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Digging for truth - History channel - David (Read 4393 times)
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Re: Digging for truth - History channel - David
Reply #30 - Jul 21st, 2007 at 5:32am
 
Here is a link to that old discussion:

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1108965814/10#10

Magnum slinger said it much better than I.
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lightfoot71
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Re: Digging for truth - History channel - David
Reply #31 - Jul 29th, 2007 at 4:22pm
 
I finally remembered how I happened to find this website.  I wasn't looking for information about slings, I was looking for information about swords.  Many years ago I visited Istanbul while in the U.S. navy.  I was with 3 friends from my ship and we met a couple of turkish sailors who had just come from a U.S. navy school in the states. Both spoke excellent english and they told us they lived in Istanbul, and would be glad to show us the high points of their home town.  We saw a good bit of it, but the only places that still linger in my mermory are the bazaar, the blue mosque, and an antique weapons museum.  I don't remember the name of the weapons museum.  It could have been the hagae sophia, but I don't know.

The museum contained mostly early guns, some very interesting, a few knives, and one sword.  That sword has remained in my memory all these years.  It was on a stand and was displayed in a vertical position.  The top of the hilt was taller than my head.  The end of the blade where it attached to the hilt was slightly above my eyes, I had to stand on tip toe to see the top of the blade.  It was about 9 or 10 inches wide at that point, and about 3/4" thick where it attached to the hilt.  The blade remained 9 or 10 inches wide until it came near  to the tip of the blade.  As I remember it began to taper to a point about a foot or a foot and a half above the tip of the blade.

I thought at first that the stand the sword was mounted on must have added a bit to it's height, (It was displayed behind a floor to ceiling glass window) but when I looked, the stand couldn't have been more than an inch thick at the floor.  I grew up on a farm and have had to carry and move tractor tow bars, parts of plows and so forth so I think I am fair at estimating the weight of steel parts.

I guessed that the sword would have weighed at least 100 pounds.  It was over 6' long over all, so it could only have been carried by placing it on your shoulder.  I wondered how it could have been used in battle.  It appeared to be a real weapon, and not a wall hanger.  The grip of the hilt showed signs of wear, and the blade was certainly not anything fancy.

Well at any rate I found it really interesting at the time, but didn't think any more about it for a long time.  I was reading the bible one day and it said David was going to a battle somewhere and he stopped at a synagog and got Goliaths sword, which he had taken in battle.  It had been kept in this church, perhaps a religous artifact even at that time.  About that time it dawned on me that Istanbul had been the center of christianity at one time.

That weapon would have been all but impossible for an average guy to use in battle.  If you were nearly 10 feet tall how big would your sword be?  I don't know.  When I get bored I look at museum websites trying to find more information on that weapon.  I wish I had been a bit more inquisitive at the time.  If there was a description of that weapon it wasn't in english.

I am glad that I did find slinging.org, and have enjoyed all of the information you have here very much. I have been very impressed with Honderos research on the cestros.
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Re: Digging for truth - History channel - David
Reply #32 - Jul 29th, 2007 at 9:37pm
 
It was probably the executioners sword, used for beheading wrongdoers. Shocked
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Re: Digging for truth - History channel - David
Reply #33 - Jul 29th, 2007 at 10:35pm
 
I don't know.  I didn't think too much about it at the time.  Some of the old guns were very heavy looking and I guess I just lumped that sword into the same catagory.  They had a single shot muzzle loading rifle that looked to be around 50 caliber. It had an octagon barrel 6 or 8" in diameter, and was fired from a tripod.  It probably took a wagon to carry that thing around.  It was an interesting collection.  I just wish I knew where it was.  We went there with the two Turkish guys and they didn't seem to know much about that place.
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