Sword 3d __EXCLUSIVE_

A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region.

Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the earliest specimens date to about 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration Period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical arming sword with crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord.[1]

Sword 3d

Download Zip 🔥 https://cinurl.com/2y3hYN 🔥

Thrusting swords such as the rapier and eventually the smallsword were designed to impale their targets quickly and inflict deep stab wounds. Their long and straight yet light and well balanced design made them highly maneuverable and deadly in a duel but fairly ineffective when used in a slashing or chopping motion. A well aimed lunge and thrust could end a fight in seconds with just the sword's point, leading to the development of a fighting style which closely resembles modern fencing.

Slashing swords such as the sabre and similar blades such as the cutlass were built more heavily and were more typically used in warfare. Built for slashing and chopping at multiple enemies, often from horseback, the sabre's long curved blade and slightly forward weight balance gave it a deadly character all its own on the battlefield. Most sabres also had sharp points and double-edged blades, making them capable of piercing soldier after soldier in a cavalry charge. Sabres continued to see battlefield use until the early 20th century. The US Navy M1917 Cutlass used in World War I, was kept in their armory well into World War II and many Marines were issued a variant called the M1941 Cutlass as a makeshift jungle machete during the Pacific War.[2][3]

Non-European weapons classified as swords include single-edged weapons such as the Middle Eastern scimitar, the Chinese dao and the related Japanese katana. The Chinese jin is an example of a non-European double-edged sword, like the European models derived from the double-edged Iron Age sword.

The first weapons that can be described as "swords" date to around 3300 BC. They have been found in Arslantepe, Turkey, are made from arsenical bronze, and are about 60 cm (24 in) long.[4] Some of them are inlaid with silver.

The sword developed from the knife or dagger. The sword became differentiated from the dagger during the Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC), when copper and bronze weapons were produced with long leaf-shaped blades and with hilts consisting of an extension of the blade in handle form. A knife is unlike a dagger in that a knife has only one cutting surface, while a dagger has two cutting surfaces.[5] Construction of longer blades became possible during the 3rd millennium BC in the Middle East, first in arsenic copper, then in tin-bronze.[6]

Blades longer than 60 cm (24 in) were rare and not practical until the late Bronze Age because the Young's modulus (stiffness) of bronze is relatively low, and consequently longer blades would bend easily.[7] The development of the sword out of the dagger was gradual; the first weapons that can be classified as swords without any ambiguity are those found in Minoan Crete, dated to about 1700 BC, reaching a total length of more than 100 cm (39 in). These are the "type A" swords of the Aegean Bronze Age.[8][9]

One of the most important, and longest-lasting, types swords of the European Bronze Age was the Naue II type (named for Julius Naue who first described them), also known as Griffzungenschwert (lit. "grip-tongue sword"). This type first appears in c. the 13th century BC in Northern Italy (or a general Urnfield background), and survives well into the Iron Age, with a life-span of about seven centuries. During its lifetime, metallurgy changed from bronze to iron, but not its basic design.[10]

Naue II swords were exported from Europe to the Aegean, and as far afield as Ugarit, beginning about 1200 BC, i.e. just a few decades before the final collapse of the palace cultures in the Bronze Age collapse.[11] Naue II swords could be as long as 85 cm, but most specimens fall into the 60 to 70 cm range. Robert Drews linked the Naue Type II Swords, which spread from Southern Europe into the Mediterranean, with the Bronze Age collapse.[12] Naue II swords, along with Nordic full-hilted swords, were made with functionality and aesthetics in mind.[13] The hilts of these swords were beautifully crafted and often contained false rivets in order to make the sword more visually appealing. Swords coming from northern Denmark and northern Germany usually contained three or more fake rivets in the hilt.[14]

In the Indian subcontinent, earliest available Bronze age swords of copper were discovered in the Indus Valley civilization sites in the northwestern regions of South Asia. Swords have been recovered in archaeological findings throughout the Ganges-Jamuna Doab region of Indian subcontinent, consisting of bronze but more commonly copper.[17] Diverse specimens have been discovered in Fatehgarh, where there are several varieties of hilt.[17] These swords have been variously dated to times between 1700 and 1400 BC. Other swords from this period in India have been discovered from Kallur, Raichur.[17]

Iron became increasingly common from the 13th century BC. Before that the use of swords was less frequent. The iron was not quench-hardened although often containing sufficient carbon, but work-hardened like bronze by hammering. This made them comparable or only slightly better in terms of strength and hardness to bronze swords. They could still bend during use rather than spring back into shape. But the easier production, and the better availability of the raw material for the first time permitted the equipping of entire armies with metal weapons, though Bronze Age Egyptian armies were sometimes fully equipped with bronze weapons.[18]

Ancient swords are often found at burial sites. The sword was often placed on the right side of the corpse. Many times the sword was kept over the corpse. In many late Iron Age graves, the sword and the scabbard were bent at 180 degrees. It was known as killing the sword. Thus they might have considered swords as the most potent and powerful object.[19]

High-carbon steel for swords, which would later appear as Damascus steel, was likely introduced in India around the mid-1st millennium BC.[20] The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions swords of Indian iron and steel being exported from ancient India to ancient Greece.[21] Blades from the Indian subcontinent made of Damascus steel also found their way into Persia.[21]

By the time of Classical Antiquity and the Parthian and Sassanid Empires in Iran, iron swords were common. The Greek xiphos and the Roman gladius are typical examples of the type, measuring some 60 to 70 cm (24 to 28 in).[22][23] The late Roman Empire introduced the longer spatha[24] (the term for its wielder, spatharius, became a court rank in Constantinople), and from this time, the term longsword is applied to swords comparatively long for their respective periods.[25]

Swords were also used to administer various physical punishments, such as non-surgical amputation or capital punishment by decapitation. The use of a sword, an honourable weapon, was regarded in Europe since Roman times as a privilege reserved for the nobility and the upper classes.[27]

In the first millennium BC, the Persian armies used a sword that was originally of Scythian design called the akinaka (acinaces).[28] However, the great conquests of the Persians made the sword more famous as a Persian weapon, to the extent that the true nature of the weapon has been lost somewhat as the name akinaka has been used to refer to whichever form of sword the Persian army favoured at the time.[29]

It is widely believed that the original akinaka was a 35 to 45 cm (14 to 18 inch) double-edged sword. The design was not uniform and in fact identification is made more on the nature of the scabbard than the weapon itself; the scabbard usually has a large, decorative mount allowing it to be suspended from a belt on the wearer's right side. Because of this, it is assumed that the sword was intended to be drawn with the blade pointing downwards ready for surprise stabbing attacks.

During the Middle Ages, sword technology improved, and the sword became a very advanced weapon. The spatha type remained popular throughout the Migration period and well into the Middle Ages. Vendel Age spathas were decorated with Germanic artwork (not unlike the Germanic bracteates fashioned after Roman coins). The Viking Age saw again a more standardized production, but the basic design remained indebted to the spatha.[30]

Around the 10th century, the use of properly quenched hardened and tempered steel started to become much more common than in previous periods. The Frankish 'Ulfberht' blades (the name of the maker inlaid in the blade) were of particularly consistent high quality.[31] Charles the Bald tried to prohibit the export of these swords, as they were used by Vikings in raids against the Franks.

Wootz steel (which is also known as Damascus steel) was a unique and highly prized steel developed on the Indian subcontinent as early as the 5th century BC. Its properties were unique due to the special smelting and reworking of the steel creating networks of iron carbides described as a globular cementite in a matrix of pearlite. The use of Damascus steel in swords became extremely popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.[nb 1][32] ff782bc1db