The Broken Back Seax

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Fred Fuller

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With all the 'big blade' interest of late, I was motivated to take a look back in time...
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http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_seax.html
The Anglo Saxon Broken Back Seax
An article by Frank Docherty
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http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/s/seax_of_beagnoth.aspx
Seax of Beagnoth
Anglo-Saxon, 9th-10th century AD
From the River Thames at Battersea, London

ps306053_m.jpg
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http://www.seekyee.com/Bladesmithing/the process/tutorials/seaxtutorial1/seaxtutorial1.htm
Broken-back Seax
Wherein Ben Potter endevors to explain the processes he uses.
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http://owenbush.co.uk/seaxes/
Seax Gallery
On this page are some of the seax and seax blades that I have made.
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Ultimate Shivver. There is little new under the sun.

Neat stuff, especially Ben Potter.
 
Interesting that a people takes their name from a blade (Saxons).

I also found the resemblance of the later generation seax to the traditional Scottish dirk interesting. In this part of NC, the dirk is a cherished piece of culture - last wedding we attended, a dirk (carried by the groom) was used to cut the wedding cake :D.
 
Uh, the Franks, and the subsequent French don't derive their name from a knife. Seax = Seaxons = Saxons is the general flow there, I would assume.

sent from my Galaxy Note II.
 
Some believe that the name "Franks" and therefore France came from their use of the throwing ax: the francisca. Though not technically a knife, the name is derived from a blade.
 
Determining what came first, the Franks or the francisca shouldn't be too difficult.
 
The franks were known for the use of the francisca, but they were not alone in the usage of this weapon. Research indicates that the weapon was first referred to as a francisca by the Spanish, who called it that because the franks used it. So, the weapon appears to be named for the people, not the opposite as is the case of the seax. Also, the Spanish apparently didn't name the weapon until around 500 ad, and the franks rose about 200 years earlier. Additionally, and finally, research into the etymology of the word franks as a descriptor of a people indicates that it had nothing to do with the francisca, but instead was kind of a lump sum descriptor meaning western european, which of course all franks are.

As a side note, our friendly seaxons were also notable users of the francisca.

sent from my Galaxy Note II.
 
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