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.
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.
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 "
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
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| 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.
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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!
