Swords of the Viking Age
Supplementary Materials

 Ian Peirce, 67, passed away on November 11, 2008.
He will be sorely missed by all that knew him.

 Ewart Oakeshott, 86, passed away on September 30, 2002.
Truly the end of an era.

Boydell & Brewer description, details and order page

English translations from Jan Petersen's The Norwegian Viking Swords (html)

Sword illustrations from Petersen (1919) arranged by type (pdf)
requires Acrobat Reader v. 4 or later - 1.4 mb

Ian Peirce examines a sword at the Universitetets Oldsaksamling, Oslo, Norway

Assessments of 'Wieldability' by Ian Peirce for many of the swords included in SVA (pdf)

Supplementary materials, addenda and notes by SVA page number:

 plate I  Lorange's (1889) caption page for plate VI
 plate II  Lorange's (1889) caption page for plate V
 plate III  Lorange's (1889) caption page for plate I
 plate V  previously displayed at the Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester, MA, USA
 plate VI (top)  further description and illustrations of entire sword
Refer also to a previous examination and publication of this sword:
Werner, Gunnel. 'Konservering av tre vikingatida svärd med inläggningar', Fornvännen 76 (1981), pp. 16-23.
 plate VI (bottom)  further description and illustrations of entire sword
   34-35  Androshchuk notes that the features of this example, found in Holland, conform most closely to Wilfried Menghin's 'Dunum' type, a type currently unknown in Scandinavian contexts.
Androshchuk, Fedir, Viking Swords: Swords and Social Aspects of Weaponry in Viking Age Societies (Studies 23), Stockholm: Swedish History Museum, 2014, p. 44.
   46  Petersen's (1919) colour plate I
   58  drawing of hilt of WK-21 from Coffey and Armstrong (1910)
   63  Hiltipreht inscription on 1928:382
   66  Plunket's (1847) watercolours of WK-5, WK-31 and WK-33
   86 (middle)  further description of boy's sword and associated spear and axe
 114  Petersen's (1919) colour plate III
 124  wider illustration of detail from 12th century font in Verona
 146  Alan Williams presently (2005) interprets the +VLFBERH+T sword in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart (inventory 1973-70), which he first reported in 1977, as having been formed from a billet of crucible steel folded twice and forged into a blade. This and three additional +VLFBERH+T swords formed of hypereutectoid steels interpreted as possibly being forged of crucible steels imported from the East are reported in 'Crucible Steel in medieval swords', Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy (London, 2007), pp. 233 - 241.
See also Dr Williams' Gladius (XXIX (2009), pp. 121-184) article A Metallurgical Study of Some Viking Swords for several additional examples.

18 Apr 2012