The story of the Bamburgh Sword - one of the finest swords ever
forged.
In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An
unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left in a suitcase
for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to
tell than appeared, so he sent it for specialist tests. When the results
came back, he realised that what he had in his possession was possibly
the finest, and certainly the most complex, sword ever made, which had
been forged in seventh-century Northumberland by an anonymous
swordsmith.
This is the story of the Bamburgh Sword - of how and why it was made,
who made it and what it meant to the warriors and kings who wielded it
over three centuries. It is also the remarkable story of the
archaeologists and swordsmiths who found, studied and attempted to
recreate the weapon using only the materials and technologies available
to the original smith.