600-year-old axe heads used in hand-to-hand fighting in Battle of Grunwald found in field

The First News ^ | August 31, 2020 | Stuart Dowell

[Ouchthatonehurt]

This post is about battle axes?

[SunkenCiv]

:^) Nice!

[Cronos]

The battle of Grunwald or in German, Tannenburg, was a pivotal moment in the development of the Polish state. It is eulogized even today and made into a grand Slav vs Teutons story, which it wasn’t quite.

It cemented the Lithuanian(which contained most of modern Belarus as well) Polish commonwealth that lasted until 1793.

Your ancestors may very well have been on BOTH sides of the battle!

[minnesota_bound]

I suspect it did not end well for the 2 guys who were using the axes.....

[SunkenCiv]

Your ancestors may very well have been on BOTH sides of the battle!

Heh... that's one of the risks ya take, just by bein' born. :^) It's probably true of many, many battles throughout the ages, including currently unknown prehistoric ones.

[SunkenCiv]

Battles in the Middle Ages were up close and personal. The winners didn't necessarily come off much better than the losers, just alive.

[Paladin2]

They have been mostly peaceful for hundred of years.

[GOP Poet]

Cool :D

[txnativegop]

your welcome!

[TXnMA]

Apparently cast iron. If they were bronze, I'd expect dissimilar metal corrosion to have consumed the iron crosspins. (BTW, those cross-pin holes look square, to me -- and, there's some sort of discontinuity where the axe poll joins the closed socket...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recall a (GGG?) article on a cache of similar-appearing bronze axe heads -- most/all of which were broken -- supposedly collected for re-casting. IIRC, by far the weakest points (sites of the breaks) were the sockets -- and, of those, the closed-end sockets were the weakest.

I believe one of the theories for the weakness was that it was difficult to get a close fit of the wooden haft in the closed-end socket -- causing local force concentrations (where the wood did fit tightly) -- that resulted in socket breakage...

Do you remember that article/discussion?

TXnMA   
  

[epluribus_2]

I once had a boarding pass checked for Gdansk Poland and the Lufthansa clerk replied with a cold steel gaze: “DAAN-TSIHKH” (Danzig). No doubt in his mind the borders there have not been forgotten and resentment is deep.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It was German from its founding around 1200 until 1945.

[SunkenCiv]

That does sound familiar, didn’t turn it up in a search. Here’s something that’s basicaly unrelated, from 2011, well, technically it’s from more than 3000 years ago...

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/tollensevalley/index

[NachOsten]

Valaška - Shepherd's Axe
Sharp Blades

In Eastern Europe mostly Carpathian region, axe used by shepherd for self defense. Very Common in the mountains even today.

[rlmorel]

That is too cool!

[NachOsten]

Check this out.
Valašky by region in Slovakia

It's in Slovak, however richly illustrated.

[rlmorel]

That is a great website! Those axes just itch to be collected.

I am into 3D printing, I may try to print some of those and find a way to paint them that looks right...

[NachOsten]

These are some designs the use even for the handle. Some axes are all wood as a walking stick

[rlmorel]

Very cool! When I make the handle, I will be sure to use these patterns...

I may use a magnifying glass on a hot day to burn them in, as I did this for my wife:

[SunkenCiv]

Nice!