About

Home > About

Violence and leathal tools are as old as mankind. The warrior and his weapons, though, crystalized with the Age of Bronze. In light of the last decades of archaeological research, it is now possible to tell an entirely new tale of the early warrior. It seems now that the swordsman was born at the end of the 4th millennium B.C. within the relations between the Maikop culture of Northern Caucasus and the fringes of the Mesopotamian civilization in Anatolia. The redating of the Maikop culture with its lavishly equipped tombs underneath enormous kurgans (earthen mounds), moving it into the 4th millennium alongside the Uruk culture of Mesopotamia, has in many ways brought old truths into question. One of these tombs also contained the earliest known long sword...

Ørjan Engedal is a Norwegian archaeologist and artisan. He has a phd. in Bronze Age archaeology and has written several papers on Bronze Age casting methods, world views, typology, long-distance contacts and more. He has worked mainly for customers in Scandinavia making replicas and reconstructions in bronze, textile, leather and wood, as well as giving demonstrations of prehistoric metal casting. Complete costumes from the Stone Age to the Viking Age in Scandinavia can be seen here: ARKEOREPLIKA

This site has been made for museums and private collectors abroad, focusing on Bronze Age weaponry from the larger Bronze Age world.The aim is to sell not only a weapon - but a piece of warrior-history. Thus the items in the collectable series has been chosen not merely for their aestetics, but because of their importance in the great puzzle of Bronze Age history.

Several methods of casting are used: cire perdue (lost wax), stone moulds (soap stone) and sand moulds. Alloys are kept close to the originals, usually copper alloyed with tin. The original blades and spearheads of the Bronze Age are often very light, with thin blades and thin-walled sockets. All weapons are annealed and have edges hardened through cold forging - like the originals.
	Click image to watch a YouTube video of bronze casting the Bronze Age way