Ancient Swords That Didn't Rust

Awhile back I saw a news story in which a 2,300 year-old double-edged bronze sword was found in a tomb in the city of Xinyang, China inside a crust, rotting scabbard. But, when scientists carefully extracted it, they found that the sword hadn't rusted, but remained bright and shiny. The two-minute video below shows the sword being pulled from the scabbard.

Assuming that the video hasn't been pulled from Youtube from some reason, take a couple minutes to watch it. It's incredible watching a sword that appears to have been forged yesterday being pulled from a clearly ancient, corroded scabbard. The short news story doesn't explain how the sword managed to remain free from rust, but if I had to guess, it may have something to do with in remaining snug inside its scabbard for the last two millennia.

But, in researching this story, I found that this wasn't the only still-ancient sword out there.

Sword of Goujian

By Siyuwj - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41143543

This next sword, coincidentally, also comes from China, and is much more famous. It's called the sword of Goujian, and it was found in Hubei, China back in 1965. An archaeological survey was being performed on the second main aqueduct of the Zhang River Reservoir, when a bunch of tombs were discovered. An archaeological dig commenced, and after three months more than 50 tombs were uncovered, yielding over 2,000 artifacts. One of these was a double-edged bronze sword, still inside its nearly air-tight scabbard, laying within a casket next to a human skeleton (presumably the original owner). 

The scabbard was made of wood and coated in black lacquer. Incredibly, despite the tomb being mostly underwater for the last 2,000 years, the sword was found to be free of rust and tarnish. Along one side of the blade, Lord of the Rings style, two columns of ancient Chinese characters can be seen, gleaming as if they had just been put there. The text is in an ancient style called Bird-worm seal script. Deciphered, the text reads: "This sword is made and used by the King of Yue Gou Jian himself."  Which, of course, explains the name of the sword.

By Yutwong - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16991728

A series of tests were performed on the sword to discover why it remains so perfectly preserved after so achingly long, and it was decided that perhaps the peculiar mixture of copper and tin (the two metals that together produce bronze), plus the air-tight conditions of the scabbard that also kept the water out, were responsible. 

King Tut's Personal Dagger

Bet you didn't expect this one. When Tutankhamun's body was found and unwrapped by Howard Carter and crew back in the 1920s, a perfectly preserved dagger was found within the wrappings. This blade predates the previous two by 1,000 years. So how in the heck did it stay so well preserved? Was it due to the dry Egyptian climate? The fact it was tightly wrapped in resign-soaked linens next to Tut himself for 3,000 years? Was due to extraterrestrials? Well, kind of. 

Now, nearly 100 years after it was found, scientists have discovered that the blade of Tutankhamun's dagger was made from...a meteorite!

Yep, that's right, a giant rock from outer space.  

Source: (WP:NFCC#4)

When scientists analyzed the dagger with modern equipment, they discovered the blade's metal content matched that of meteorites.  According to this article, the blade was found to be "
mostly iron (Fe) and 11% nickel (Ni) and 0.6% cobalt (Co). This means its composition is placed within the median of a group of 76 previously discovered iron meteorites."

The original article also states: "The nickel content in the bulk metal of most iron meteorites ranges from 5% to 35%, whereas it never exceeds 4% in historical iron artifacts from terrestrial ores produced before the 19th Century."

Pretty cool, huh? I'll avoid going into further detail, but it's pretty cool that an Egyptian Pharaoh would make a treasured dagger out of a meteorite, something he may have recognized as being sent by the gods. And, since a pharaoh was considered to be a living god, this makes total sense in an historical context.

There are many other ancient swords that somehow avoided the rust and tarnish that normally eats away at ancient metal, but I won't list them here, because this post is already fairly long, and I probably lost many of you several paragraphs ago. However, if you're interested in further reading, follow the links to the articles I referenced above. You can also check out this Listverse article, which lists a total of 10 rust-free swords from antiquity.

Anyway, I hope this was interesting to at least some of you out there. And, as always, there is more cool stuff coming, so stay tuned!

Ciao friends!

Evil or Idiots?

I'm coming to the conclusion that most of the people in the media and politics are either complete idiots or evil. The way they have convenient amnesia of things that occurred in the past is very annoying.

For example, I heard recently on the radio that a bunch of celebrities got together and made an ad that attempts to turn people against Trump, saying things like Trump is homophobic, against Muslims and Islam, etc. (See http://www.salon.com and http://www.cnn.com)The truth? Exactly the opposite. (See http://www.foxnews.com) Mark Stein, a British commentator, pointed out today on the radio that in actuality, most of the animosity against the LGBTQ community is caused by radical Islam. Remember the nightclub shootings? And do some research sometime and look how homosexuals and women are treated in the Arab countries. Read and listen to Trump's actual words, and you'll discover that the reason he wants to limit certain peoples from entering the United States is to make sure that no terrorists are amongst them. We have already seen how many crimes are being committed by illegal aliens.

I have nothing at all against immigration; our country was built upon it. My beloved ancestors, like Ebenezer Farnes who came from England in the 1860s, did a lot of good when he immigrated. But he did it right; he went through all the proper, legal channels to come into this country. I'm just against people sneaking in illegally, or lying to get in to commit their horrible crimes. Don't forget 9/11, for crying out loud. How can any true American disagree with this?

Another example is the politicians and the media's complete 360 degree flop on their view of the intelligence community. A decade ago, they were saying how stupid Bush was to believe the intelligence community about there being "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq and Afganistan, especially when, as they said, there appeared to be none. Yet now, in the wake of Hillary's email scandal, they talk about how important it is to listen to the FBI when they said there was no valid reason to charge Hillary with any wrong doing. In Mr. Stein's view, the intelligence community has become completely politicized, leaking information to the Democrats, etc.

Some people have said that I've obviously "drunk the Kool-Aide," as I'm a big listener of conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. I disagree, of course, I'm more of a fan of the truth, and I constantly seek it everywhere. I follow my gut and my feelings, as we all do, and I find very little truth in the drive-by media, and much more of it in what the conservative media are saying.
I don't mindlessly follow what they are saying, like some brainless zombie, as some of my friends and family members have said. I don't agree with everything Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Beck are saying. I study things out in my mind. I research the stories they talk about. I pray about them, and decide for myself what I believe. If more people would do the same thing, I think we would be much better off.

OK, rant over. I've got a lot of interesting and mysterious stories coming up, so stay tuned!