[Russ Ellis]

I would very much like to hear what the results of any analysis done on this sword are.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

About the custom of adding spiral decoration on sword blades, this was done in the bronze age in rare occasions. Here's an example of a spiral decorated sword from Hungary:



In these cases the decoration was a lot more refined then on that Viking sword. In the bronze age, adding all sorts of spiral decorations on bronze and none bronze objects was very popular in areas from Germany to Scandinavia to eastern Europe. Though on swordblades themselves it's rather rare. I don't know of any later examples with a similar spiral decoration.

[Daniel Parry]

Welcome to you C.L. and for want of being accused of flogging a dead horse by repeating this .. don't stop posting such articles and don't be embarrassed by anything you might not be sure of (if myArmoury.com members donated a dollar to charity for every point they didn't know or every statement they made that was ever so slightly dubious or unprovable, there'd be orphans living in Beverley Hills). We thrive on these discussions as will you. It's exactly those items which have no provenance which really make you examine your presumptions because it's a 'blind date' in a sense.

On the piece in question. Not a Viking specialist but those zoomorphic designs (I quite like them - they look like prow-heads) are nothing I've ever seen in that form on a blade, in a museum or book or sale. The patina and surface degradation - don't have enough experience of really old swords to know - but the engraved part seemed to be remarkably undamaged compared to rest of the surface which also made me doubtful.

I agree with Russ Ellis' point about about records and news media knowledge (however old) about such finds. The River Witham sword was found when i was only a small boy and had no particular interest in swords, yet I still remember it as being on the TV news in the north of England and people estimating it could be worth a vast amount due to its historical importance (I think even then £200,000 was mentioned - though that might have been media hype) but the point remains that there are so few of these items that one always takes a pinch of salt when they appear out of the blue as it were.

Daniel