Postby Corey Roberts » Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:15 pm
I viewed it on the internet last night and also thought it was quite good. It did a good job of breaking the "unsophisticated vikings" myth, and highlighted their level of technical sophistication for their era. Would have liked to have seen more demonstration of how the sword would have been used, but even the brief spotlight we got was way better than the typical "deadliest warrior" type of treatment the subject normally gets, with clueless people demonstrating nonsense. This program really was quite good and I recommend it to those who want to see more realistic less sensationalist TV program on the topic.
I thought some of their suppositions such as "was this sword made by the Catholic church" were a little off base, but they actually addressed that in the program, when one of the experts interviewed basically shut down those types of conspiracy theories.
I also personally believe that in time archeology will show that the crucible steel was produced indigenously in Scandinavia, but until we find Norse crucibles in the period for now we will have to make due with the "they got it from the Persians, and Arabs" hypothesis.
The reenactors on the program looked quite good (as far as their dress, armor, equipment etc. not their fencing technique ) and gave a good impression of what a Norse warrior would have looked like (no horns hurray!) All in all a very good program and one that I am proud to see our Art highlighted in for the general public.
--Scholar-Adept
Pyeongtaek
Republic of Korea
