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This book deals with the history of the long sword, the principal weapon used by Celts during their raids in the 4th-2nd centuries B.C. The Celts adopted this weapon from European Bronze Age cultures and completed its development after it had been superseded by short, stabbing weapons in the warfare of advanced civilizations. Nonetheless, the role played by the Celtic long sword remained considerable. In this first major study of the subject, Pleiner assesses the importance of the sword, and provides the first systematic treatment of the relevant historical and technological problems associated with its manufacture.
experimentelle Archäologie - Technologie - Rekonstruktion - Holz - Buntmetall - Waffen - Militaria - Trachtbestandteile - Ökonomiegebäude.
The present volume collects eighteen essays exploring the history of ancient Near Eastern studies. Combining diverse approaches—synthetic and analytic, diachronic and transnational—this collection offers critical reflections on the who, why, and how of this cluster of fields. How have political contexts determined the conduct of research? How do academic agendas reflect larger social, economic, and cultural interests? How have schools of thought and intellectual traditions configured, and sometimes predetermined, the study of the ancient Near East? Contributions treating research during the Nazi and fascist periods examine the interpenetration of academic work with politics, while contri...
Sixteen essays from the Albright conference held at the Johns Hopkins University charting the course of ancient Near Eastern studies in the twenty-first century. This landmark volume is essential reading for both students and scholars.
The sword was the most important of weapons, but relatively little has been written about its metallurgy. The results of the microscopic examination of over a hundred swords are used to tell the story of the making of swords from the first examples through the Middle Ages to the 16th century.
In Tales of the Iron Bloomery Bernt Rundberget examines the ironmaking in southern Hedmark in Norway in the period AD 700-1300. Excavations show that this method is distinctive and geographically limited; this is expressed by the technology, organization, development and large-scale production. The ironmaking practice had its origins in increasing demands for iron, due to growth in urbanization, church power, kingship and mercantile networks. Rundberget’s main hypothesis is that iron became the economic basis for political developments, from chiefdom to kingdom. Iron extraction activity grew from the late Viking Age, throughout the early medieval period, before it came to a sudden collapse around AD 1300. This trend correlates with the rise and fall of the kingdom.
How did medieval Europeans use and change their environments, think about the natural world, and try to handle the natural forces affecting their lives? This groundbreaking environmental history examines medieval relationships with the natural world from the perspective of social ecology, viewing human society as a hybrid of the cultural and the natural. Richard Hoffmann's interdisciplinary approach sheds important light on such central topics in medieval history as the decline of Rome, religious doctrine, urbanization and technology, as well as key environmental themes, among them energy use, sustainability, disease and climate change. Revealing the role of natural forces in events previously seen as purely human, the book explores issues including the treatment of animals, the 'tragedy of the commons', agricultural clearances and agrarian economies. By introducing medieval history in the context of social ecology, it brings the natural world into historiography as an agent and object of history itself.
The suit of armour distinguishes the European Middle Ages & Renaissance. This book tells its story from the 14th to the 17th century, and the making of its steel. The metallurgy of 600 armours has been analysed, and their probable effectiveness in battle assessed.
Describes the metallography and microstructure of ancient metals with several case studies included. The first volume in this series is devoted to the alloys of copper with silver, lead, tin, zinc, antimony and arsenic.