A multidisciplinary overview of current research into the enduringly fascinating martial artefact which is the sword. The sword is the most iconic of all weapons. Throughout history, it has connected various, sometimes conflicting, dimensions of human culture: physical combat and representation of political power, definition of gender roles and refinement of body techniques, evolution of craftsmanship and mythological symbolism. The articles collected here explore these dimensions, from a variety of disciplines, among them archaeology, medieval history, museum conservation, and linguistics. They cover topics from the production and combat use of Bronze Age swords via medieval fencing culture to the employment of the sword in modern military. They question traditional sword typologies and wide-spread theories about sword making, discuss medieval sword terminology and the use of swords as royal insignia, and describe the scientific methods for approaching original finds. Arising from an international conference held at Deutsches Klingenmuseum Solingen (the German Blade Museum), the volume provides fresh insights into the forms the sword can take, and the thoughts it inspires. LISA DEUTSCHER and MIRJAM E. KAISER work in prehistoric archaeology, specialising in La Tène and Bronze Age swords, respectively. SIXT WETZLER is the deputy director of the German Blade Museum; his research focuses on the history of edged weapons, and their use. Contributors:Matthias Johannes Bauer, Holger Becker, Jan-Heinrich Bunnefeld, Rachel J. Crellin, Vincenzo D'Ercole, Andrea Dolfini, Raphael Hermann, Daniel Jaquet, Robert W. Jones, Ulrich Lehmann, Claus Lipka, Stefan Maeder, Michael Mattner, Florian Messner, Nicole Mölk, Ingo Petri, Stefan Roth, Fabrizio Savi, Ulrike Töchterle, Iason-Eleftherios Tzouriadis, Marion Uckelmann, Henry Yallop

This open access book is the first publication to provide a comparative framework for the study of martial culture and historical martial arts in Europe and Asia, in particular in Italy and China. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of martial studies, contributors to this volume include historians, archeologists, art historians, scholars of fencing literature, metallurgists, as well as contemporary master swordsmiths and masters-of-arms in historical martial arts. Assembling researchers from these diverse fields, this book offers a multi-perspectival and dynamic view of martial culture across time and space. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary significance of this book cannot be overemphasized. Whereas a number of contributors are internationally recognized and, indeed, leading authorities in their respective fields; for example, Jeffrey Shaw has been a world-leading new media artist and scholar since the 1970s, while Ma Mingda is a well-known historian and the contemporary founder of Chinese martial studies; and while there are significant overlaps in their research interests, this book brings their research within a single volume for the first time. Equally significant, the book is structured in such a way to reflect the various core aspects of martial studies, particularly in relation to the study of historic sword culture, including history, culture, philosophy, literature and knowledge transmission, material culture, as well as the technical aspects of historical fencing. As one of the first titles on martial studies, this book becomes a reference not only for scholars taking an interest in this subject, but also for historians; scholars with interest in Chinese and/or Italian history (particularly of the Medieval or early modern periods), the history of international relations in Asia / Far East; anthropologists; scholars of martial (arts) studies and researchers in sword-making and/or historic metallurgy.