Two-edged sword

An iron sword, dredged at the end of the 19th century from the Oder riverbed in Szczecin, referred to as Szczecin-Gocław II. There are two basic construction elements of a sword: a head and a handle. The head, also called blade or wedge, is the working part used for striking blows. In this case, we deal with a double-edged (double-edged) head, which means that both edges are sharp. On its surface, for almost its entire length, there is a depression called a hilt. The blade is separated from the handle by a straight, oval cross-section hilt. The handle ends in a triangular profiled cap, with a marked division into seven parts. The sword Szczecin-Gocław II is distinguished by the ornamentation of the handle. The ornamentation consists of vertical, quite wide strips, between which motifs made of woven wire were inserted. The Szczecin sword was subjected to metallographic analysis, which showed that the central part consists of six layers of alternating high-carbon and low-carbon laminated rods ground to a star pattern. To the central part prepared in this way, blade caps were heated on both sides. In the typology of early medieval swords by the Scandinavian researcher Jan Petersen, the sword Szczecin-Gocław II was marked as type K of specimens with multiple blade overlays on the heads. Only two swords of this type, which are considered West European products, dated to the 1st half of the 9th century, are known from the territory of Poland.

Sławomir Słowiński