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Sword 21: Daga Romana (by Pablo Benavente)

1/14/2017

This is a guest blog post contributed by Fake Hercules Sword Whisperer Pablo Benavente. There's been an uptick in the pace of discovery, and it's been difficult for me to keep all of our information up to date. Thanks to Pablo and JA Sterling for continuing to shake primary data out of the internet.

What Swordgate discoveries does 2017 hold? Last year was exciting, and I have enjoyed every discovery. But how many more of these things could there be?

Leave it to JA Sterling in her spare time to find this beauty:

If you scroll down to the end of this post about the "Sonja sword" (Sword 8), you'll see a photo from a newspaper that shows a sword with a strange blade shape (that's Sword 11 in the database -- we know nothing about it other than what's in the article). The photographer in me thought that the strange shape could have been a result of the photo being taken with a wide angle lens. Now, in the presence of evidence, I change my position! It's obvious that swords with "pugio" blades were indeed made at some point.

The sword shown above (Sword 21 in the database) was for sale on an auction website in 2013. The description on the website can be translated as follows:

"Model of Roman Dagger, XX Century. Iron with green patina, with a figure of a warrior on the hilt. Length: 67 centimeters"

That description and the single photo is all we have. It's not clear how detailed the Hercules is or if maybe he's "thinner" Hercules (maybe sign of an older model?). The blade shape is obviously different, and the central rib is a feature we haven't seen anywhere else. Assuming the reported length is correct, this is the longest Fake Hercules Sword we know about. The description of "iron with green patina" is curious.

I'm looking forward to hear everybody's opinions about it.

Broad River Archaeological Field School: Day 1 (1/13/2017)

1/13/2017

The first day in the field went pretty well. We accomplished all the goals I had for Day 1: getting the screens put together, clearing brush and leaf litter from the excavation areas, laying out the units, and getting everyone acquainted with the site and each other. As a native Midwesterner, it was a truly bizarre feeling to be starting an excavation on a 75 degree day in mid-January. The winter weather here is amazing.

After a few preliminaries at SCIAA ("be here on time, don't be a jerk, everything you do matters") we headed out to the site, arriving before 10:30. As I've briefly discussed previously (e.g., here and here), the portion of the site we're working on contains at least 2 m of prehistoric archaeological deposits stratified within in a natural levee along the Broad River. What we know about the site so far is limited to the information I've gathered by documenting deposits exposed in the existing vertical cut (produced by mechanical excavation at some point in the past presumably to borrow sediment) and excavation of two partial units that I placed to start to produce a straight profile and document the buried (Middle Archaic?) deposit of chipping debris that constitutes Feature 1.

Drawing of the deposits exposed in the irregular, machine-cut profile. The numbers in the image are too small to read, but the (presumably) Middle Archaic zone is the second from the bottom if you look at the left edge of the drawing. Woodland/Mississippian pit features are also exposed in the profile nearer the current ground surface.

After a brief tour of the site, I broke the students into groups and had most of them assemble screens. Jim Legg and one student worked on cleaning up the lower area of the site within the machine cut (which I have started calling the "downstairs") in preparation for work on the profile and the excavation of a 1 m x 2 m unit to give us a look below the profile. We cleared small trees, brush, and leaf litter from the "upstairs" area on the top of the levee in preparation for laying out a block of units to expose some of the deposits in plan.

Clearing vegetation from the "upstairs" in preparation for laying out a 4 m x 4m block of units.

And the award for first serpent of the field school goes to . . .

View of "downstairs" from "upstairs." Jim Legg and several students are laying out a 1 m x 2 m unit (Unit 7 in the map below) that will give us a window into what, if anything, is located below the presumed Middle/Late Archaic zone. The vertical cut is visible curving around on the left.

For the 4 m x 4 m block on the "upstairs" (Units 3, 4, 5, and 6 in the diagram below) I gave the students the task of trying to figure out how to find the unit corners using two permanent datum points (N 1000 / E 995 and N 995 / E 995) that DuVal Lawrence and I installed earlier in the week. Locating and marking the corners accurately requires several steps, so I wanted them to go through the thought process of figuring out how to do it (and check it) using multiple triangulations. That was fun.

Students working on locating the corners of the 4 m x 4 m block.

The following image is just a photograph of my basic map showing the locations of the units we've laid out. The profile drawing shown above curves along the line labeled "cut." I excavated Units 1 and 2 last spring to start the process of producing a straight north-south profile. Jim Legg will continue those excavations with a series of units to the north of Unit 2, establishing a plumb profile wall along the 1000 E line. Units 3, 4, 5, and 6 will be used to expose the deposits in plan, coming down from the apex of the levee. Unit 7 will be used to investigate what, if anything, is below the deposits visible in the exposed vertical cut.

Weather permitting, next Friday we'll be putting shovels in the ground. Stay tuned!

SEM Analysis Shows that Fake Hercules Swords 3 and 4 are Modern Brass

1/10/2017

My field school starts this Friday, so I've been spending most of my time lately getting things ready: assembling equipment, building screens, finalizing forms, and learning to use the department's total station. I'll be moving equipment and shooting in some datum points tomorrow. We'll begin on Friday by clearing trees and brush from the excavation area and laying out the first units.

I wanted to take moment to report that Dr. Christa Brosseau at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has now analyzed the metal composition of the California sword (Sword 3) and the Italian eBay sword (Sword 4). Followers of Swordgate will remember Brosseau from her role in the epic debunking of the "Roman sword from Nova Scotia (Sword 1 in the Fake Hercules Sword database). I mailed Brosseau the samples that I obtained from the California sword, and Trevor Furlotte and Kel Hancock visited Saint Mary's with the Italian eBay sword to watch samples from both the swords being tested.

Christa Brosseau removes a sample from the blade of the Italian eBay sword (Sword 4) (image courtesy of Kel Hancock).

Without divulging all the particulars (Brosseau and I are contemplating writing a paper together), I'll just say that both newly-tested swords are made of modern brass. Interestingly, analysis showed that the three swords have statistically different compositions (though all are broadly similar). The composition of patinas on the Nova Scotia and Italian eBay swords, both "J" types in our classification, were similar.

Slide showing magnified images of the samples analyzed and graphs of the metal composition (image courtesy of Christa Brosseau).

I would love to get more of these swords analyzed. With a larger sample of quantitative metal composition data, it could be theoretically possible to identify particular "batches" of swords that share both comopositional and morphometric characteristics.

Sword 10 (Florida eBay Sword)

1/7/2017

Refreshing my memory about the narrative arc of #Swordgate yesterday, I was reminded that I never produced a blog post about Sword 10 (Florida eBay). This sword was spotted for sale on eBay in January of 2016. It was offered by a store in Stuart, Florida. As of this writing, the original listing for the item is still available here.

The seller was clearly trying to capitalize on the interest generated by the appearance of the "Roman sword" on The Curse of Oak Island, asking an even thousand dollars to purchase the sword outright.

Screenshot of the eBay listing for Sword 10.

There are many photos of the sword, some with a tape measure. By description and the photos, the sword is almost certainly a copper alloy sword. We classed this sword as a "type CS" along with Swords 7(Span), 12 (Cvet), 13 (Alejandro), and 15 (Friocero). My working hypothesis is that this generation of swords falls between the so-called "J" swords (e.g., Italian eBay sword, Nova Scotia sword, etc.) and the iron alloy Design Toscano swords. Type CS swords are (presumably) copper alloy swords with relatively "clean" blades missing the suite of anomalies that we're using to define the J type. A close comparison of the images we have may be useful in recognizing commonalities and variation among the "CS" swords.

I've entered more information on this sword into the database. I used the weight (2.6 lbs; 1179 g) and total length (17 inches; 43.2 cm) reported in the description. I estimatd the hilt length/blade length and proximal blade width from images taken with a ruler. Here are some basic photos:

Sword 10: front.

Sword 10: front of hilt.

Sword 10: side of hilt.

Sword 10: back of hilt.

Fake Hercules Swords: 2017 Edition

1/7/2017

I fell behind on maintaining the Fake Hercules Swords database last fall as my Forbidden Archaeology class ramped up and I had to spend my "fringe" time dealing with giants and lost civilizations. Swordgate didn't die in 2016, and, in fact, seems to have taken an uptick as we've started the new year. Now is as good a time as any to start getting things updated and pressing on, as there is both new data on the way about some of the known Fake Hercules Swords, and (hopefully) information about entirely new swords.

Hartman Krug made this.

I've uploaded a new version (1/7/2017) of the spreadsheet to the Database page. The new file includes structural alterations made by my Swordgate colleague Peter Geuzen back in August.

Alert readers will notice the addition of Swords 17, 18, 19, and 20 to the database. Each of these has a name but little attached infomation. Three of these swords were reported to me via email, but the conversation about them withered without getting much more than a photo. This afternoon I wrote follow-up emails trying to get more infomation about those swords.

The last new sword (Sword 19, Smit) was reported with images on the Fake Hercules Swords group on Facebook. It is a hilt section only (the blade appears to have been snapped off), reportedly purchased from a flea market in the Netherlands in 2009 for 7.5 euros.

Watch this space.

Forward>>

Sword 21: Daga Romana (by Pablo Benavente)

Broad River Archaeological Field School: Day 1 (1/13/2017)

SEM Analysis Shows that Fake Hercules Swords 3 and 4 are Modern Brass

Sword 10 (Florida eBay Sword)

Fake Hercules Swords: 2017 Edition

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