According to a report in The Guardian, published in December 2008, Viking swords in some of the most famous weapons collections are counterfeit. However, the age of the fakes is the same as the one of the genuine swords, about a thousand years. The fact is that the best swords that were used by the Vikings bear the maker’s name, Ulfberht, in raised letters at the hilt end. Such swords were made from ingots of crucible steel brought by the Norsemen from far away. The tests show that high quality steel of the Ulfberht swords is from the mines on the territory of modern Afghanistan and Iran. However, in the 11th century the trade route was blocked by Russians and the supply of steel with high carbon content ended. The demand was huge and soon low quality fakes flooded the Scandinavian market. In outward appearance they were identical to genuine Ulfberhts and their blades were very sharp. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the carbon content of the steel from which they were forged had only a third of the same in genuine high quality swords, they could fatally disserve Vikings who bought them. The locally worked iron of such inferior swords was hardened by quenching, which made the blade sharp, but also brittle because of the low carbon steel that was used.
The whole point became obvious when a private collector brought a Viking sword to the London museum. Dr. Allan Williams, a consultant to the Wallace collection of that museum, found out that the collector’s sword was an ancient fake, whereas the Wallace’s was the real McCoy. In collaboration with Tony Fry, a senior researcher at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, south-west London, Dr. Williams was able to prove that other famous collections have a few counterfeit Ulfberhts.
Photo: Viking swords displayed at the Wikingermuseum in Haithabu. Courtesy Viciarg. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic Licence.
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So they aren’t fake Viking swords, just not genuine Ulfberhts. Quite probably not claimed to be such by the museums themselves. Good to know. I’ll make a point not to engage anyone in battle with one.
First of all, one should not be referred to a report in the Guardian, on which this post is based, but to the study by Dr. Williams:
Williams, Alan R., ‘Crucible Steel in medieval swords’, Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy (London, 2007), pp. 233-241.
Among other things, the study identifies the use of different raw materials for Ulfberhts during a certain period. Collins English Dictionary defines the verb to fake as follows: to cause (something inferior or not genuine) to appear more valuable, desirable, or real by fraud or pretence. The question is whether fraud or pretence was present in this case.
To be sure, no one blames the museums for any such thing. Notwithstanding the raw materials, high or low carbon content, all the swords of the period, including Ulfberhts, are rare collectibles worthy of being exhibited. However, the fact is that some of the blades that bear the name Ulfberht are inferior as compared to others with the same name.
Now the word fake in the headline of the present post presupposes that blacksmiths who produced inferior Ulfberht blades 1000 years ago were aware of their inferiority (since they could not ignore the inferiority of the raw materials). When they put the same distinctive mark on swords that were more brittle, they in fact caused them to appear more valuable by pretence. If so, according to Collins definition, they faked Ulfberhts.
were these weapons actually fake, or were they in fact the genuine article but made with the more inferior material for either the reason of lack of good supplies or maybe a cheaper version for the market at the time?
just a thought
Either way you slice it, so to speak, eventually the perpetrators of this “forgery” would have been found out. What would be the penalty according to the laws of the time?