A scientific investigation of the spectacular 3,400-year-old highly decorated bronze sword discovered in Nördlingen, Southern Germany, in 2023 has uncovered how the metal was worked, the sword constructed and decorated. The exceptional state of preservation of the weapon — it is intact from pommel to tip, still shines in some place and has a honed edge — gave researchers a unique opportunity to reveal new information about Bronze Age metalwork and craft techniques.
The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BLfD) sent the sword to Berlin where it was analyzed using non-destructive methods including 3D computed tomography, X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The results found the metal was worked with an incredibly high level of precision and skill.
The resolution of the 3D CT scans is so high that every detail is exposed, down to the tool marks left on the weapon. Examination of the imaging found that the blade was clamped and riveted to the hilt with a tang, just like great German steel kitchen knives are today.
The deep grooves on the pommel and pommel plate that form a geometric pattern contain what appears to be a different material from the bronze. Just based on how the what the material looked like, researchers expected the decoration in the grooves to be tin, which is soft and malleable and easy to use on such a tiny detail job. Instead, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which floods the surface of the object with synchrotron radiation, causing atoms to emit measurable element-specific X-rays, identified the inlaid material as copper wires joined together. Copper is a harder material, and much more difficult to work with than tin would have been to inlay into grooves. It attests to have highly skilled the metalworker could be.
Traces of tin and, in some places, a little lead, which probably came from the bronze alloy, were also detectable. ’We are familiar with this type of inlay work using copper wires in bronze from other finds,’ says [Dr Johann-Friedrich Tolksdorf, regional representative of the BLfD]. ‘To make the reddish copper stand out better from the gold-coloured bronze, it may have been patinated, i.e. chemically blackened, for example with urine.’ […]
The thorough evaluation of the measurement data will take some time, after which the experts plan to publish their results and conclusions. ‘We hope that we will also be able to reconstruct whether this sword was made in a specific workshop, for example – so far, we can only assume that it was manufactured in southern Germany, one of the two main areas where octagonal swords were prevalent in the Bronze Age in Germany,’ says Tolksdorf.
* This article was originally published here
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