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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2009 11:05:06 GMT
I see everyone is making seax with broken tip and claiming it's a nordic knife or a viking knife. From what I've found out the sax with broken back has been found in UK, France and Germany, but as far as I know not in the scandinavian countries. The knives found are mostly small knifes and still is made with this blade shape: The sagas supports the use of long knives for battle, but often instead of swords. I've seen some grave finds of long knives/ short swords, but these has either a double edge imported sword or they're like a shorter version of the 7-8th century one edged viking swords. So is there any historical evidence the vikings used the broken back longsax?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2009 9:16:03 GMT
Over in Sweden they have plenty of broken back sax's, I seen the link in SFI I think, has been a while and was in a wierd place, one of the museum in uppsalla....................SanMarc.
And the knife you have there is a "roach belly knife" from the late 1200's on up.......
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2009 19:14:10 GMT
Thanks, Sanmarc. I'll check it up. There are many shapes of the knifes the vikings used, this is just one of them. Of course they didn't have a beveled edge like the one on the pic, but I've seen this shape in museums. Here's one: EDIT: It seems I have misunderstood the expression broken back. I thought it meant the back suddenly breaking towards the tip like this: EDIT2: I've found several examples now in swedish museum catalogoes, but these have the edge on the opposite side. mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/include_image_exp.asp?uid=307970mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/include_image_exp.asp?uid=224160
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 5:16:17 GMT
The one with the eagle hilt was a remake to the later roachbelleyd type, made out of an earlier sax type, when the roach belleyd design was brought to Scandinavia, the sax was dropped like a hot potato, Allso check with My armory.com as they might allso have the links, I was looking under "Viking weapons"...............SanMarc.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 5:52:38 GMT
The difficulty here is that the "Vikings" (by this I assume you mean the scandinavian people who went "a viking") because they are such a multifaceted subset of people had many different types, shapes, lengths and all of them have been termed "seax". Typicality in this regard goes to place of origin and time period. Many of the most common seax are the ones with a straight edge blade with a short top, example; This knife was typical of that region and that time period, if you move to another region, say gotland your typical knife is this one; So when asking about typicality you really need to give more details like time period and geographical location.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 6:27:54 GMT
This was covered before, and I mentioned the posts I had found in "My armury.com." I went and tried to find it, but it is buried some when, had pics and links to museum in uppsalla with broken back sax's or SOK'S as they are called in Scandinavian, so Yes the Swedes had them...SanMarc.
And the name is referring the the Saxons as they used the type a lot.......
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2009 9:50:04 GMT
The reason I'm into this is I'm collecting a set of historic viking weapons, and want a couple of knifes as close to historic as possible. I've already got a blacksmith ready for my order. So now I got to make some work sketches, one for a skramasax and one for a utility knife. Bloodwraith, Norway, Sweden and Denmark 790-1030 AD. The Vikings. Multifaceted as you say. I'm not asking about typicality, I've seen a lot of blade shapes in antique knifes native to Norway from this period. And a lot of imports, including a falcata shape short sword and a gladius shape sword. SanMarc, as I said I've probably misinterpreted what a broken back sax is. I thought it was the distinctive breach as seen on some production saxes, like the ones in the first pic Blood posted above. It seems this is more a anglo saxon knife than a viking knife, I don't know. I haven't found an example of this type in swedish museum catalogues. I've done some deepdives lately, I've read museum catalogues, old antique registers, visited two national archeological museums and spoke to curators. But I haven't seen a single example of the one with a truly "broken" back, exept one actually broken. The closest I've found is these ones, which seems to have the edge on the "right" side: The "typical" norwegian viking sax is probably more like this, less distinctive in its shape: And a modern recreation of an antique, worn edge up like a tanto. I don't know if the name Sax comes from the german Sachsen or has any connection to it as a special knife type derived from there, in norse sax means big knife /short sword. The word is first written on rune boards from about 900.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2009 10:15:22 GMT
An update on the sax/ seax after doing a bit more research and consulting some of the people who knows about this stuff: The broken back seax is NOT a scandinavian or viking sax. Though typology is a bit difficult on saxes, there are main rules to which sax goes to which area. Trade and looting brought saxes to areas where they are not typical, and foreign saxes were used as templates when making new ones. This is a seax, or longseax, the broken back is typical for England and Ireland, anglosaxon areas. Seax is the old english name. This shape is common among the franks and the goths from Poland to France, and it's a sax, not seax. The type is also common in Scandinavia, but not typical. Now this is a typical viking langsax, which later evolved into the single edged early viking sword. This type is only found in Scandinavia, and especially Norway. The edge is in the opposite side compared to a "anglo"seax.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2009 0:02:41 GMT
Good research, I noticed that some of the pics from the Swed museum had the edges on the other side, but some had the edges on the straight side, so depending on the use, both were used, and like the Only "Viking Helm" found in Sweden, most things might have only been found in other places, the things in Sweden got recycled like the Eagle hilted knife.....
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2009 4:12:20 GMT
the seax that everybody recognizes is german (as in all of them angles, francs, jutes, saxons, franks, etc) in origin. at least from the many books, web sites etc that i have read. seen as how they spread across the world ( the people) they would have taken there ways with them
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Sept 25, 2009 1:47:24 GMT
Everybody loves a good knife! (Well, don't they?)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 6:28:28 GMT
That depends on how it is being given/received!!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 9:03:27 GMT
also depends on what one calls a good knife
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 20:54:32 GMT
Received in the stomach I think it doesn't matter.
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