, or of a unit (e.g. regiment) of such a corps - as these are numerous, inevitably many variations and combinations (two crossed swords, or with a laurel wreath, crown, national or founder/patron's emblem etcetera) are used.
- It is also unusual for swords to represent reason - as in "cutting through" a series of elements in a problem in order to leave only those with proven relevance, for example.

External links

- [http://www.myarmoury.com/features.html myArmoury.com Featured Content and Articles]
- [http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_glossary.html A Beginner's Glossary of Sword Terms]
- [http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_anatomy.html Anatomy of the Sword]
- [http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/sword-making.htm How Stuff Works: How Sword Making Works]
- [http://vikingsword.com/ Medieval Sword Resource Site] (vikingsword.com)
- [http://www.oakeshott.org/ The Oakeshott Institute]
- [http://www.kjartan.org/swordfaq/ Japanese Sword Arts FAQ]
- [http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200504/03/200504031842211109900091009101.html Korean sword arts by Master craftsman Hong Seok-hyeon]
- [http://swordforum.com Sword Forum International]
- Wikibooks:Sword construction
- Category:Fencing Category:Blade weapons ja:剣

Old English language

Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. It is a West Germanic language and therefore is similar to Old Frisian and Old Saxon. It is also quite similar to Old Norse (and by extension, to modern Icelandic). Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations which created England in the fifth century to some time after the Norman invasion of 1066, after which the language underwent a major and dramatic transition. During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages that it came in contact with, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Norsemen who were occupying and controlling the Danelaw in northern and eastern England. The term Old English does not refer to older varieties of Modern English such as are found in Shakespeare or the King James Bible, which are called Early Modern English by linguists. In some older works (such as the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary), Old English refers to Middle English, or also more specifically Middle English as used from 1150 to 1350, with the older form of the language referred to exclusively as Anglo-Saxon. [http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=English]. Middle English developed from 1150 to 1500, and was the form of English which was used by Chaucer.

Germanic origins

The most important shaping force on Old English was its Germanic heritage in vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar that it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe. Some of these features were specific to the West Germanic language family to which Old English belongs, while some other features were inherited from the Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have been derived. Though many of these links with the other Germanic languages have since been obscured by later linguistic influences, particularly Norman French, many remain even in modern English. Compare modern English 'Good day' with the Old English Gōdne dæg, modern Dutch Goedendag, or modern German Guten Tag. Today the European language most similar to Old English is Frisian, a language spoken by several hundred thousand people in the northern Netherlands and northern Germany. Like other West Germanic languages of the period, Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases, which had dual plural forms for referring to groups of two objects, in addition to the usual singular and plural forms. It also assigned gender to all nouns, even to those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine. In terms of morphology modern German is more similar to Old English than modern English itself is, because it still has complex gender, case, and verb conjugation systems similar to those of Old English, as well as many similar words of Germanic stock which have been displaced by French or Latin words in modern English.

Latin influence

A large percentage of the educated and literate population (monks, clerics, etc.) were competent in Latin, which was then the prevalent lingua franca of Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the entry of individual Latin words into Old English based on which patterns of linguistic change they have undergone, though this is not always reliable. There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for England. The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became widespread. However, the largest single transfer of Latin-based words occurred following the Norman invasion of 1066, after which an enormous number of Norman French words entered the language. Most of these Oïl language words were themselves derived ultimately from classical Latin, although a notable stock of Norse words were introduced, or re-introduced in Norman form. The Norman Conquest approximately marks the end of Old English and the advent of Middle English. The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Old English words were spelt as they were pronounced; the silent letters of Modern English therefore did not often exist in Old English. For example, the 'hard-c' sound in cniht, the Old English equivalent of 'knight' was pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically was that spelling was extremely variable – the spelling of a word would reflect differences in the phonetics of the writer's regional dialect and also idiosyncratic spelling choices which varied from author to author. Thus, for example, the word "and" could be spelt either and or ond. Therefore, Old English spelling can be regarded as even more jumbled than modern English spelling, although it can at least claim to reflect some existing pronunciation, while modern English in many cases cannot. Most students of Old English in the present day learn the language using normalised versions and are only introduced to variant spellings after they have mastered the basics of the language.

Viking influence

modern English spelling and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility]] The second major source of loanwords to Old English were the Scandinavian words introduced during the Viking raids of the ninth and tenth centuries. In addition to a great many place names, these consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, which included extensive holdings all along the eastern coast of England and Scotland). The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a language related to Old English in that they both derive from the same ancestral Germanic language. It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as occurs during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English. Apparent confirmation of this is the fact that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the North and latest in the Southwest, the area farthest away from Viking influence. Regardless of the truth of this theory, the influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible for such basic vocabulary items as sky and the modern pronoun they.

Celtic influence

The number of Celtic loanwords is of a remarkably lower order than either Latin or Scandinavian. Only twelve loanwords have been identified as being entirely secure. Out of all the known and suspected Celtic loanwords, most are names of geographical features, and especially rivers.

Dialects

To further complicate matters, Old English was rich in dialect forms. The four main dialect forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (the latter two known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon. Each of these dialects were associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were both successfully defended, were then integrated into Wessex. After the process of unification of the diverse Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878 by Alfred the Great, there is a marked decline in the importance of regional dialects. This is not because they stopped existing: regional dialects continued even after that time to this day, as evidenced both by the existence of middle and modern English dialects later on, and by common sense – people do not spontaneously develop new accents when there is a sudden change of political power. However, the bulk of the surviving documents from the Anglo-Saxon period are written in the dialect of Wessex, Alfred's kingdom. It seems likely that with consolidation of power, it became necessary to standardise the language of government to reduce the difficulty of administering the remoter areas of the kingdom. As a result, paperwork was written in the West Saxon dialect. Not only this, but Alfred was passionate about the spread of the vernacular, and brought many scribes to his region from Mercia in order that previously unwritten texts were recorded. The Church was likewise affected, especially since Alfred initiated an ambitious programme to translate religious materials into English. In order to retain his patronage and ensure the widest circulation of the translated materials, the monks and priests engaged in the programme worked in his dialect. Alfred himself seems to have translated books out of Latin and into English, notably Pope Gregory I's treatise on administration, "Pastoral Care". Due at least partially to the centralisation of power and to the Viking invasions, there is little or no written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after Alfred's unification.

Phonology

The inventory of Old English surface phones, as usually reconstructed, is as follows. The sounds marked in parentheses are allophones:
- is an allophone of occurring after and when geminated
- is an allophone of occurring before and
- are allophones of respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants.
- are allophones of occurring in coda position after front and back vowels respectively
- is an allophone of occurring after a vowel The front mid rounded vowels occur in some dialects of Old English, but not in the best attested Late West Saxon dialect. 2. It is uncertain whether the diphthongs spelt ie/īe were pronounced or . The fact that this diphthong was merged with in many dialects suggests the former.

Standardised orthography

Old English was at first written in runes (futhorc), but shifted to the Latin alphabet with some additions: the letter yogh, adopted from Irish; the letter eth and the runic letters thorn and wynn. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction 'and', a character similar to the number seven ('7'), and a symbol for the relative pronoun 'þæt', a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (' '). Also used occasionally were macrons over vowels, abbreviations for following 'm's or 'n's. All of the sound descriptions below are given using IPA symbols.

The alphabet

- a: (spelling variations like land/lond "land" suggest it may have had a rounded allophone before in some cases)
- ā:
- æ:
- :
- b:
- c (except in the digraphs sc and cg): either or . The pronunciation is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern editors: most commonly ċ, sometimes č or ç. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always ; word-finally after i it is always . Otherwise a knowledge of the historical linguistics of the word in question is needed to predict which pronunciation is needed. (See Old English phonology#The distribution of velars and palatals for details.)
- cg: (the surface pronunciation of geminate ); occasionally also for
- d:
- ð/þ: and its allophone . Both symbols were used more or less interchangeably (to the extent that there was a rule, it was to avoid using ð word-initially, but this was by no means universally followed). Many modern editions preserve the use of these two symbols as found in the original manuscripts, but some attempt to regularise them in some fashion, for example using only the þ. See also Pronunciation of English th.
- e:
- ē:
- ea: ; after ċ and ġ, sometimes or
- ēa: ; after ċ and ġ, sometimes
- eo: ; after ċ and ġ, sometimes
- ēo:
- f: and its allophone
- g: and its allophone ; and its allophone (when after n). The and pronunciations are sometimes written ġ or by modern editors. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always (word-initially) or (after a vowel). Word-finally after i it is always . Otherwise a knowledge of the historical linguistics of the word in question is needed to predict which pronunciation is needed. (See Old English phonology#The distribution of velars and palatals for details.)
- h: and its allophones . In the combinations hl, hr, hn and hw, the second consonant was certainly voiceless.
- i:
- ī:
- ie: ; after ċ and ġ, sometimes
- īe: ; after ċ and ġ, sometimes
- k: (rarely used)
- l: ; probably velarised (as in Modern English) when in coda position.
- m:
- n: and its allophone
- o:
- ō:
- oe: (in dialects with this sound)
- ōe: (in dialects with this sound)
- p:
- q: – Used before u representing the consonant , but rarely used, being rather a feature of Middle English. Old English preferred or in modern print cw.
- r: ; the exact nature of r is not known. It may have been an alveolar approximant , as in most Modern English accents, an alveolar flap , or an alveolar trill .
- s: and its allophone
- sc: or occasionally
- t:
- u:
- ū:
- (wynn): , replaced in modern print by w to prevent confusion with p.
- x: (but according to some authors, )
- y:
- :
- z: . Rarely used as ts was usually used instead, for example bezt vs betst "best", pronounced . Doubled consonants are geminated; the geminate fricatives ðð/þþ, ff and ss cannot be voiced.

Syntax

As a West Germanic language, Old English syntax has a great deal of common ground with Dutch and German. Old English is not dependent upon S (subject), V (verb), O (object) or "SVO" word order in the way that Modern English is. The syntax of an Old English sentence can be in any of these shapes: SVO order, VSO order, and OVS order. The only constant rule, as in German and Dutch, is that the verb must come as the second concept. That is, in the sentence 'in the town, we ate some food', it could appear as 'in the town, ate we some food', or 'in the town, ate some food we'. This variable word order is especially common in poetry. Prose, while still displaying variable word order, is much more likely to use SVO ordering. Similarly, word order became less flexible as time went on: the older a text is, the less likely it is to have a fixed word order. To further complicate the matter, prepositions may appear after their object, though they are not postpositions, as they may occur in front of the noun too, and usually do, for example: God cwæð him þus tō (lit.) God said him thus to that is God said thus to him

Morphology

Unlike modern English, Old English is a language rich with morphological diversity and is spelled essentially as it is pronounced. It maintains several distinct cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and (vestigially) instrumental, remnants of which survive only in a few pronouns in modern English.

Sample text

This text is from the epic poem Beowulf.

External links

- [http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/index.html The Electronic Introduction to Old English]
- [http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/OEsteps/ First steps in Old English - a course for absolute beginners]
- [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet]
- [http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm Old English - Modern English dictionary]
- [http://lonestar.texas.net/~jebbo/learn-as/origins.htm The Origins of Old English]
- [http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/oegermanic.html Guide to using Old English computer characters] (Unicode, HTML entities, etc.)
- [http://www.doe.utoronto.ca Dictionary of Old English Project at the University of Toronto]
- [http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/language_resources.html The Germanic Lexicon Project]
- [http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/oe/oe-texts.html Text Collections - Texts and Translations]
- [http://wandership.ca/collect/links/oe.php Links relating to Old English, including learning resources]

References

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- English, Old ja:古英語 simple:Old English language

Old High German

Old High German is the earliest recorded form of the modern German language, and was spoken from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century. Old High German was influenced strongly by Latin in vocabulary. English and other West Germanic languages differ from Modern Standard German partly because High German underwent the second or High German consonant shift. The literature of this period is represented for instance by the Hildebrandslied, passages from two Gospel harmonies, the Heliand (an epic poem whose theme is the life of Christ and which is the oldest complete work of German literature, although it is in Low German not High German), the Evangelienbuch des Ottfried von Weißenburg, and the Ludwigslied. Typical for the Old High German Language are the vowel endings, as in Latin. Abrogans is believed to be the oldest book in the German language, from the 8th century, it is a Latin-German word list in Old High German. Category:German language German, Old High

Bladed weapon

pl:broń sieczna A bladed weapon is a weapon with a blade. Bladed weapons include:
- Knives
- Cleaver
- Daggers
- Bayonet
- Machetes
- Tools
- Scythe
- Sickle
- Swords
- Sabres
- Scimitar
- Foils
- Rapier
- Broadswords
- Axes
- Tomahawk
- Battleaxe
- Pole weapons
- Halberd
- Hatchet
- Spear Bladed weapons are made out of a variety of metals including: bronze, iron, and steel. Bladed weapons can also be made of stone, such as flintstone. Construction techniques using ceramics have been devloped recently, however, metal is often added to the ceramic to allow the weapon to be detected by security devices. A bladed weapon can be used as an all purpose tool or for fighting.

Blade

:For other uses of the word blade, see Blade (disambiguation) A blade is the flat part of a bladed tool or weapon that (usually) has a cutting edge and/or pointed end typically made of a metal, such as steel used to cut, stab, slice, throw, thrust, or strike.

Techniques for production

Material for weapon blades has to be carefully selected, as a balance between hardness and toughness is required to function properly. In antiquity, the main metal used was copper, then bronze, iron, and finally steel. Prior to the invention of steel, several techniques were developed for reducing the brittleness of iron. Perhaps the most well known is pattern welding, a technique used for katanas (samurai swords) or 'damascus' blades. This was a very labor-intensive technique - and so such swords were very expensive. Various techniques were also employed to make the blade harder. Copper and bronze can be "work-hardened" (or annealed) by simply hitting the blade with a hammer while it is cold. Blades made of steel with a high enough carbon content (greater than 0.2%) could be heat-treated by heating the steel up to a critical point (most alloys become non-magnetic at that point), then quenching it in water. Quenching puts an enormous amount of strain on the metal, and oftentimes a sword would break into pieces during that step. If the sword survived heat-treating, it would be tempered by heating it to a relatively low temperature for an extended period of time. The tempering process would make it slightly softer, but also tougher and "springier", and thus less likely to break or chip during the rigors of combat. Case-hardening is a process of increasing the carbon content at the surface of very low carbon steel. It is done by placing the object to be hardened in a sealed container along with carbon-containing material; in antiquity, this material was usually horn or hide. The container would then be heated until it was glowing red, and held at that temperature for awhile, based on the size of the part being hardened, allowing carbon to penetrate the steel by a few thousandths of a centimeter. At that point, the object would be dumped out of the container into a water bath to quench it, resulting in a very hard surface, but completely unhardened core. There is very little evidence of this having ever been done to swords except, perhaps, the very earliest of iron blades. Another important aspect of many blades are so-called "fullers". Despite popular belief, fullers were not "blood groves" that facilitated quicker bleeding of the victim. Rather fullers helped to make a blade lighter while still retaining much of its strength. They were made by positioning a heated blade over a bottom fuller, setting a like sized top fuller on the top side of the sword, and hitting the top fuller with a hammer.

Variation in blades

Decoration

Decoration was often applied to the blade - usually engraving and sometimes inlaying with gold. In the 19th century, it became common to etch designs on the blade using acid and a wax template.

Shape

Swords may have either a straight blade or a curved one. A straight sword was primarily intended for hacking and stabbing, whilst a curved sword was better at slashing. The difference between a hacking cut and a slashing one is essentially the same as the difference between using a butcher's knife and a chef's knife; one forces an edge straight into a material while the other is pulled along the material to get more of a slicing action. For a horseman, stabbing was not practical because it is hard to make a horse move swiftly backward should the thrust fail to strike the victim. The cavalryman would then be at the mercy of his erstwhile victim. This was not so important in massed cavalry charges, in any case in such attacks the cavalry would often be in closely packed formations in which slashing would not be possible. Consequently, European heavy cavalry generally had straight swords. Cavalry that engaged in single combat or in looser formations normally had curved swords. In order to cut, a sword had to be drawn across the victim's skin, and a curved sword was more suitable for this. The blade was only sharpened on the outer edge and the radius of curvature was equal to the distance from the centre about which the blade was rotated - i.e. the distance from the blade to the shoulder. In curved European swords, this was usually a full arm's length, but in the Middle East and Indian swords it as generally a much shorter distance - typically 50 cm or so (see scimitar). This gave Eastern cavalry a great advantage over their European counterparts because they were able to fight at a closer distance than the Europeans were used to and therefore get inside their sword arc. Single-edged swords have a back. This is the unsharpened edge. Early 19th century swords had a "pipe-backed" appearance, whereby they had a thickened ridge along the back to make the blade stronger.

Shave

Blades are used to shave. Category:Blade weapons

Hilt

---- ] The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard, grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillions. A tassel or sword knot may be attached to the guard or pommel.

Pommel

The pommel (The name is derived from the Latin for a "little apple") is a counterweight at the top of the handle. Even the lightest of modern fencing weapons use the weight of the pommel to provide a balance that the wielder prefers. In this sense, the pommel has remained one of the few parts of a sword that has more than any other retained its ancient function. Pommels have come in a wide variety of shapes, including crescents, oblate spheroids, semicircular, and disks.

Grip

The grip is the handle of the sword. It was usually of wood or metal, and often covered with shagreen leather or shark skin. Shark skin proved to be the most durable in temperate climates but deteriorated in hot climates, and consequently rubber became popular in the latter half of the 19th Century. Whatever material covered the grip, it was usually both glued on and held on with wire wrapped around it in a spiral. In full armored battle, however, the grip was often only used with one hand (even on two-handed swords), and the blade was gripped partway up, thus allowing the fighter to thrust the blade horizontally, with both hands, into the opponent.

Guard

The guard protects the user's hand from the opponent's sword. In early swords it simply did not exist. Later it was usually a straight crossbar ("quillions") perpendicular to the blade. Beginning in the 16th century in Europe guards became more and more elaborate, with additional loops and curved bars to protect the hand from cuts. Ultimately, the bars could be supplemented or replaced with metal plates that could be ornamentally pierced. "Basket hilt" eventually came into vogue to describe such designs. Simultaneously, emphasis upon the thrust attack with rapiers and smallswords revealed a vulnerability to thrusting. By the 17th century, guards were developed that incorporated a solid shield that surrounded the blade out to a diameter of up to two inches or more. Older forms of this guard retained the quillions or a single quillion, but later forms eliminated the quillions, altogether. This latter form is the basis of the guards of modern foils and epees.

Tassel

epee The tassel or sword knot is a lanyard - usually of leather - looped around the hand to prevent the sword being lost if it is dropped. Although they have a practical function, sword knots often had a decorative design. For example, the British Army generally adopted a white leather strap with a large acorn knot made out of gold wire for infantry officers at the end of the 19th Century; such acorn forms of tassels were said to be 'boxed' which was the way of securing the fringe of the tassel along its bottom line such that the strands could not separate and become entangled and ripped from the body mould. Thus the real tassel form ceased to exist as most armies adopted this more 'efficient' form to the extent of the nineteenth century use of embossed foils upon paper mache forms to avoid the use of precious metal as in the true bullion (gold wire) of which the original tassels were made. Many sword knot lanyards were also made of silk with a fine, ornamental alloy gold or silver metal wire woven into it in a specified pattern. The sword knot is sometimes looped though a slot in the guard. The art and history of Tassels is part of the story of Passementerie, or Posamenten as it was called in German. The military division of such artisans of 'passementiers' (trimmings makers) is evident in catalogs of various military uniform and regalia makers of centuries past. The broader art form of Passementerie, with its divisions of Decor, Clergy and Nobility, Upholstery, Coaches and Livery, and Military are treated of in a few books on that subject, none of which are in English. Indian swords usually had the tassel attached through an eye right at the end of the pommel.

Mythology

The word mythology (from the Greek μυολογία mythología, from μυολογειν mythologein to relate myths, from μυος mythos, meaning a narrative, and λογος logos, meaning speech or argument) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. The modern definition of mythology primarily the body of myths from a particular culture or religion, as in Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology. Mythology is also the branch of knowledge dealing with the collection, study and interpretation of myths.

What is mythology?

Myths are generally narratives passed down traditionally intended to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation myths" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself. Not all myths need have this explicatory purpose, however. Myths are by definition sacred, and involve a supernatural force or deity. Many legends and narratives passed down orally from generation to generation have mythic content. In common parlance, a myth is generally considered a "mere story" — that is, a story that holds meaning for people, but the core of which is untrue. In folkloristics, which is concerned with the study of both secular and sacred narratives (the latter being myths), a myth also derives some of its power from being believed and deeply held as true; to folklorists, all sacred traditions have myths, and there is nothing pejorative or dismissive about the term as there is in common usage. This broader truth runs deeper than the advent of critical history which may, or may not, exist as in an authoritative written form which becomes "the story" (Preliterate oral traditions may vanish as the written word becomes "the story" and the literate become "the authority"). However, as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl puts it, "The primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development." (Mâche 1992, p.8) Most often the term refers specifically to ancient tales from very old cultures, such as Greek mythology or Roman mythology. Some myths descended originally as part of an oral tradition and were only later written down, and many of them exist in multiple versions. According to the eighth chapter of F. W. J. Schelling's Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology, "Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding."

Religion and mythology

Mythology figures prominently in most religions, and most mythology is tied to at least one religion. Some use the words myth and mythology to portray the stories of one or more religions as false, or dubious at best. While nearly all dictionaries include this definition, "myth" does not always imply that a story is either false or true. The term is most often used in this sense to describe religions founded by ancient societies whose belief systems are nearly extinct. However, it is important to keep in mind that while some view myths as merely stories, others may hold them as a religion. By extension, many people do not regard the tales surrounding the origin and development of modern dominant religions as literal accounts of events, but instead regard them as figurative representations of their belief systems. Many modern day rabbis and priests within the more liberal Jewish and Christian movements, as well as most Neopagans, have no problem viewing their religious texts as containing myth. They see their sacred texts as indeed containing religious truths, divinely inspired but delivered in the language of mankind. Others separate their beliefs out from the similar stories of other cultures and refer to them as history. These people object to the use of the word myth to describe what they believe. For the purposes of this article, therefore, the word mythology is used to refer to stories that, while they may or may not be strictly factual, reveal fundamental truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes. Also, the stories discussed express the viewpoints and beliefs of the country, time period, culture, and/or religion which gave birth to them. One can speak of a Jewish mythology, a Christian mythology, or an Islamic mythology, in which one describes the mythic elements within these faiths without speaking to the veracity of the faith's tenets or claims about its history.

Classifications

Ritual myths explain the performance of a certain religious practices or patterns and associated with temples or centers of worship. Origin myths describe the beginnings of a custom, name or object. Cult myths are often seen as explanations for elaborate festivals that magnify the power of the deity. Prestige myths are usually associated with a divinely chosen hero, city, or people. Eschatological myths are stories which describe catastrophic ends to the present world order of the writers. These extend beyond any potential historical scope, and thus can only be described in mythic terms. Some myths fit in more than one category. Apocalyptic literature such as The Revelation of St. John the Divine is an example of a set of eschatological myths.

Related concepts

A fairy tale itself is not a myth. Myths are not the same as fables, legends, folktales, fairy tales, anecdotes or fiction, but sloppy usage has blurred the distinctions in many people's minds. The term myth is sometimes used pejoratively in reference to common beliefs of a culture or for the beliefs of a religion to imply that the story is both fanciful and fictional. Myth is often used to refer to a commonly held but erroneous belief or a misconception. Other examples of stories that are not mythology but are frequently confused with myth:
- Philosophical allegory
- Sentimental or moral fable, parable or anecdote
- Cupid and Psyche
- Prodigal Son
- Cornelia's jewels
- Romance
- Cultural propaganda
- Betsy Ross
- "Rationalized" explications of myths that are no longer understood
- This is an approach attributed to Euhemerus
- Heroic saga and epic
- Narrative drama
- Enriched history
- Song of Roland

Formation of myths

What forces create myths? Robert Graves said of Greek myth: "True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially." (The Greek Myths, Introduction). Graves was deeply influenced, perhaps too strongly, by Sir James George Frazer's mythography The Golden Bough, and he would have agreed that myths are generated by many cultural needs (more on the forces that generate myth is needed). Myths authorize the cultural institutions of a tribe, a city, or a nation by connecting them with universal truths. Myths justify the current occupation of a territory by a people, for instance. All cultures have developed over time their own myths, consisting of narratives of their history, their religions, and their heroes. The great power of the symbolic meaning of these stories for the culture is a major reason why they survive as long as they do, sometimes for thousands of years. Mâche (1992, p.20) distinguishes between "myth, in the sense of this primary psychic image, with some kind of mytho-logy, or a system of words trying with varying success to ensure a certain coherence between these images. A collection of myths is called a mythos, e.g. 'the Roman mythos.' A collection of those is called a mythoi, e.g. 'the Greek and Roman mythoi.' One notable type is the creation myth, which describes how that culture believes the universe was created. Another is the Trickster myth, which concerns itself with the pranks or tricks played by gods or heroes. Joseph Campbell was considered by some to be the world's leading authority on myth and the history of spirituality. Roger Caillois (1972) contrasts myths of situations determined from outside by historical events with myths of heroes determined from inside by their psychic life. However Mâche (1992, p.10) argues that, "on this level he [Caillois] refers only to the presentation of images in the form of stories, which in themselves are more ancient than stories, not yet submitted to this kind of distinction."

Myths as depictions of historical events

Although myths are often considered to be accounts of events that have not happened, many historians consider that myths can also be accounts of actual events that have become highly imbued with symbolic meaning, or that have been transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed. One way of conceptualizing this process is to view 'myths' as lying at the far end of a continuum ranging from a 'dispassionate account' to 'legendary occurrence' to 'mythical status'. As an event progresses towards the mythical end of this continuum, what people think, feel and say about the event takes on progressively greater historical significance while the facts become less important. By the time one reaches the mythical end of the spectrum the story has taken on a life of its own and the facts of the original event have become almost irrelevant. This method or technique of interpreting myths as accounts of actual events, euhemerist exegesis, dates from antiguity and can be traced back (from Spencer) to Evhémère's Histoire sacrée (300 BCE) which describes the inhabitants of the island of Panchaia, Everything-Good, in the Indian Ocean as normal people deified by popular naivety. As Roland Barthes affirms, "Myth is a word chosen by history. It could not come from the nature of things" (Mâche 1992, p.20). This process occurs in part because the events described become detached from their original context and new context is substituted, often through analogy with current or recent events. Some Greek myths originated in Classical times to provide explanations for inexplicable features of local cult practices, to account for the local epithet of one of the Olympian gods, to interpret depictions of half-remembered figures, events, or account for the deities' attributes or entheogens, even to make sense of ancient icons, much as myths are invented to "explain" heraldic charges, the origins of which has become arcane with the passing of time. Conversely, descriptions of recent events are re-emphasised to make them seem to be analogous with the commonly known story. This technique has been used by some religious conservatives in America with text from the Bible, notably referencing the many prophecies in the Book of Revelation. It was also used during the Russian Communist era in propaganda about political situations with misleading references to class struggles. Until World War II the fitness of the Emperor of Japan was linked to his mythical descent from the Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu. Mâche (1992, p.10) argues that euhemerist exegesis, "was applied to capture and seize by force of reason qualities of thought, which eluded it on every side." This process, he argues, often leads to interpretation of myths as "disguised propaganda in the service of powerful individuals," and that the purpose of myths in this view is to allow the "social order" to establish "its permanence on the illusion of a natural order." He argues against this interpretation, saying that "what puts an end to this caricature of certain speeches from May 1968 is, among other things, precisely the fact that roles are not distributed once and for all in myths, as would be the case if they were a variant of the idea of an 'opium of the people.'" Contra Barthes (quote above) Mâche (1992) argues that, "myth therefore seems to choose history, rather than be chosen by it" (p.21), "beyond words and stories, myth seems more like a psychic content from which words, gestures, and musics radiate. History only chooses for it more or less becoming clothes. And these contents surge forth all the more vigorously from the nature of things when reason tries to repress them. Whatever the roles and commentaries with which such and such a socio-historic movement decks out the mythic image, the latter lives a largely autonomous life which continually fascinates humanity. To denounce archaism only makes sense as a function of a 'progressive' ideology, which itself begins to show a certain archaism and an obvious naivety." (p.20)

Other theories

"For Lévi-Strauss, myth is a structured system of signifiers, whose internal networks of relationships are used to 'map' the structure of other sets of relationships; the 'content' is infinitely variable and relatively unimportant." (Middleton 1990, p.222) A modern interpretation of myths, primarily as indicators of astrononomical events, has been put forward in such works as Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And It's Transmission Through Myth by Giorgio De Santillana, Hertha Von Dechend (ISBN: 0879232153), and serves as a counterpoint to numerous Jungian (often psychological or mystical) interpretations as put forward by Joseph Campbell. Catastrophists such as Immanuel Velikovsky believe that myths are derived from the oral histories of ancient cultures that witnessed cosmic catastrophes. For example, Velikovsky believes the dragon represented a fiery cosmic object such as a comet. Believers in catastrophism are only a small minority within the field of mythology.

Modern mythology

Film and book series like Star Wars and Tarzan have strong mythological aspects that sometimes develop into deep and intricate philosophical systems. These items are not mythology, but contain mythic themes that, for some people, meet the same psychological needs. An excellent example is that developed by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Fiction, however, does not reach the level of actual mythology until people believe that it really happened. For example, some people believe that fiction author Clive Barker's Candyman was based upon a true story, and new stories have grown up around the figure. The same can be said for the Blair Witch and many other stories. Mythology is alive and well in the modern age through urban legends, New Age beliefs, certain aspects of religion and so forth. In the 1950s Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873-1961) and his followers also tried to understand the psychology behind world myths.

Myths by region

Mythological archetypes

- culture hero
- Earth Mother
- first man or woman
- hero
- life-death-rebirth deity
- lunar deity
- psychopomp
- sky father
- solar deity
- trickster
- underworld

Mythological creatures

- legendary creature
- list of species in folklore and mythology
- list of species in folklore and mythology by type
- list of species in fantasy fiction

Books on mythology

- Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
- The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other titles by Joseph Campbell
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
- Mythology by Anne Birrell

References

- Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
- Mircea Eliade. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
- Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
- Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
- Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Social Psychology. Addison-Wesley, 1997.
- Mâche, François-Bernard (1983, 1992). Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion (Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion, trans. Susan Delaney). Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 3718653214.
- Caillois, Roger (1972). Le mythe et l'homme. Gallimard.
- Lévi-Bruhl, Lucian.
- Schelling. Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology.
- Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
- Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). "Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth", Harvard University Press. ISBN: 0879232153.

External links

- [http://www.pantheon.org/mythica.html Encyclopedia Mythica] Comprehensive encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend; covers deities, heroes and mythical beasts.
- [http://www.godchecker.com Godchecker] Easy-to-use searchable encyclopedia of gods and goddesses from around the world; currently has over 2,500 gods listed, including many obscure deities.
- [http://ericdigests.org/1996-4/mythic.htm Using Mythic-Archetypal Approaches in the Language Arts. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://www.mythology.com/ www.mythology.com] Information about myths, legends and folklore, as well as a message board.
- [http://www.folkstory.com/articles/onceupon.html How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives] ko:신화 ja:神話 th:ปุราณวิทยา

Bronze Age

:This article is about the archaeological era, for the era in Classical mythology see Ages of Man :For the comic book published by Image Comics, see Age of Bronze (comics) The Bronze Age is a period in a civilization's development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. The Bronze Age is part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies and follows the Neolithic in some areas of the World. In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Neolithic is directly followed by the Iron Age. Most surviving bronze implements are tools or weapons, though some ritual artifacts survive. The date of the arrival of a "Bronze Age" varies from culture to culture. The earliest Bronze Age civilisations were Sumer in modern Iraq, Egypt along the Nile, and the Indus Valley Civilisation on the Indian subcontinent.

East Asian Bronze Age

In Ban Chiang, Thailand, (Southeast Asia) bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BC [http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/banchiang/bronzelab/index.shtml]. The Erlitou culture, Shang Dynasty and Sanxingdui culture of early China used bronze vessels for rituals as well as farming implements and weapons [http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/chbro_bron.shtm].

Aegean Bronze Age

The Aegean bronze age established a far-ranging trade network. The network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide, and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of the tin in some Mediterranean bronze objects indicates it came from as far away as Great Britain. Navigation was well developed at this time, and reached a peak of skill not exceeded until a method was discovered to determine longitude around 1750. The Minoan empire appears to have coordinated and defended the bronze-age trade. One crucial lack in this period was that modern methods of accounting were not used, or available. Numerous authorities believe that ancient empires were prone to misvalue staples in favor of luxuries, and perish by famines created by uneconomic trading. How the Bronze age ended is still being studied. There is evidence that Mycenaean administration of the empire followed Minoan. There is evidence that several Minoan client-states lost large populations to extreme famines or pestilence, so the trade network is believed to have failed at some point, preventing the trade that would have previously relieved such famines and prevented some forms of illness (by nutrition). It is also known that the bread-basket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea, lost population and probably some degree of cultivation in this era. Recent research has discredited the theory that exhaustion of the Cypriot forests caused the end of the bronze trade. The Cypriot forests are known to have existed to later times, and experiments have shown that charcoal production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late bronze age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years. One theory says that as iron tools became more common, the main justification of the tin trade ended, and the trade network ceased to exist. The individual colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine or war, and had no access to the far-flung resources of an empire to recover. Another family of theories looks to the volcanic explosion of Thera, which occurred shortly before the end of the bronze age. Thera is about 40 miles north of Crete, which was at the time the capital of the Minoan empire. Some authorities speculate that a tsunami from Thera destroyed Cretan cities. Others say that perhaps a tsunami destroyed the Cretan navy in harbor, which then lost crucial battles with the Mycenaean navy, so that a former colony took over the empire. Another theory looks to the loss of Cretan expertise in administering the Empire. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, and simply became discredited by military failure, the Mycenaeans may have made crucial political and commercial mistakes when administering the empire. All of these theories are persuasive, and all may have operated to some extent.

British Bronze Age

In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from 2200 to 700 BC. Immigration brought new people to the islands from the continent, recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early bronze age graves around Stonehenge indicate that at least some of the immigrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. The Beaker people displayed different behaviours from the earlier Neolithic people and cultural change was significant although integration is thought to have been peaceful as many of the early henge sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating, where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily-defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock ranches developed in the lowlands which appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1400-1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Cornwall was a major source of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in north Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent. Also, the burial of dead (which until this period had usually been communal) became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow was used to house the dead, the Early Bronze Age saw people buried in individual barrows (also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as Tumuli), or sometimes in cists covered with cairns.

Central European Bronze Age

cairn In Central Europe, the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (1800-1600 BC) contains numerous local groups like Straubingen, Adlerberg and Hatvan culture. Some very rich burials like Leubingen with grave gifts made of gold point to a beginning social stratification already in the Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small site. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze age (1600-1200 BC) tumulus culture characterised by inhumation burials in tumuli (barrows). In Eastern Hungary in the Körös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Mako culture, followed by the Ottomany and Gyulavarsand cultures. The late Bronze age urnfield culture, (1300 BC-700 BC) is characterized by cremation burial. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland ((1300-500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (700-450 BC). Important sites include:
- Biskupin (Poland)
- Nebra (Germany)
- Zug-Sumpf, Zug, Switzerland

Nordic Bronze Age (1500-500 BC)

In Northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Bronze Age inhabitants manufactured many distinctive and beautiful artifacts, such as the pairs of lurer horns discovered in Denmark. Some linguists believe that a proto-Indo-European language was probably introduced to the area around 2000 BC and eventually became the ancestor of the Germanic languages. This would fit with the evolution of the Nordic Bronze Age into the most probably Germanic Pre-Roman Iron Age. The age is divided into the periods I-VI according to Oscar Montelius. Period Montelius V already belongs to the Iron Age in other regions.

External link

- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/4162/ Web index Bronze Age in Europe
- Category:Prehistory Category:Periods and stages in archaeology ko:청동기 시대 ja:青銅器時代 simple:Bronze Age

Dagger

:For the typographical mark, see dagger (typography). dagger (typography) A dagger (from Vulgar Latin: 'daca' - a Dacian knife) is a blade weapon (essentially a double-edged knife) used for stabbing, thrusting or as a secondary defense weapon in close combat. In most cases a tang is placed along the center line of the blade. Much like battle axes, daggers evolved out of prehistoric tools. They were initially made of flint,

Sword

History

Bronze Age

Iron Age

Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages and Renaissance

Modern Age

Terminology

Blade

Hilt

Typology

Double-edged swords

Single-handed

Two-handed

Single edged weapons

Training swords

Classification

Punishment devices

Symbolism

See also

External links

Old English language

Germanic origins

Latin influence

Viking influence

Celtic influence

Dialects

Phonology

Standardised orthography

The alphabet

Syntax

Morphology

Sample text

See also

External links

References

Old High German

Bladed weapon

See also

Blade

Techniques for production

Variation in blades

Decoration

Shape

Shave

Hilt

Pommel

Grip

Guard

Tassel

See also

Mythology

What is mythology?

Religion and mythology

Classifications

Related concepts

Formation of myths

Myths as depictions of historical events

Other theories

Modern mythology

Myths by region

Africa

Asia (non-Middle East)

Australia and Oceania

Europe

Middle East

North America

South America and Mesoamerica

Mythological archetypes

Mythological creatures

Books on mythology

See also

References

External links

Bronze Age

East Asian Bronze Age

Aegean Bronze Age

British Bronze Age

Central European Bronze Age

Nordic Bronze Age (1500-500 BC)