Behold Fake Hercules Sword Number 15: The Frioacero Sword (by Pablo Benavente)

8/24/2016

This is a guest blog post contributed by Pablo Benavente. As a #Swordgate enthusiast, Pablo has made several significant contributions to locating, documenting, and understanding an ever-growing assemblage of Fake Hercules Swords. In real life, he is an architect and photographer.

Nueva Espada Romana!

As many of you, I have been following the #Swordgate drama since the beginning. I have used my Spanish speaking skills to collaborate with the investigation and have found a couple of them. I did a quick search over lunch about two weeks ago and . . . Behold: Sword 15!

The online magazine Red Historia was one of many online outlets that published a story about the "Roman sword" allegedly found in Nova Scotia. When they tweeted the link to their story, Twitter user @Frioacero tweeted back: "It looks a lot like this one "discovered" by me in Pompeii. Can also be found on Ebay".

When I asked if he could share some details about his sword, @Frioacero told me "It was bought in Pompeii on a small souvenir store around 2006."

I've been promised more photos that will be useful to compare this sword to the others in the Fake Hercules Sword database, but for now there is just the photo from Twitter.

The Frioacero sword (Sword 15).

Given what we know, I think that these swords were most likely manufactured to be sold to visitors to the National Museum of Archaeology or the Vesuvius National Park. In order to increase the appeal of the souvenir, someone might have invented that it is a copy of an existing sword in the Museum, giving birth to the legend that there is an "original in the Naples Museum." No-one has produced any evidence that an "original sword" actually exists in the museum.

Two notes (Andy White):

I assigned Sword 15 to Type CS based on what appears to be a "clean" blade (missing the casting anomalies of Type J) that is short in length. I'm guessing it is a copper alloy sword based on the patina.
Alert #Swordgate aficionados will have noticed that we skipped over Sword 14. That number has already been assigned to another recently discovered sword, a post about which is currently in the works.

GEE GINA

8/24/2016 09:56:30 am

Pablo, awesome find. 2006, if these swords were made as replicas from one existing in a museum in Naples., why cant we find this information? Ive been searching since we received this information a few months back.

GEE GINA

8/24/2016 09:59:00 am

Maybe I can get one of my Italian Relatives to call there and inquire or go to the museum. ??

JA Sterling

8/24/2016 10:12:36 am

Great write up Pablo... those eagle eyes of yours peeled for more swords

Bob Jase

8/24/2016 10:37:25 am

No resemblence to the earlier swords - they had their hilts & points on the opposite ends from this one.

Also missing the hooked chi in Herc's hair.

RW Taylor

8/24/2016 10:59:37 am

The story continues!

Peter Geuzen

8/24/2016 12:06:52 pm

In the database, maybe columns for 'original purchase location' and 'occurrence location' could be added, to help differentiate examples. The original purchase data points are growing but interestingly are limited to just Rome and Pompeii for location. The column for 'minimum year' could be switched to 'original purchase year' and another column for 'occurrence year' would give context to examples listed by 'occurrence location'. I think we have to assume that all online sales, estate sales, or similar, are second, third, etc. generation from original 'bricks and mortar' purchase.

Andy White

8/24/2016 12:10:51 pm

All good suggestions - I'll make the changes when I have some time.

Another thing I'd like to do is estimate some metric dimensions from the photos. Given problems with angles, etc., it won't be possible to pick up on very small size differences using only the photos. It will, I think, be possible to estimate things like width and length with enough accuracy to capture large differences (e.g., in the blade lengths of the J and CS types).

Peter Geuzen

8/24/2016 12:46:11 pm

If we can show declining length trend agreeing with later group type chronology, we might be on to something. On this point I think there is a glitch in the lengths we already have - #2 Florida is noted just 3cm shorter than #1 Nova Scotia, but visually it's much shorter. I think #1 should be longer - it should be similar to the length we have for #8 Sonja.

p.s. ...the raven flew late....;)

Peter Geuzen

8/24/2016 12:57:14 pm

Actually there might be a couple more glitches, the more I look, so maybe a full edit check is needed. 4 noted as the same length as 2 and 6, but 4 looks longer but if it is measured correctly then it is just under 1 making 1 accurate, even though 1 looks longer and the same as P types, as already noted. Hmmmm....

Andy White

8/24/2016 01:40:11 pm

I'll check it out tomorrow. Perhaps a Fake Hercules Sword audit is, indeed, in order.

Peter Geuzen

8/24/2016 07:41:08 pm

More database stuff:

I see you deleted the mass for #2 Florida (from the previous version) - fair enough, because it clearly was too high relative to the other known weights - just confirming, yes/no?. For column 'Fuller Length' maybe instead of '0' for the examples with no fuller, 'n.a.' would be better because the partial fuller is a Group Type criterion just for P, so other groups clearly don't have it (until a weird mutant with fuller and J mark shows up, for example). Minimum date for #8 Sonja is noted as 1970 but there were two points of correspondence that seem to say two different things - The second email: "My father confirmed me he bought in 1970 from a friend of a friend...", but the first email: "My parents have this sword from the middle of 70's and they bought it from a man in a flee [sic] market in Rome...". The database says 1970 to agree with the second email but to be safe should we say 'ca. 1975' until we have more testimonial or other evidence? Given that this is the earliest purchase date reported, perhaps it's better to hedge later rather than earlier, to avoid any suggestion of some sort of bias.

Peter Geuzen

8/25/2016 08:27:25 am

Oops - F not P, per mentions above.

Andy White

8/25/2016 11:48:29 am

I've got about a half hour before I need to get out of the office, but I'm going to try to go through your notes and look at the database.

Andy White

8/25/2016 12:05:35 pm

I got the measurements from Sword 2 straight from David Kenney's website:

"This extraordinary Roman gladiator ceremonial (or votive) gladius is solid caste brass using the lost wax technique. It measures 46 1/2 cm in overall length with the statue handle at 17 1/2 cm in length, the blade is 29 cm in length. The statue handle is 8 cm's at it's widest width with the blade at 4 cm's wide. It weighs approx. 2 kg. "

The "approx 2 kg" is too vague to be of much use, so I'm leaving it out for now. Maybe I can ask Kenney to get a better weight and to measure some additional dimensions.

Andy White

8/25/2016 12:09:25 pm

The dimensions for Sword 1 come from this photo, so I think they're correct in the table:

http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article7059149.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/PAY-Romans-in-America_0078.jpg

Andy White

8/25/2016 12:14:52 pm

Sonja (8) and California (3) are the two "F" swords. I measured the California sword myself. The length of the Sonja sword was reported by the owner and is comparable to that of the California sword, so I think we're good there. The F blades are longer than the J blades, which are longer than the CS and Design Toscano blades.

Andy White

8/25/2016 12:38:51 pm

I've put up a new version of the database (8/25/2016). It has columns for "original year" and "original location" as well as "earliest known" year and location -- hopefully that will make it clearer when we've got what appears to be an "original" purchase.

I realized I never wrote much if anything about swords 10 and 11 (Florida eBay and Pugio). I think there are pictures of 10 around from which we may be able to get some metrics.

Peter Geuzen

8/25/2016 02:21:33 pm

I think length for 2 Kenny has to be wrong, and I assume 6 France is wrong. Reported lengths of 46.5cm and 46cm but we know 4 Italian eBay is correct at 46cm. Look at them all side by side in the Swordgate poster and clearly they don't match. The blades for 2 and 6 are only moderately longer than the hilts, and hilts are consistent at 17.5cm so a quick estimate would be 40cm & 38cm total, for 2 and 6. One other data base point - 11 Pugio I believe would be occurrence date of 1992 and occurrence location of Caserta, Italy based on the newspaper article it came from.

Jim

8/24/2016 04:33:33 pm

Ouch,, I just sat down on my hide a bed couch and something sharp poked me in the behind. I thought it was a loose spring poking through, but nope,it was another one of those bloody swords !

RiverM

8/25/2016 09:36:30 am

I ran one over mowing the lawn yesterday and now have the mower apart waiting for parts. I'm not an old man, but Templars...stay off my lawn! My yard is close to that of the route of Paul Revere during his infamous ride...hmmm. Souvenir turned flotsam or calculated placement to mark central radius between Plymouth Rock, the Newport Tower, America's Stonehenge and Friendly's ice cream?

Only Me

8/24/2016 04:41:43 pm

To Andy and everyone still working Swordgate:

You guys are straight up awesome. Fifteen replicas discovered and catalogued since the original announcement.

If I remember correctly, wasn't the oldest one bought sometime in the 70s? That means a production run of at least thirty years! I guess it's safe to conclude there might be hundreds of these swords globally.

Andy White

8/24/2016 06:57:15 pm

It ain't over 'til it's over. Someday we'll know the story behind these things. Maybe we'll even know by the first anniversary of Swordgate --who knows? There are more swords coming, just FYI.

Jim

8/24/2016 07:21:28 pm

Do you know how to braze Andy ? I'm thinking, an awesome sculpture made entirely of roman swords !

RiverM

8/25/2016 09:39:36 am

An actual sword gate, to go with a close matching picket fence.

Jim

8/25/2016 10:58:33 am

Perfect !

Andy White

8/25/2016 11:49:45 am

I can't do brazing, but the good news is that the Design Toscano sword I own is cast iron so it's weldable. Way ahead of you on plans for a "Swordgate"!

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Behold Fake Hercules Sword Number 15: The Frioacero Sword (by Pablo Benavente)

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