Thousand-year old crusader rises from the earth

demongoat

sorry but read the article again, it doesn't say anything about the person being a crusader, it says the sword was a style of sword manufactured in the crusader-era, ie:10 century to 12th century. along with a "viking-era" sword, from about 8th-10th century. i think you need to read it again, you might have overlooked the use of the term viking and crusades was purely used to place the era via the weapons.

I suppose you must not have read my post very closely, or else you would not have repeated what I had already said as if you were somehow educating my "error". The "viking era" sword is indeed a viking sword. I am very familiar with them. Many of the blades were imported from farther south in Europe, but the hilts are unmistakable.

no where does it talk about him being a crusader. i doubt he was a mercenary, most likely he was a high ranking elite, that is why you see the weapons, in in finnish culture two edged weapons indicated prestige, since both fire relates to both metal working and death. so the guy might have been very important to the community.

As I said, I do not believe this individual was a crusader, for the reasons I specified. However, to correct a minor error on your part, the article does say that he "may have been an early crusader", in the very first paragraph:

Archaeology hobbyists were stunned when they unearthed a remarkable historical find from a field in Janakkala, southern Finland. The ancient grave site appeared to be that of an early crusader buried with two swords from different eras.

he was most likely a leader of the community. weapons were a sign of power to the people in the area, it's not a viking sword it was a sword made in the 8th-10th century or the "viking-era". more than likely it was locally made.
if he lived up to around 1250 he did fight against crusaders, namely the swedish second crusade.

It IS in fact a viking sword. Again, the hilts are unmistakeable, although many of the blades were imported from further south in Europe, particularly from what is now France. Whether or not the sword was locally made is open for debate, but whether it was a viking sword or not is not. The vikings ranged far, and had colonies all over the place, so it could have been locally made...

... by a viking smith.

the first one was in 1096, 30 years after the end of the viking era, so not really, by the time the crusade begin it was just starting to wind down.

You contradict yourself. Either it was "just starting to wind down", or it already "had ended 30 years ago", but not both.

well given this isn't a crusader and more than likely an enemy of one, i'd say he learned from his brothers or father, and the sword weighed 2.5 pounds it was not as heavy as people think. of course this may well be a burial sword, it's were the myth that swords that size were heavy, because when they found the graves, it was thought people used those honking heavy things. they weighed like 25 pounds, who could swing a 25 pound sword for hours? the heaviest sword was at most 7-8 pounds. oh and no, these swords were used on foot, they needed the reach to kill men on horse back, why in the world would people on horseback need a 4 foot two hand sword? a long sword is a heck of a lot more useful and you can use a shield. no, the huge swords were used by people on foot for reach.

Red again. I did not say the sword was heavy, I said greatswords were developed for use from horseback, and the horses had to carry a lot more weight because of the armor involved. There is no doubt they were also used from the ground, as I noted in my post, but they were developed for fighting from horseback. Mine weighs around 3 1/2 pounds. I am well acquainted with their weight, heft, and use. I have already noted "why in the world" men fighting from horseback would need a sword with reach. They are on horseback. Maybe you would have had to have ridden a horse at some point to grasp that. If I am on the ground, I don't need the reach as badly - I just take the guy off off the horse's back, one way or the other.

Then reach doesn't matter.

by the way, they were not using full plate in the 12th century, and it's again a misunderstanding that armor weighted a lot. they would not need huge horses back then, they used ring mail or chainmail. plate didn't become used till the 16th century and only the jousting armor weighed enough to justify huge horses, most of the war armor was 30-40 pounds at most.

First, I did not mention the variety of armor, whether plate or not. "Chainmail" is a misnomer - it is simply "mail", or "ring armor".

Judging by your weight estimates, I would hazard the guess that you have never worn it - either plate or mail. That crap is heavier than you seem to think. Modern aluminum show piece mail would have been of little use on those ancient battlefields, but it would feel a lot better to wear around at a modern ren-faire.

The horses were bred for precisely the reasons I stated.

it's hard to find info on iron age finland, until they were conquered by the swedes they didn't even write stuff down.

Start by getting a copy of The Kalevala and reading it. Emil Petaja has a fictionalized version of it (written from a sci-fi perspective) called "Sagas of Lost Earths", but a lot of liberties have been taken to make it fit the sci-fi mold.

there also needs to be more info on medieval armor and weapons, all i find is crap about replicas.

It takes a lot of digging. I can probably dig up a couple of the ancient manuals of arms on greatswords and e-mail pdf's to you if you are really interested in how things work. I'm fairly well versed in arms and armor from the bronze age up to the modern day, although not so well versed in Finnish specifics.

reply to post by nenothtu


Kalevala in English Kalevala not exactly easy reading. If we think of professions in Kalevala we see blacksmiths, spearmen, warheroes, gods and half gods and also wizards. It´s a good read and influenced Tolkien´s Lord of the Ring ( Tolkien as a young scholar was in Finland studying Kalevala ). In English Kalevala is easier to read than in finnish due the fact in translation they try to explain things.. some successfull some isn´t.

Revisiting and updating.
Medieval Dead- tv serie made an episode of this Swordman of Janakkala ( Janakkala municipality located in Häme area ). Episode is still available in UK for 28 days ( restricted by country.. can be bypassed with plugin hola ).

UK-tv Play

So they scanned the field where this swordman was found and it looks like there are more graves there. Was it a graveyard, fortress or battlefield is yet to be find. Time period seems to be about 1300.

My thoughts about this.
This goes close to the time of Birger Jarl´s crusade to Finland which was called as a second crusade to Finland ( first one has never been proved that it happened ) . The time of second crusade was in year 1249-50 and Birger and his men got ashore from southern Finland and took their crusade to Häme area ( just where Janakkala is located ). This second crusade started swedish rule and swedish immigration to Finland.

originally posted by: JiggyPotamus
I do some metal detecting every now and then myself...
This is an amazing find...The monetary value of such treasures alone is probably staggering, not to mention the sheer historical value.

It should be noted that the learning value of any site or artifact is significantly reduced when it becomes a 'smash and grab' by looters. I'd like to see metal detector enthusiasts licensed by the state after taking a course in basic archaeology. That way, there's a half a chance that the context of a discovery is not destroyed by simple ignorance and/or greed.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

In Finland when amateurs find something they call museovirasto ( official archaeology of Finland ), the reward they get is ridiculous about 500 euros or so if any. There are strict laws considering archaeology in Finland and there are thousands of acrhaelogy sites where they have found relics, too bad system is not encouraging amateurs and they help is not as widely used as should be, so many sites are pretty much undiscovered due lack or official archaelogy researchers.

Just a blink in google map where finds have been made ( just a fracture studied completely )
Google map