5000 year-old sword discovered in Venetian monastery

Republication from livescience.com

The sword was mistakenly thought to be medieval. It is now thought to come from eastern Anatolia and to be about 5000 years-old – one of the oldest swords ever found.

(Image: © Ca’ Foscari University of Venice/Andrea Avezzù)

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A keen-eyed archaeology student made the find of a lifetime when she spotted one of the oldest swords on record, mistakenly grouped with medieval artifacts in a secluded Italian museum.

The ancient sword was thought to be medieval in origin and maybe a few hundred years old at most — but studies have shown that it dates back about 5,000 years, to what is now eastern Turkey, where swords are thought to have been invented, in the early Bronze Age.

Four ways in which Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time

Republication from The Conversation

 

The prototype design of Da Vinci’s “tank”

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Leonardo da Vinci is generally recognised as one of the great figures of the Renaissance and one of the greatest ever polymaths. As the world marks the 500th anniversary of his death, it’s important to look at some of the ways in which he showed that – as well as being a painter, sculptor and engineer – he was a thinker who was way ahead of his time.

Engineering – Dr Hywel Jones

Leonardo da Vinci is renowned as much for his inventions as his works of art, studies of architecture and anatomical drawings. The documents that survive show us his ideas for a wide range of devices. They include some of the first concepts for gliders, helicopters, parachutes, diving suits, cranes, gearboxes and many types of weapons of war. Many of these may be seen in use today, having taken the best part of 400 years to become practical realities.

Fortification Plan of El Morro, citadel of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Plan of El Morro in 1742, being the citadel of San Juan, Spanish Puerto Rico (Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar, Madrid). As it can be seen on the map, El Morro was a small peninsula in a strategic location protecting the harbour of San Juan.

Porta Grecorum

Republication  from militaryarchitecture.com

 

Mdina, circa 1565, showing position of gateways and early Hospitaller bastions

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Mdina’s medieval gate.

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Perhaps the most visible and most evident vestige of the medieval defences of Mdina is Greeks Gate, or Porta Grecorum. Although this was not the main entrance into the city, but merely a porta falsa, or secondary gateway that went down directly into the land front ditch, it is nonetheless the only complete medieval entrance in all of the Maltese islands to have survived to the present day and, therefore, tells us much about the nature and workings of fortified medieval entrances.

The fortress of Valletta 1566

Republication  from militaryarchitecture.com

Valletta, named after its founder, Grand Master of the Order of St John, Jean Parisot de Valette, was built after the Great Siege of 1565 with the financial help of a Christendom grateful for the defeat of Suleiman’s war machine.