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| Nuzi sword | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 2 2011, 06:41 AM (664 Views) | |
| Dan Howard | Feb 2 2011, 06:41 AM Post #1 |
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I'm trying to find info about the only blade found at Nuzi. The one with the iron insets in the grip. I know that it was about 38cm long but I was wondering how heavy it was and whether the blade is copper or bronze. |
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| Todd Feinman | Feb 3 2011, 04:44 AM Post #2 |
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Hi Dan: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1...2Bsword+%2Biron apparently it was of copper or bronze. See the excerpt under: Nuzi: report on the excavation at Yorgan Tepa near Kirkuk, Iraq: Volume 1 Todd |
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| Dan Howard | Feb 3 2011, 09:30 AM Post #3 |
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Thanks Todd. That's all I can find out too. No mention of the alloy and no mention of the weight. It would be strange if it was made of copper since they had iron available if they wanted. Only a good bronze would make a better blade than iron. |
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| Jamie Szudy | Feb 7 2011, 11:03 PM Post #4 |
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Unfortunately, this is usually the case. Metallurgical studies are expensive and time consuming, so they are not often done. More to the point, they require sawing samples out of the artifacts, which museum curators are often not too keen on... But I have always wondered why they don't provide the weight. It's basic info and easy enough to do, and even if corrosion has changed its weight while it was buried, there will still be a proportional relationship to the original weight... I've run into this time in again in my study of arrowheads. DEEPLY frustrating at times! Also, a lot of older excavation reports will refer to any kind of copper alloy simply as "copper," which can give a misleading image of things. As far as I know, there are no pure copper weapons or tools from this period. They are always copper-tin bronze (deliberately made) or copper-arsenic (which may be naturally occuring). |
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| michel sancho | Feb 18 2011, 05:06 AM Post #5 |
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with the additional problem that in the past, 19th, beginning of 20th century, archaelogists called "bronze" every kind of copper alloys, not necessarly with tin. This is very ambiguous when you read ancient notices in the museums or ancient books. Surely discussed in another topic, iron at the beginning was not stronger than bronze: for that you need carburization and tempering. |
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