New Information About the Sonja Sword

1/22/2016

Our friend and #Swordgate participant Sonja has emailed me some good photos of what I originally called the "Sonja Rome sword" (first discussed in this post). I'm just going to call it the Sonja sword from now on.

I don't have time to write anything detailed this morning, but I wanted to pass on this information from her. The new photos show the Sonja sword has a partially fullered blade, just like the California sword. That means we now have a sample of two of those along with a data point for when it was originally sold. This is going to be extremely helpful for producing both a typology and chronology of Fake Hercules Swords. It's clear we've got at least a copper alloy "Type F" (F for the fullered blades of the California and Sonja swords), a copper alloy "Type J" (J for the "J" mark visible on the blades the Nova Scotia, Florida, France, and Italian eBay swords), and at least a couple of forms with short blades like the Design Toscano swords (some made in cast iron and some possibly made with copper alloy). My guess is still that the Type F probably is older than the Type J. There's much more fun work to be done sorting these out.

One more thing to point out: check out the blade shape of the sword in the newspaper clipping - yet another variant.

That's about all I have time for now. I'm just going to post the text from Sonja's email along with the photos she sent me. Have fun everybody! And say thanks to Sonja!

"Here there are other infos about my sword.
Weight: 1502 gr.
Lenght: 58,5 cm
Width: 8 cm

Decades ago the sword was greenish, much more green than now that is quite black.

My father confirmed me he bought in 1970 from a friend of a friend (unfortunately both of them passed away). The guy was used to sell in Porta Portese market, a famous flea market in Rome, every kind of false ancient objects. In particular my father told me, the guy explained how he did it, letting the swords corroding in the sole or in the mud, and there were a lot of them.

Here there are other pictures.

My father in 1992 found the article you see, in a newspaper with the photo of a sword with the same hilt, but the blade has a different shape. The article says that a gang of young students living in Caserta, near Neaples, was trying to sell ancient objects, on www.aucland.it in auction, and they were arrested. The young students said they found in the sea in Sicily, during a holiday (!) maybe that's why in the article it is written the hilt is from Poseidone.

This is everything I can add to my story at the moment."

The hilt and fullered blade segment of the Sonja sword.

Back of the Sonja sword.

Front of the Sonja sword.

Back of the Sonja sword with scale.

Hilt of the Sonja sword with scale.

Club/branch and head of the Sonja sword with scale.

Newspaper article, part 1.

Newspaper article, part 2. Check out the blade that our friend Hercules has been equipped with in the sword shown in the photo!

18 Comments

Pablo

1/22/2016 06:14:13 am

I'm going to say that the last photo was probably highly distorted by the use of a wide angle lens and that's why the blade looks like that. Whatever is closer to the camera, is going to look bigger. So probably, it was the same shape as the ones we have. You can notice that in the difference of the size of the hands holding the sword.

Andy White

1/22/2016 06:18:11 am

I don't know . . . The Hercules doesn't look that distorted to me. To me it looks like a blade that is shaped to mimic a Bronze Age sword rather than a Roman sword. That was my first thought, anyway.

Pablo

1/22/2016 06:40:03 am

The Hercules is not distorted because it is not close to the lens. I'll do some test later and post it.

1/22/2016 06:50:45 am

It also doesn't look that much distorted to me in contrast to the photo right of it.
I think this lends more credibility to the theory that mold of the hilt has been used to create different blades.
It would be fun to find this hercules statue not attached to a blade but to something else, i would not be surprised.

Ryan

1/23/2016 01:52:41 pm

Circular distortion from a wide angle lens doesn't typically look like that. You'd be seeing the straight lines of the image bowing away from the center. With object toward center being distorted in both directions, creating the swollen stretch look we're all familiar with. The sword is slightly off center, particularly the handle. As is that stature. If you draw a line from the tip of the blade to the handle, following along the center of the object. You'll notice that line isn't curved at all, which it should be with an uncentered object. The same is true of the statue to the left. So for this to be wide angle distortion only a small portion of the object (just forward portion of the blade) would be effected.

http://bit.ly/1SEncke

See the distortion to straight lines there? That's what wide angle and fish eye lenses do.

Now there could still be some distortion. Particularly you could be looking at some forced perspective/for shortening issues. if the tip of the sword is closer to the lens than the handle (which seems to be the case) then could be making the tip look larger than it is, and the handle smaller.

This is particularly true when certain photo techniques are used. The sort of settings and lenses that will give you that nice depth of field, with everything in focus. Also tend to compress the impression of depth. Making things seem closer (or in this case shorter) than they really are.

But even if that's the case and there is some slight forced perspective going on. The blade still needs to have a more exaggerated, leaf shaped blade then we've seen with the existing swords.

Pablo

1/23/2016 03:04:10 pm

The photos you are showing were taken using a wide angle lens, yes; but that is a fisheye lens. The distortion of a wide angle lens let's say a 10mm. still keep lines straight. I'm not saying that this sword's blade is not different; it could be. I'm going to do a test at some point this weekend.

Pablo

1/23/2016 03:07:10 pm

Also, I have some doubts about the photo being taken with a wide angle lens because if that's from the 70's, most likely they would have used a 50mm or a 35 mm. But that distortion looks like what would happen if it was taken with a 20mm or smaller.

Ryan

1/23/2016 05:01:43 pm

Fish eye lenses are a good example of the sort of distortion we're talking about. Because a fish eye is nothing more than a very wide angle lens. Photos of that sort just make the distortion very apparent, so they useful to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Furthermore at 10mm (35 millimeter equivilent) you're talking about a fish eye lense. Its one of the more common focal lengths for achieving the fish eye effect. Along with 8mm, and 15mm. Wide angle is anything below a normal lens, a lens that best reproduces a natural looking human field of view. In terms of 35mm or lenses adjusted to reflect their equivalent for 35mm, 50 is normal. Its neither telephoto, nor wide angle. A 35mm lens (at 35 millimeter equivalent), on the other hand is a pretty standard wide angle measurement. Those numbers all shift when you're talking about different sensor sizes or film formats. APS C, one of the more common digital sensor sizes, for example normal is around 30mm. And wide angles run 10mm-20mm give or take.

So when you're comparing cameras with different sensor sizes or film formats its important to remember how those measurments vary. Which is why people tend to talk in terms of 35mm equivalent.

Which is all besides the point. Whatever the actual focal length of the wide angle lens, if there is distortion from the focal length its always the same kind. images are pulled in a circular fashion towards the edges of the lens. Straight lines become arcs, content of the image towards the center is stretched and towards the edges of the frame compressed.

If there was enough distortion to noticeably increase and distort the size and shape of the blade, by necessity there would be enough distortion to break the straight lines of the image into an arc. And that distortion would be over the entire field of view, not restricted to slightly below and right of center.

In terms of what it was likely shot on. I think your right. Assuming a 35mm camera, common practice by press photogs was to use normal (50mm) or mild wide angles (35mm) for the bulk of shooting.

Pablo

1/24/2016 07:03:54 am

Well I'm a photographer and I have both lenses, the fish eye 10-17 and a regular wide angle 10-20; and I can tell you that there is a difference in the way the image is distorted. Unfortunately I've been in the middle of a snow storm here were I live, and I haven't felt like doing experiments but maybe today or tomorrow.

Ryan

1/24/2016 11:48:56 am

Pablo the difference is in degree of distortion. Not in kind. I've done some work as a photog, but far more with video. I also spent a good 3 years selling cameras and professional grade photo equipment. I've worked in photo labs, and various kinds of shooping and image correction for marketing and web stuff as well. Better grade, more expensive lenses tend to minimize distortion through better design. Fish eye lenses, because they exist to feature such distortions don't. Which would be why your fish eye, and wide angle cover the same range of focal lengths. Zoom lenses (generally speaking) feature more distortion than prime lenses.

And remember that how wide, or telephoto a lens is is a factor of sensor size. 10-20mm is pretty damn wide for full frame and 35mm. For APSc its pretty normal wide angle range.

But since barrel distortion is a factor of the lens, and how it interacts with your format size its fundamentally global. Mild distortion can leave lines straight towards the center, and images there unstretched but you'll still see lines further from the center pulling an arch. And distortion that leaves the image unwarped near the center won't significantly distort the size of an object near the center. Though it could potentially become slightly compressed towards the edge of the frame.

Though the photo looks cropped, so its not likely we're even seeing the edges of the full image. So by all means play around a bit. At the very least you'll see what I'm talking about. But I'd recommend you plug those same lenses on some cameras with different format sizes. Its pretty cool to see how much they can vary.

Matt

1/22/2016 07:32:37 am

Did a rough Google translation of the article text. My interpretation:

"From ancient Greece to the internet. Forgotten in the sea of Sicily for two and a half millennia, a sword of Poseidon and a Greek goddess have emerged on the internet. A new frontier of network traffic has arisen in archeological finds. Two law students tried to sell two pieces from the fifth century BC online, valued at half a billion. The internet, however, can be tricky. A policeman of Bari was surfing the internet one night and stumbled into this strange online auction, foiling the trafficking of the objects.

Everything started from the site www.aucland.it. On this site you can find everything from home appliances to motorcycles, up to objects for the home or the office. Best of all, anyone can offer their products for free. All products are sold with photos and a detailed file. New releases are indicated with an egg icon, while hot products are indicated with a flame.

The finds were under the “Antiques and Archeology” section of the site. The code name of the sellers was “collector”. Five hundred users attended the auction, one after the other offering higher and higher bids. So much so that the price skyrocketed to three hundred million per piece. Among the potential buyers, however, was the officer from Bari. It took months of back-and-forth by email to win the confidence of the “collector”, but in the end the officer managed to win the auction. He had the photographs of the two objects and the information about them, but he had to catch the two crooks in the act. A meeting was arranged in a luxury hotel in Caserta. The fake art enthusiast, however, was fully equipped with bugs and a microphone.

Catching the two auctioneers was not difficult. The students were charged with complicity in receiving stolen goods. As for the website, there were no repercussions. The site was free to post auctions, so it was not criminally liable. “We did not think of doing anything illegal,” said the two students to the police. “We found the statuette and the sword during a holiday, on the bottom of the sea in Sicily, and we decided to sell them over the internet. It seemed strange we were being offered so much. We lost it.” This is their version, but the police are convinced that the two young men, both in their twenties and computer experts, are only the last piece of a well-organized fencing operation.

The internet can be a great opportunity to exploit. The web has a global reach, it’s not regulated by any law, and it guarantees anonymity. Too bad the police sometimes get on there as well."

Matt

1/22/2016 07:40:07 am

It's interesting that the article never questions the antiquity of the two objects. The two are charged with receiving "stolen goods", rather than for trying to sell knockoffs as authentic items.

Cleo

1/22/2016 08:41:20 am

No authorities had any objects to study before the purchase. A clear giveaway is that they call it a sword of Poseidon. Anyone would a bit of knowledge would rapidly conclude that it is Hercules portrayed. We don't know how this ended either. I doubt they could have made a case for them being the fakers, so why not just go ahead and charge them for selling antiquities as they claim to be doing. One would assume that a truer story came out in court later.

Boomer

1/22/2016 11:37:14 am

I couldn't reply to your other comment for some reason. Controllatissimi is a form of controllata, or control, that changes because they and past tense.

Ormai I mercatini dell’usato e gli antiquariati sono controllatissimi.

By now they controlled the the used markets and antique trades.

Boomer

1/22/2016 09:27:13 am

That's a good translation. The only thing off is the police for carabinieri substitution. Minor difference, but the caraninieri don't screw around and carry machine guns. (They're part of the Army)

Matt

1/22/2016 10:10:01 am

Google choked on "controllatissimi". What does that word mean in English?

Jonathan Feinstein

1/22/2016 10:20:31 am

If anything the fullered section of this blade is in better shape than that of the California Sword. I noted that the CA sword/s line of division looked uneven as it appeared in the photos that the central ridge was not as long as the ones near the edges (ventral?). On Sonja's sword the ridges are obviously of the same length and it might even look aa though that was the shape of an original blade rather than a flat one joined to the remains of a fullered one. I cannot think of a good reason why the fullers would only extend and inch or two beyond the hilt, but that is how it looks to me in the photos.

As for the apparent leaf-bladed piece in the photo, there may be some distortion, but it does not appear to me that there is so much as to make a straight blade appear to be leaf-shaped... Okay something else to look for.

Josh

1/23/2016 03:25:15 am

I'm kinda leaning toward distortion, simply because if we assume the proportions are correct, the actual blade only looks about 10 or 15 percent longer than the hilt (including what I'm inferring to be the termination of the blade, which is out-of-frame).

I didn't bust out a ruler or anything, but I used a finger scale to get a rough idea and it looks like the blade is maybe 1.25x the length of the hilt, at most. Perhaps it's more like 1.33x if we give some fudge room for the angle of the shot, to compensate for the vertical perspective...

I guess it's possible that someone would make a "dagger" version of the sword with the same hilt, but it's hard to imagine because it would still look odd, if the proportions in the photo aren't due to a wide-angle lens. Even the Bronze Age swords that Andy mentioned in reply to the first comment had a greater hilt-to-blade ratio than 1:1.33, didn't they?

New Information About the Sonja Sword

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