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The post https://www.patreon.com/posts/ergonomics-of-113167023 https://www.patreon.com/posts/ergonomics-of-113167023 referenced by The Article mentions this >T

The post https://www.patreon.com/posts/ergonomics-of-113167023 https://www.patreon.com/posts/ergonomics-of-113167023 referenced by The Article mentions this >The Mystery of the Short Grips > Many modern observers are puzzled by the small size of Bronze Age sword grips, to the extent that some researchers doubt their functionality in combat altogether. > The first question that often arises is whether Bronze Age warriors had smaller hands due to shorter body height. > While it is true that average body height was somewhat shorter, the difference is negligible. > The remains of victims found in the Tollense Valley show an average height of around 1.70 m. > This suggests that their hand bones might have been slightly smaller than those of modern men, but as prehistoric people engaged in various crafts and manual labour, their hands would have been far more muscular than those of most people living in Western civilisations today.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
> While it is true that average body height was somewhat shorter, the difference is negligible. > The remains of victims found in the Tollense Valley show an average height of around 1.70 m. The Tollense valley is in Germany, not Greece. In Greece, the average male height was (and still is!) a good deal shorter -- 162cm in the Bronze Age. This puts the Ancient Greek mean height in the modern 2nd percentile, which has hugely significant implications for hand breadth. I've checked against a US Army database, which you can see here: https://ibb.co/LRhMbVW https://ibb.co/LRhMbVW Now imagine some of these swords were made for shorter-than-average men. A 3" grip would fit perfectly. It would not, however, fit in an average modern hand -- which could lead to very complex rationalizations as to how that short-gripped sword might have been used. Such rationalizations are ultimately misleading and unnecessary. For there's also a great deal of Bronze Age art that shows swords gripped quite normally. And this directly contravenes that Patreon post. See: https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/vase-painti.jpg https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads... https://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/24766g.jpg https://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/24766g.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4304/35874906211_62611c697c.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4304/35874906211_62611c697c.jp... https://thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/22103e.jpg https://thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/22103e.jpg Edited to add: I've checked this further. It's true that there are bronze swords from Germany and elsewhere that have been uncovered, of similar size and shape to bronze swords from the Hellenic world. Yet the average skeleton at Tollense appears to be 1.66m rather than 1.7m. > Based on measurements on the most commonly represented skeletal element in the Tollense Valley material, the left femur, individuals at Weltzin 20 were on average 1.66 m tall (ranging from 1.60 m to 1.73 m; calculation after Pearson 1899), a value comparable to results obtained for other Bronze Age sites (Siegmund 2010). (From "Warriorsʼ lives: the skeletal sample from the Bronze Age battlefield site in the Tollense Valley, north-eastern Germany" by Lidke et al.) Ultimately, I don't think that this changes anything. There's no evidence to support any need for complex rationalizations; smaller men used smaller weapons with shorter grips.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago

> While it is true that average body height was somewhat shorter, the difference is negligible. > The remains of victims found in the Tollense Valley show an average height of around 1.70 m. The Tollense valley is in Germany, not Greece. In Greece, the average male height was (and still is!) a good deal shorter -- 162cm in the Bronze Age. This puts the Ancient Greek mean height in the modern 2nd percentile, which has hugely significant implications for hand breadth. I've checked against a US Army database, which you can see here: https://ibb.co/LRhMbVW https://ibb.co/LRhMbVW Now imagine some of these swords were made for shorter-than-average men. A 3" grip would fit perfectly. It would not, however, fit in an average modern hand -- which could lead to very complex rationalizations as to how that short-gripped sword might have been used. Such rationalizations are ultimately misleading and unnecessary. For there's also a great deal of Bronze Age art that shows swords gripped quite normally. And this directly contravenes that Patreon post. See: https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/vase-painti.jpg https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads... https://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/24766g.jpg https://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/24766g.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4304/35874906211_62611c697c.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4304/35874906211_62611c697c.jp... https://thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/22103e.jpg https://thelanesarmoury.co.uk/photos/22103e.jpg Edited to add: I've checked this further. It's true that there are bronze swords from Germany and elsewhere that have been uncovered, of similar size and shape to bronze swords from the Hellenic world. Yet the average skeleton at Tollense appears to be 1.66m rather than 1.7m. > Based on measurements on the most commonly represented skeletal element in the Tollense Valley material, the left femur, individuals at Weltzin 20 were on average 1.66 m tall (ranging from 1.60 m to 1.73 m; calculation after Pearson 1899), a value comparable to results obtained for other Bronze Age sites (Siegmund 2010). (From "Warriorsʼ lives: the skeletal sample from the Bronze Age battlefield site in the Tollense Valley, north-eastern Germany" by Lidke et al.) Ultimately, I don't think that this changes anything. There's no evidence to support any need for complex rationalizations; smaller men used smaller weapons with shorter grips.