The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781780277844)

The story of the Bamburgh Sword - one of the finest swords ever forged.

In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left in a suitcase for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to tell than appeared, so he sent it for specialist tests. When the results came back, he realised that what he had in his possession was possibly the finest, and certainly the most complex, sword ever made, which had been forged in seventh-century Northumberland by an anonymous swordsmith.

This is the story of the Bamburgh Sword - of how and why it was made, who made it and what it meant to the warriors and kings who wielded it over three centuries. It is also the remarkable story of the archaeologists and swordsmiths who found, studied and attempted to recreate the weapon using only the materials and technologies available to the original smith.

Author: Edoardo Albert, Paul Gething
ISBN-10: 1780277849
ISBN-13: 9781780277844
Publisher: Birlinn
Language: English
Published: 01/03/2023
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.48h x 6.36w x 1.07d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 01/13/2023 pg. 1