Page 1 of 1
The Sword as Icon and Artifact - Denver/Boulder
Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 2:41 pm
by jester
http://www.littletongov.org/museum/even ... asp?ID=153
And on December 10, 2009, Prof. Forgeng will be lecturing. Apparently you can only buy the tickets at the museum and they've got about 60% of the available seats left.
Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:08 am
by jester
I forgot to say that I'm planning on attending.
I'm hoping to get the chance to get him to sign my copy of Medieval Swordmanship and ask him a question about his choice of translation on one Latin term.
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:38 am
by jester
It was a good lecture and I enjoyed it. It was fascinating to see many of these swords up close and be able to make out the details on some of them. Things that stuck with me:
-Incredibly small handles. I don't think I could have held some of those swords because my hands are too big. And I don't have particularly large hands.
-The way sword design goes from a thick spine to a thin spine as materials technology moves from bronze to iron/steel.
-The lightness of the swords. Again, the vast majority of the swords on display are just incredibly light. I'll have to take Prof. Forgeng's word that the weight distributions make them handle better than 90% of the available recreations of comparable weights.
-The universal appeal of the sword. The scadians and WMA enthusiasts I saw made up about 1/5th of the audience. The remainder were just folks who love the sword and varied in age from retirees to teenagers.
The museum will be hosting a demonstration of Medieval and Renaissance hand to hand combat on January 16th at 1pm. The Rocky Mountain Historical Swordplay Guild will be presenting the material.