[blam]

[wardaddy]

The way they've behaved lately, they could fall on a couple of them.

Kidding..slightly.

[blam]

[PrairieFire]

Ironically, the swords were accompanied by a note requiring $30 Billion in loan guarantees before the swords would be used.

[xJones]

It's a good thing Hans Blix isn't an archaeologist, no swords would have been found.

[csvset]

I had an opportunity to vist a museum while in Antalya Turkey. The had a wonderful collection of coins that covered the various cultures that have lived in that area over the centuries. A remarkable find of ancient coins were unearthed by a farmer plowing his field.

[freedom9]

"The swords were found in a large, palace-like complex, along with eleven lance tips, made of the same alloys, driven into a wall. "

Most likely visited by David and Saul

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Porterville]

Nine swords/ Nine rings, ancient times, oh my God!!! We are all gonna die if Frodo doesn't come through.

[LiteKeeper]

archaeological bump

[jimtorr]

I guess the guys who made the swords were a little older than the Hittites. There had to be somebody else in eastern Anatolia for the Hittites to fight, before they could become a military culture.

[struwwelpeter]

Throughout the Mideast there flourished many advanced civilizations before Mohammed's death cult evolved.

[FreedomCalls]

The world's oldest nuclear weapons have been found in the united States.

[zeugma]

Excellent posts! Cool stuff. It's obvious that they'd been making swords for some time, given the discussion in the article about there being silver inlay on them. I''ll be interested if they find other, more primitive ones at lower levels.

[SunkenCiv]

another blast from the past.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[hershey]

Amazing.

[ApplegateRanch]

When forging the swords, arsenic was used as a deliberate alloying element in order to change the properties of copper and produce a stronger metal.

I wonder about the "deliberate"part?

Does he mean they actually cooked off & collected arsenic to add in measured amounts back into the fairly pure molten copper?

Or, does he mean they deliberately smelted their copper from a more/less constant mixture of copper (or other metallic) arsenates/arsenides and other copper ores? Trial & error blending of ores, noting empirical differences, then sticking to 1 part reddish rock to 5 parts shiny rock, etc?

Either way, the alloying and the inlaying speak to a long history of painfully learned craftsmanship prior to the making of these blades & points.

[eleni121]

Due to the sad neglect of most of Turkey's museums and the rampant trade in stolen antiquities these swords do not have much of a future in Turkey unless they are protected abroad.