Comments by "Voryn Rosethorn" (@vorynrosethorn903) on "The SWORD OF GOUJIAN" video.

Ok, it's bronze, which is both why it lasted (bronze lasts fantastically well compared to steel and iron) and why it is far from the best sword ever made. Spring steel allows for swords to bend in the cut and good back to true, this means they won't be given to bending as much as bronze and traditional Japanese blades (which are good to be sure, but very very far from the best, with Europe, China and the Chinese state of Chu all having very advanced steel and sword making methods which led to very high quality spring tempered swords). The comment of sharpness is hyperbole, bronze swords have the edges hammered to harden them and the Chinese used other methods like composite bronze (so putting very hard but brittle edges separately onto a soft spine), this leads to excellent sharpness, in the range of the best steel swords. However sharpness is also about edge profile and because even hammered bronze is comparatively soft it has a relatively wide taper down to the edge (like an axe its more shaped like a wedge than a scalpel), this means that a scalpel is going to be sharper because of its innate design no matter how much you sharpen the bronze sword. It's unfortunate that these sorts of myths get perpetuated within academic circles so often, the romance of it might be nice but it is the job of the academic to distinguish accolades from exaggeration.
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@WorldofAntiquity Yeah, as said it's sharp, bronze swords tend to have very good sharpness. But any properly sharpened sword that isn't horribly designed can do that. There is a lot more that goes into a good sword. This one was clearly top end for the time but the Chinese would very shortly be making better. Go onto LK Chens website, he's a Chinese sword maker, there are photos there of some mad collector bending a 2000 year old antique Chinese sword to show that it was spring tempered steel. That is extremely advanced for the time and makes for excellent swords because it makes them durable. Bronze swords and Katanas both have marked limitations due to what they are made out of, bronze in one case and iron sand in the other. Bronze might well be better as it can be bent back while katanas are not fun to repair, but bronze is something reliant on an international trade network. The Chinese were making spring steel from about 300BC and the Europeans from the early middle ages. India also had a reputation for it. The Japanese had resource limitations that informed their craftsmanship, it was impressive from what they had but not really compared universally, though the Chinese would adopt designs and manufacturing from them and via versa. Bronze stopped being used for a reason, Iron was cheap and could be processed and manufactured into superior products.
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