Metallographic examination of nine medieval knives from Šepkovčica, Kobilić and Okuje (Republic of Croatia)

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985912%3A_____%2F21%3A00553874" target="_blank" >RIV/67985912:_____/21:00553874 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Metallographic examination of nine medieval knives from Šepkovčica, Kobilić and Okuje (Republic of Croatia)

Original language description

Archaeological excavations of the remains of medieval rural settlements conducted in 2006-2010 in Šepkovčica, Kobilić 1 and Okuje (Turopolje region, Zagreb County, Republic of Croatia) yielded in total 88 knives or knife fragments dated to the 11th-14th century. All these artefacts have been investigated by X-radiography and a total of 11 pieces were selected for metallography. Two of these eleven knives have already been analysed and published, revealing the first pattern-welded knife reported among Croatian archaeological finds (Thiele et al. 2017). The other nine knives were analysed for this study and are published here. The metallographic investigations suggested that three of those nine knife blades show a forge-welded construction deliberately combining iron and steel although none of these was pattern-welded. The remaining blades appear to have been made from a single piece of metal: in particular, three blades were found to be iron whereas four were made of steel. All the blades containing steel were hardened by quenching. One of the iron knives was made entirely of phosphoric iron, such blades are reported very rarely. The construction of one of the nine blades (PN_558) is still uncertain. Of the 11 knife blades examined overall (nine here and two previously) only one was found to be pattern-welded and this was one of the two already published. Also, none of the blades had any surviving evidence of inlayed nonferrous decoration, although three of them bore (punched) maker's marks. The proportion of good-quality knives, the fact that quenching of blades containing steel was standard, and the relatively high proportion of blades made entirely of steel, might suggest that knives used in the region of Turopolje were predominantly of simple but good quality construction. High-status blades, on the other hand, seem to have been rather rare in the Turopolje region and the single pattern-welded knife was more likely imported than locally produced.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

D - Article in proceedings

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60102 - Archaeology

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Article name in the collection

Proceedings of the 5th international conference „Archaeometallurgy in Europe”. 19-21 June 2019 Miskolc, Hungary

ISBN

978-2-35518-121-4

ISSN

1278-3846

e-ISSN

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Number of pages

17

Pages from-to

589-605

Publisher name

Éditions Mergoil

Place of publication

Drémil-Lafage

Event location

Miskolc

Event date

Jun 19, 2019

Type of event by nationality

EUR - Evropská akce

UT code for WoS article

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